ProleWiki - User contributions [en]

Topic:Xrkjvq2dlgop4bvn

2023-10-14T19:19:53Z

TDM (talk | contribs) commented on "Concerns about your political positions among editors" (I was expecting to catch slack for this sooner or later from here. If it's best to take away my editorship, then so be it, I won't compla...)

Topic:Xrkjvq2dlgop4bvn

2023-10-14T19:17:39Z

TDM (talk | contribs) commented on "Concerns about your political positions among editors" (You can ban me from editing if you want, I don't really care but I wasn't planning on breaking site rules anyway. I apologize.)

Eugene V. Debs

2023-10-14T11:38:18Z

TDM:

{{Infobox politician|image_size=200|birth_date=November 5, 1855|birth_place=Terre Haute, [[Indiana]], [[United States of America|United States]]|death_date=October 20, 1926|death_place=Elmhurst, [[Illinois]], United States|political_orientation=[[Marxism]]<br>[[Democratic socialism]]|political_party=[[Socialist Party of America]]|image=Eugene V. Debs.png}}

'''Eugene Victor''' "'''Gene'''" '''Debs''' (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was a [[United States of America|Statesian]] [[Socialism|socialist]], [[political activist]], [[Trade union|trade unionist]], one of the founding members of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] (IWW), and five times the candidate of the [[Socialist Party of America]] for President of the United States. Through his presidential candidacies as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.

Early in his political career, Debs was a member of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. After working with several smaller unions, including the [[Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen]], Debs led his union in [[Burlington railway strike of 1888|a major ten-month strike against the CB&Q Railroad in 1888]]. Debs was instrumental in the founding of the [[American Railway Union]] (ARU), one of the nation's first [[Industrial union|industrial unions]]. After workers at the [[Pullman Palace Car Company]] organized a [[Wildcat strike action|wildcat strike]] over pay cuts in the summer of 1894, Debs signed many into the ARU. He led a [[boycott]] by the ARU against handling trains with Pullman cars in what became the nationwide [[Pullman Strike]], affecting most lines west of Detroit and more than 250,000 workers in 27 states. Purportedly to keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison.

In prison, Debs read various works of socialist theory and emerged six months later as a committed adherent of the [[Marxism|international socialist]] movement. Debs was a founding member of the [[Social Democracy of America]] (1897), the [[Social Democratic Party of America]] (1898) and the Socialist Party of America (1901). Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for [[President of the United States]] five times, including 1900 (earning 0.6 percent of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0 percent), 1908 (2.8 percent), 1912 (6.0 percent), and 1920 (3.4 percent), the last time from a prison cell.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Deirdre Grisworld|newspaper=[[Workers World]]|title=The anti-war presidential candidate|date=2020-02-24|url=https://www.workers.org/2020/02/46531/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221203052940/https://www.workers.org/2020/02/46531/|archive-date=2022-12-03|retrieved=2023-01-14}}</ref> He was also a candidate for United States Congress from his native state Indiana in 1916.

Debs was noted for his oratorical skills, and his speech denouncing American participation in [[World War I]] led to his second arrest in 1918. He was convicted under the [[Sedition Act of 1918]] and sentenced to a ten-year term. President [[Warren G. Harding]] commuted his sentence in December 1921. Debs died in 1926, not long after being admitted to a sanatorium due to cardiovascular problems that developed during his time in prison.

== Library works ==
The following are works by Eugene V. Debs in ProleWiki's own Library.
<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Library works by Eugene V. Debs</categorytree>

== References ==
[[Category:Statesian communists]]
[[Category:Communist political candidates]]

Enver Hoxha

2023-10-14T07:41:52Z

TDM: /* Leadership of Albania (1944—1985) */ Added another photo

{{Infobox revolutionary|name=Enver Halil Hoxha|image=Enver Hoxha picture.jpg|image_size=225px|caption=Portrait of comrade Hoxha|birth_date=16 October 1908|birth_place=Gjirokastër, Janina Vilayet, [[Ottoman Empire]]|death_date=11 April 1985 (aged 76)|death_place=Tirana, [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|Albania]]|death_cause=Ventricular fibrillation|nationality=Albanian|political_line=[[Marxism–Leninism]] <small>(developed what is now known as [[Hoxhaism]])}}

'''Enver Halil Hoxha''' (16 October 1908 — 11 April 1985) was an [[Republic of Albania|Albanian]] [[Anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] revolutionary, theorist and statesman. He was First Secretary of the [[Party of Labour of Albania]] from 1941 until his death in 1985. He was also a member of the Politburo of the Party of Labour of Albania, chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces and ruled the country from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was the 22nd Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times was both foreign minister and defence minister of the [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania]].

Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër in 1908 and became a grammar school teacher in 1936. Following the [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Italian]] invasion of Albania, he joined the Party of Labour of Albania at its creation in 1941 in the [[Soviet Union]]. He was elected First Secretary in March 1943 at the age of 34. Less than two years after the liberation of the country, the monarchy of King Zog was formally abolished, and Hoxha rose to power as Albania's symbolic head of state.<ref>{{News citation|newspaper=The EspressoStalinist|title=Enver Hoxha Page|url=https://espressostalinist.com/marxism-leninism/enver-hoxha-page/|retrieved=2022-7-24}}</ref>

During his 41-year rule, he rebuilt the country, which was left in ruins after World War II, building Albania's first railway line, raising the adult literacy rate from 5% to more than 90%, wiping out epidemics, electrifying the country, abolishing taxation,<ref>{{News citation|author=Bjoern Andersen|title=The Albanian Constitution of 1976|date=2005|url=http://bjoerna.dk/dokumentation/Albanian-Constitution-1976.htm#B.%20Economic%20Order|retrieved=2022-7-24|quote=Article 31

The citizens pay no levies or taxes whatsoever.}}</ref> and leading Albania towards agricultural independence.

Hoxha's government was characterised by his proclaimed firm adherence to anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism, known as [[Hoxhaism]] or [[Stalinism-Hoxhaism|Stalinism–Hoxhaism]], from the mid/late-1970s onwards. After his break with the [[People's Republic of China]] in the 1976–1978 period, numerous communist parties, particularly in areas such as [[Latin America]], began to adopt Hoxhaism. The [[International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle)|International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organisations (Unity & Struggle)]] is the best-known association of these parties.<ref name=":0">{{News citation|author=Wolfgang Eggers|newspaper=Comintern (SH)|title=Enver Hoxha|date=2019-4-11|url=http://ciml.250x.com/archive/hoxha/onhoxha/english/enver_hoxha_hoxhaism_16_10_2013.html|retrieved=2022-7-24}}</ref>

== Early life==
Hoxha was born on 16 October 1908, in Gjirokastër, located in Southern Albania. From an early age, Hoxha would participate in progressive movements, becoming secretary of a student association at the age of 16, where he promoted sentiments of [[democracy]] and national independence, as well as resistance particularly to the [[Fascist|semi-fascist]] [[Kingdom of Albania|Monarchy]] under [[Zog I]] which was ruling Albania at the time. In the late 1920s, Hoxha would begin to be enthused by the [[French Revolution]] of the 18th century, and later, the [[October Revolution|October Socialist Revolution]] in [[Russian Empire (1721–1917)|Russia]].

An astute student, Hoxha would spend the early 1930s to pursue studies in [[France]], during which, he would become active in [[Marxism–Leninism|communist]] organization and would familiarize himself with the writings of [[Karl Marx]] and other [[Marxist]] theorists, reading Marx's ''[[Das Kapital]]'' and [[Engels|Engel's]] ''[[Anti-Dühring]]''.
[[File:HoxhaTirana1944.jpg|thumb|Hoxha and communist partisans entering Tirana following the Liberation of Tirana on 28 November 1944]]
Hoxha would return to Albania in 1936, becoming a school teacher involved in the education of French and morals in the city of Korça. His career in education would end as a result of, in 1939, his refusal to join the [[Albanian Fascist Party]] and, by extention, collaborate with the [[Fascist Italy|fascist Italian]] occupiers, who had recently invaded Albania. Forced into illegality, Hoxha would involve himself in the communist movement in Albania, with him being, at the founding conference of the Communist Party of Albania,<ref group="note">Which, in 1948, would be renamed to the [[Party of Labour of Albania|Party of Labor of Albania]].</ref> elected to hold membership in the party's central committee.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[Proletarian (newspaper)|Proletarian]]|title=Celebrating the 100th birthday of Enver Hoxha|date=2008|archive-url=https://archive.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=465|retrieved=2022-10-9}}</ref><ref name=":0" />

== Leadership of Albania (1944—1985) ==
[[File:10871 420404921380398 990693096 n.jpg|thumb|[[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and Hoxha in the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]] in 1947]]
After defeating the fascist Italian invaders, Hoxha and the communist partisans took power on 28 November 1944. King Zog I was officially deposed in 1946. In 1949, the Statesian CIA and British MI6 sought the help of disgruntled Albanians and Italians to overthrow the communist government in Albania in a secret operation known as ''Operation Valuable.''

The Soviet embassy in Tirana was bombed on 19 February 1951. After [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|secret speech]]" in 1956 denouncing [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and his subsequent "[[de-Stalinization]]" campaign, Hoxha called out Khrushchev as a [[Revisionism|revisionist]]. From this point on, Hoxha would take a firmer anti-revisionist stance. In 1961, he sided with [[People's Republic of China|China]] in the [[Sino-Soviet split]], and as a result, Albania was excluded from the [[Warsaw Pact]].
[[File:E13-551.jpg|thumb|Chinese propaganda poster from 1969 depicting Hoxha and [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] shaking hands]]
In 1967, Hoxha (inspired by the [[Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution|events in China]]) launched the [[Cultural and Ideological Revolution]]. In 1969, direct taxation was abolished and by 1970, the entire country had been electrified. Relations with China began to sour in 1971 after Statesian president [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Henry Kissinger]] visited China after the country decided to normalize relations with the outside world. However, Hoxha criticized this. As a result, China withdrew any further aid to Albania, leaving it isolated in the world. Hoxha began to criticize [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] and [[Deng Xiaoping|Deng]] as revisionists and by 1978, all further relations between the two countries ceased.

In 1973, Hoxha suffered a heart attack. He never fully recovered. His health continued to deteriotrate throughout the 1970s, and by the 1980s, he was confined to a wheelchair. He secretly semi-retired in 1983, leaving most state functions in the hands of [[Ramiz Alia]]. Hoxha died on 11 April 1985, at the age of 76. He was buried on 15 April after a memorial service on Skandenbeg Square.

==Library works==
The following are works by Enver Hoxha in ProleWiki's own Library.
<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Library works by Enver Hoxha</categorytree>

==Notes==
<references group="note" />
==References==
<references />
[[Category:Revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Former heads of state]]
[[Category:Hoxhaism]]
[[Category:Communist leaders]]

File:10871 420404921380398 990693096 n.jpg

2023-10-14T07:40:03Z

TDM: Stalin and Hoxha in the Soviet Union in 1947.

== Summary ==
[[Stalin]] and [[Hoxha]] in the [[Soviet Union]] in 1947.

Enver Hoxha

2023-10-14T07:32:34Z

TDM: /* Leadership of Albania (1944—1985) */

{{Infobox revolutionary|name=Enver Halil Hoxha|image=Enver Hoxha picture.jpg|image_size=225px|caption=Portrait of comrade Hoxha|birth_date=16 October 1908|birth_place=Gjirokastër, Janina Vilayet, [[Ottoman Empire]]|death_date=11 April 1985 (aged 76)|death_place=Tirana, [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|Albania]]|death_cause=Ventricular fibrillation|nationality=Albanian|political_line=[[Marxism–Leninism]] <small>(developed what is now known as [[Hoxhaism]])}}

'''Enver Halil Hoxha''' (16 October 1908 — 11 April 1985) was an [[Republic of Albania|Albanian]] [[Anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] revolutionary, theorist and statesman. He was First Secretary of the [[Party of Labour of Albania]] from 1941 until his death in 1985. He was also a member of the Politburo of the Party of Labour of Albania, chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces and ruled the country from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was the 22nd Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times was both foreign minister and defence minister of the [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania]].

Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër in 1908 and became a grammar school teacher in 1936. Following the [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Italian]] invasion of Albania, he joined the Party of Labour of Albania at its creation in 1941 in the [[Soviet Union]]. He was elected First Secretary in March 1943 at the age of 34. Less than two years after the liberation of the country, the monarchy of King Zog was formally abolished, and Hoxha rose to power as Albania's symbolic head of state.<ref>{{News citation|newspaper=The EspressoStalinist|title=Enver Hoxha Page|url=https://espressostalinist.com/marxism-leninism/enver-hoxha-page/|retrieved=2022-7-24}}</ref>

During his 41-year rule, he rebuilt the country, which was left in ruins after World War II, building Albania's first railway line, raising the adult literacy rate from 5% to more than 90%, wiping out epidemics, electrifying the country, abolishing taxation,<ref>{{News citation|author=Bjoern Andersen|title=The Albanian Constitution of 1976|date=2005|url=http://bjoerna.dk/dokumentation/Albanian-Constitution-1976.htm#B.%20Economic%20Order|retrieved=2022-7-24|quote=Article 31

The citizens pay no levies or taxes whatsoever.}}</ref> and leading Albania towards agricultural independence.

Hoxha's government was characterised by his proclaimed firm adherence to anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism, known as [[Hoxhaism]] or [[Stalinism-Hoxhaism|Stalinism–Hoxhaism]], from the mid/late-1970s onwards. After his break with the [[People's Republic of China]] in the 1976–1978 period, numerous communist parties, particularly in areas such as [[Latin America]], began to adopt Hoxhaism. The [[International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle)|International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organisations (Unity & Struggle)]] is the best-known association of these parties.<ref name=":0">{{News citation|author=Wolfgang Eggers|newspaper=Comintern (SH)|title=Enver Hoxha|date=2019-4-11|url=http://ciml.250x.com/archive/hoxha/onhoxha/english/enver_hoxha_hoxhaism_16_10_2013.html|retrieved=2022-7-24}}</ref>

== Early life==
Hoxha was born on 16 October 1908, in Gjirokastër, located in Southern Albania. From an early age, Hoxha would participate in progressive movements, becoming secretary of a student association at the age of 16, where he promoted sentiments of [[democracy]] and national independence, as well as resistance particularly to the [[Fascist|semi-fascist]] [[Kingdom of Albania|Monarchy]] under [[Zog I]] which was ruling Albania at the time. In the late 1920s, Hoxha would begin to be enthused by the [[French Revolution]] of the 18th century, and later, the [[October Revolution|October Socialist Revolution]] in [[Russian Empire (1721–1917)|Russia]].

An astute student, Hoxha would spend the early 1930s to pursue studies in [[France]], during which, he would become active in [[Marxism–Leninism|communist]] organization and would familiarize himself with the writings of [[Karl Marx]] and other [[Marxist]] theorists, reading Marx's ''[[Das Kapital]]'' and [[Engels|Engel's]] ''[[Anti-Dühring]]''.
[[File:HoxhaTirana1944.jpg|thumb|Hoxha and communist partisans entering Tirana following the Liberation of Tirana on 28 November 1944]]
Hoxha would return to Albania in 1936, becoming a school teacher involved in the education of French and morals in the city of Korça. His career in education would end as a result of, in 1939, his refusal to join the [[Albanian Fascist Party]] and, by extention, collaborate with the [[Fascist Italy|fascist Italian]] occupiers, who had recently invaded Albania. Forced into illegality, Hoxha would involve himself in the communist movement in Albania, with him being, at the founding conference of the Communist Party of Albania,<ref group="note">Which, in 1948, would be renamed to the [[Party of Labour of Albania|Party of Labor of Albania]].</ref> elected to hold membership in the party's central committee.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[Proletarian (newspaper)|Proletarian]]|title=Celebrating the 100th birthday of Enver Hoxha|date=2008|archive-url=https://archive.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=465|retrieved=2022-10-9}}</ref><ref name=":0" />

== Leadership of Albania (1944—1985) ==
After defeating the fascist Italian invaders, Hoxha and the communist partisans took power on 28 November 1944. King Zog I was officially deposed in 1946. In 1949, the Statesian CIA and British MI6 sought the help of disgruntled Albanians and Italians to overthrow the communist government in Albania in a secret operation known as ''Operation Valuable.''

The Soviet embassy in Tirana was bombed on 19 February 1951. After [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|secret speech]]" in 1956 denouncing [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and his subsequent "[[de-Stalinization]]" campaign, Hoxha called out Khrushchev as a [[Revisionism|revisionist]]. From this point on, Hoxha would take a firmer anti-revisionist stance. In 1961, he sided with [[People's Republic of China|China]] in the [[Sino-Soviet split]], and as a result, Albania was excluded from the [[Warsaw Pact]].
[[File:E13-551.jpg|thumb|Chinese propaganda poster from 1969 depicting Hoxha and [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] shaking hands]]
In 1967, Hoxha (inspired by the [[Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution|events in China]]) launched the [[Cultural and Ideological Revolution]]. In 1969, direct taxation was abolished and by 1970, the entire country had been electrified. Relations with China began to sour in 1971 after Statesian president [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Henry Kissinger]] visited China after the country decided to normalize relations with the outside world. However, Hoxha criticized this. As a result, China withdrew any further aid to Albania, leaving it isolated in the world. Hoxha began to criticize [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] and [[Deng Xiaoping|Deng]] as revisionists and by 1978, all further relations between the two countries ceased.

In 1973, Hoxha suffered a heart attack. He never fully recovered. His health continued to deteriotrate throughout the 1970s, and by the 1980s, he was confined to a wheelchair. He secretly semi-retired in 1983, leaving most state functions in the hands of [[Ramiz Alia]]. Hoxha died on 11 April 1985, at the age of 76. He was buried on 15 April after a memorial service on Skandenbeg Square.

==Library works==
The following are works by Enver Hoxha in ProleWiki's own Library.
<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Library works by Enver Hoxha</categorytree>

==Notes==
<references group="note" />
==References==
<references />
[[Category:Revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Former heads of state]]
[[Category:Hoxhaism]]
[[Category:Communist leaders]]

Enver Hoxha

2023-10-14T07:31:23Z

TDM: Added some general info on events that happened under Hoxha's rule. I plan on extending this article even further

{{Infobox revolutionary|name=Enver Halil Hoxha|image=Enver Hoxha picture.jpg|image_size=225px|caption=Portrait of comrade Hoxha|birth_date=16 October 1908|birth_place=Gjirokastër, Janina Vilayet, [[Ottoman Empire]]|death_date=11 April 1985 (aged 76)|death_place=Tirana, [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania|Albania]]|death_cause=Ventricular fibrillation|nationality=Albanian|political_line=[[Marxism–Leninism]] <small>(developed what is now known as [[Hoxhaism]])}}

'''Enver Halil Hoxha''' (16 October 1908 — 11 April 1985) was an [[Republic of Albania|Albanian]] [[Anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] revolutionary, theorist and statesman. He was First Secretary of the [[Party of Labour of Albania]] from 1941 until his death in 1985. He was also a member of the Politburo of the Party of Labour of Albania, chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces and ruled the country from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was the 22nd Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times was both foreign minister and defence minister of the [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania]].

Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër in 1908 and became a grammar school teacher in 1936. Following the [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Italian]] invasion of Albania, he joined the Party of Labour of Albania at its creation in 1941 in the [[Soviet Union]]. He was elected First Secretary in March 1943 at the age of 34. Less than two years after the liberation of the country, the monarchy of King Zog was formally abolished, and Hoxha rose to power as Albania's symbolic head of state.<ref>{{News citation|newspaper=The EspressoStalinist|title=Enver Hoxha Page|url=https://espressostalinist.com/marxism-leninism/enver-hoxha-page/|retrieved=2022-7-24}}</ref>

During his 41-year rule, he rebuilt the country, which was left in ruins after World War II, building Albania's first railway line, raising the adult literacy rate from 5% to more than 90%, wiping out epidemics, electrifying the country, abolishing taxation,<ref>{{News citation|author=Bjoern Andersen|title=The Albanian Constitution of 1976|date=2005|url=http://bjoerna.dk/dokumentation/Albanian-Constitution-1976.htm#B.%20Economic%20Order|retrieved=2022-7-24|quote=Article 31

The citizens pay no levies or taxes whatsoever.}}</ref> and leading Albania towards agricultural independence.

Hoxha's government was characterised by his proclaimed firm adherence to anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism, known as [[Hoxhaism]] or [[Stalinism-Hoxhaism|Stalinism–Hoxhaism]], from the mid/late-1970s onwards. After his break with the [[People's Republic of China]] in the 1976–1978 period, numerous communist parties, particularly in areas such as [[Latin America]], began to adopt Hoxhaism. The [[International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle)|International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organisations (Unity & Struggle)]] is the best-known association of these parties.<ref name=":0">{{News citation|author=Wolfgang Eggers|newspaper=Comintern (SH)|title=Enver Hoxha|date=2019-4-11|url=http://ciml.250x.com/archive/hoxha/onhoxha/english/enver_hoxha_hoxhaism_16_10_2013.html|retrieved=2022-7-24}}</ref>

== Early life==
Hoxha was born on 16 October 1908, in Gjirokastër, located in Southern Albania. From an early age, Hoxha would participate in progressive movements, becoming secretary of a student association at the age of 16, where he promoted sentiments of [[democracy]] and national independence, as well as resistance particularly to the [[Fascist|semi-fascist]] [[Kingdom of Albania|Monarchy]] under [[Zog I]] which was ruling Albania at the time. In the late 1920s, Hoxha would begin to be enthused by the [[French Revolution]] of the 18th century, and later, the [[October Revolution|October Socialist Revolution]] in [[Russian Empire (1721–1917)|Russia]].

An astute student, Hoxha would spend the early 1930s to pursue studies in [[France]], during which, he would become active in [[Marxism–Leninism|communist]] organization and would familiarize himself with the writings of [[Karl Marx]] and other [[Marxist]] theorists, reading Marx's ''[[Das Kapital]]'' and [[Engels|Engel's]] ''[[Anti-Dühring]]''.
[[File:HoxhaTirana1944.jpg|thumb|Hoxha and communist partisans entering Tirana following the Liberation of Tirana on 28 November 1944]]
Hoxha would return to Albania in 1936, becoming a school teacher involved in the education of French and morals in the city of Korça. His career in education would end as a result of, in 1939, his refusal to join the [[Albanian Fascist Party]] and, by extention, collaborate with the [[Fascist Italy|fascist Italian]] occupiers, who had recently invaded Albania. Forced into illegality, Hoxha would involve himself in the communist movement in Albania, with him being, at the founding conference of the Communist Party of Albania,<ref group="note">Which, in 1948, would be renamed to the [[Party of Labour of Albania|Party of Labor of Albania]].</ref> elected to hold membership in the party's central committee.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[Proletarian (newspaper)|Proletarian]]|title=Celebrating the 100th birthday of Enver Hoxha|date=2008|archive-url=https://archive.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=465|retrieved=2022-10-9}}</ref><ref name=":0" />

== Leadership of Albania (1944—1985) ==
After defeating the fascist Italian invaders, Hoxha and the communist partisans took power on 28 November 1944. King Zog I was officially deposed in 1946. In 1949, the Statesian CIA and British MI6 sought the help of disgruntled Albanians and Italians to overthrow the communist government in Albania in a secret operation known as ''Operation Valuable.''

The Soviet embassy in Tirana was bombed on 19 February 1951. After [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s "[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|secret speech]]" in 1956 denouncing [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and his subsequent "[[de-Stalinization]]" campaign, Hoxha called out Khrushchev as a [[Revisionism|revisionist]]. From this point on, Hoxha would take a firmer anti-revisionist stance. In 1961, he sided with [[People's Republic of China|China]] in the [[Sino-Soviet split]], and as a result, Albania was excluded from the [[Warsaw Pact]].
[[File:E13-551.jpg|thumb|Chinese propaganda poster from 1969 depicting Hoxha and Mao shaking hands]]
In 1967, Hoxha (inspired by the [[Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution|events in China]]) launched the [[Cultural and Ideological Revolution]]. In 1969, direct taxation was abolished and by 1970, the entire country had been electrified. Relations with China began to sour in 1971 after Statesian president [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Henry Kissinger]] visited China after the country decided to normalize relations with the outside world. However, Hoxha criticized this. As a result, China withdrew any further aid to Albania, leaving it isolated in the world. Hoxha began to criticize [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] and [[Deng Xiaoping|Deng]] as revisionists and by 1978, all further relations between the two countries ceased.

In 1973, Hoxha suffered a heart attack. He never fully recovered. His health continued to deteriotrate throughout the 1970s, and by the 1980s, he was confined to a wheelchair. He secretly semi-retired in 1983, leaving most state functions in the hands of Ramiz Alia. Hoxha died on 11 April 1985, at the age of 76. He was buried on 15 April after a memorial service on Skandenbeg Square.

==Library works==
The following are works by Enver Hoxha in ProleWiki's own Library.
<categorytree mode="pages" depth="5">Library works by Enver Hoxha</categorytree>

==Notes==
<references group="note" />
==References==
<references />
[[Category:Revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Former heads of state]]
[[Category:Hoxhaism]]
[[Category:Communist leaders]]

File:E13-551.jpg

2023-10-14T07:29:48Z

TDM: Mao Zedong and Enver Hoxha shaking hands on a Chinese propaganda poster from 1969.

== Summary ==
[[Mao Zedong]] and [[Enver Hoxha]] shaking hands on a [[Chinese]] propaganda poster from 1969.

All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

2023-10-13T09:20:53Z

TDM: Minor edits and tweaks

{{Infobox political party|name=All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks|native_name=Всесоюзная Коммунистическая партия большевиков|logo=[[File:Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.png|100px]]||founded=1991|abbreviation=VKPB|dissolution=|newspaper=''Serp i Molot'' (''Sickle and Hammer'')<br>''Raboche-krest'yanskaya pravda'' (''Workers' and Peasants' Truth'')<br>''Vpered'' (''Forward'')|political_orientation=[[Communism]]<br>[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Anti-revisionism]]<br>[[Soviet restorationism]]}}

The '''All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks''' '''(VKPB)''' is an [[anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[communist party]] that operates in [[Russia]] and throughout the former [[Soviet Union]]. It was founded in November 1991 by [[Nina Andreyeva]]. The party opposes the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]], considering it [[reformist]], and refuses to back its candidates in presidential elections. The party is strictly atheistic, being outspoken against religion and is a critic of [[Vladimir Putin]]'s regime.<ref>https://www.vkpb.ru/index.php/programma-vkpb/the-programme#P7</ref> The party is critical of [[Khrushchevism]] and other forms of [[revisionism]] and aims for the [[Soviet restorationism|restoration of the Soviet Union]]. The party had 22,000 members as of 2013.

==Platform==
* Overthrow of the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] and establishment of a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] in the form of [[soviet (governmental body)|soviets]].
* Abolishment of religion.
* Liquidation of [[private property]].
* [[Nationalization]] of industry.
* Nationalization of all mass-media.
* [[Collectivization]] of agriculture.
* Free housing.
* Free education.
* Free [[universal healthcare]].
* Pensions for the elderly and disabled.
* Restoration of the [[USSR]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Communist parties]]

Malagasy Revolutionary Party

2023-10-13T09:16:33Z

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{{Infobox political party|name=Malagasy Revolutionary Party|native_name=Antoko Revolisionera Malagasy|logo=2023 07 22 04.30.05.jpg|founded=30 November 1976|abbreviation=AREMA|dissolution=|newspaper=|political_orientation='''1976–92''':<br>[[Communism]]<br>[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Scientific socialism]]<br>'''1992–present''':<br>[[Social democracy]]<br>[[Eco-socialism]]|}}The '''Malagasy Revolutionary Party''', better known by its Malagasy acronym '''AREMA''' (from '''''A'''ntoko '''Re'''volisionera '''Ma'''lagasy''), is a [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] [[Social democracy|social-democratic]] [[political party]] in [[Republic of Madagascar|Madagascar]]. From 1976 until 1992, it was the [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] [[vanguard party]] and sole ruling-party of the [[Democratic Republic of Madagascar]].

As the vanguard of the Malagasy [[Proletariat|working class]], AREMA espoused [[communism]] and adhered to Marxism–Leninism and [[scientific socialism]]. The party maintained close relations with other [[Communist party|communist parties]] around the world, particularly the [[Workers' Party of Korea]]. [[Didier Ratsiraka]] expressed strong sympathies and support for the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]]. After the dissolution of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar and the country's adoption of a [[Liberal democracy|multi-party system]], AREMA began to move towards a more [[Opportunism|opportunist]] and [[Reformism|reformist]] left position. The party currently describes itself as "a humanist and [[Eco-socialism|ecological]] social democratic party". The stated goals of the party are to "build healthy and solid foundations for the construction of a social democracy which guarantees sustained and sustainable growth", and to "consolidate and maintain the independence of Madagascar and the freedom of the Malagasy people, for a just and equitable nation".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20191201205224/http://www.parti-arema.com/les-mots-du-fondateur "Les mots du Fondateur"]. www.parti-arema.com. Parti AREMA.</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Communist parties]]
[[Category:Social democratic parties]]

Maoism

2023-10-11T00:45:59Z

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{{Distinguish|[[Mao Zedong Thought]]}}
[[File:Maoist demonstration in the United States.jpg|thumb|Marxist-Leninist-Maoists propagating the "[[Five Heads of Communism|Six Heads of Communism]]" in the United States.]]
'''Maoism''', also known as '''Marxism–Leninism–Maoism''' ('''MLM'''), is a controversial current in the [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] world, being first synthesized as separate from [[Mao Zedong Thought]] (MZT) by [[Abimael Guzmán]] of the [[Shining Path]] party. The ideology has also been adopted by other groups such as the [[New People's Army]] (NPA) of the [[Philippines]] and the [[Communist Party of India (Maoist)]]. Maoism considers itself to be a step forward from Marxism–Leninism, differing from MZT.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Q5_m07JUI Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Basic Course by Foreign Languages Press Chapters 1-8 (Audiobook)]</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYg9tA22O_Y&t Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Basic Course by Foreign Languages Press Chapters 9-16 (Audiobook)]</ref><ref>{{Citation | title-url=https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/S01-MLM-Basic-Course-Revised-Edition-10th-Printing.pdf | title=Marxism–Leninism–Maoism basic course (PDF) (5th ed.)}}</ref> Maoism tends to believe in the ideas of the [[Cultural Revolution]], [[Protracted People's War]] (PPW), [[New Democracy]], and [[Mass Line]], all of which take inspiration from MZT. PPW is usually in the form of guerrilla warfare.

{{Maoism sidebar}}

==Development==

===Origin of the term===

Maoism was first coined by bourgeois historians and politicians to describe the conditions of [[People's Republic of China|China]] under [[Mao Zedong]].

Mao never preferred the term, not allowing his name along with Marx, Lenin or Stalin and even stated that "there is no Maoism",<ref>[https://armedwithapen.com/mao-on-maoism/ Mao on Maoism: The Dialectical Case for Mao Zedong Thought]</ref> which is true, as [[Mao Zedong Thought|the specific set of policies taken by Mao]], were merely Marxism–Leninism .

The term Marxism–Leninism–Maoism represents the Maoist view of their ideology being a development and "higher stage" of Marxism–Leninism.

===Synthesis of Maoism===
Chairman Gonzalo is the first person to synthesise the term "Maoism" although the application of Maoism appears significantly earlier starting with the [[Communist Party of the Philippines]] in 1968.<ref>[https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/communist-party-philippines-new-peoples-army Stanford CISAC - Communist Party of the Philippines]</ref>

Gonzalo states that Maoism is the third stage of Marxism, and that it had to be synthesised due to the following three reasons: Mao's contribution to the idea of "Bureaucrat Capitalism", Mao's establishment of the "Socialist Political Economy", and Mao's military theory.<ref name=":0">[https://web.archive.org/web/20071108165711/http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/docs_en/interv.htm Interview with Chairman Gonzalo]</ref>

===Using the ideology "Maoism"===
The [[Communist Party of the Philippines]] has adopted the term after the foundation of Gonzalo Thought, along with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) once it was formed. Other notable Marxist–Leninist–Maoist movements can be seen in [[Russian Maoist Party|Russia]] and [[Maoist Communist Party of China|China]].

==Characteristics ==

===Mao Zedong Thought===
{{Main article|Mao Zedong Thought}}
Maoism follows the aspects of Mao Zedong Thought, which include the few new developments made by Mao such as New Democracy, the Mass Line, and Mao's [[Three Worlds Theory]].

===Anti-revisionism===
{{Main article|Anti-revisionism}}

Gonzalo emphasises the strength to be against revisionism, stating that<blockquote>"Revisionism obviously is a cancer, a cancer that has to be ruthlessly eliminated."<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>Thus Maoism, like [[Hoxhaism]], puts a further emphasis on anti-revisionism, stating it to be "substituting [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] philosophy into Marxism,"<ref name=":0" /> but in practice, as with Hoxhaism, it only ends being a dogmatic and revisionist position which doesn't let one surpass the infantilism that this generates and provokes division in the communist movement.

===Universality of Protracted People's War===
{{Main article|Protracted people's war}}

Gonzalo puts an emphasis that a Protracted People's War is universal, stating that it is adaptable to the countryside and the city,<blockquote>People's war is universally applicable, in accordance with the character of the revolution and adapted to the specific conditions of each country.<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>

===Emphasis of a joint dictatorship===
Gonzalo stated, due to the material conditions of Peru, that a joint dictatorship had to form between the [[proletariat]], [[peasantry]] and the progressives ([[Petty bourgeoisie|petit bourgeoisie]])<ref name=":0" />.

===Peasantry being a separate class===
Gonzalo states, although not directly, that a joint dictatorship had to be formed with an alliance of the proletariat, the peasantry and the progressives. This assumes that the peasantry are a separate class, with its different relations of production compared to the petit bourgeoisie.

===Emphasis on revolutionary violence===
Gonzalo also stated that violence must be done, that reform is impossible to achieve.<blockquote>With regard to violence we start from the principle established by Chairman Mao Tsetung: violence, '''that is the need for revolutionary violence, is a universal law with no exception.''' Revolutionary violence is what allows us to resolve fundamental contradictions by means of an army, through people's war.<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>

==Criticism==

===Universality of PPW===
A lot of Marxist–Leninists do not think that a protracted people's war is universal, that it is only adaptable to the material conditions presented in particular [[Third World|Third World Nations]], and it couldn't be accomplished in the [[First World]] particularly due to a lack of peasantry and the logistics that the bourgeois state holds that are able to destroy the PPW in developed countries.

===Anti-AES===
Maoists often view present or past [[Socialist state|Socialist States]], especially the post-[[Stalin]] [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]] and [[Warsaw Pact]], as losing their [[socialist]] aspects, and instead, according to Maoists, becoming [[Revisionism|Revisionist]] or [[Social Imperialism|Social Imperialist]].

====Soviet Union====
Gonzalo views [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] as a great person, and not revisionist. When [[Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev]] and [[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]] were the leaders of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]], Gonzalo denounces them as "revisionist", as Gonzalo stated Khrushchev's utopian ideas such as "Communism could be reached by 1980."<ref name=":0" />

====China====
[[File:Chairman Gonzalo Poster.jpg|thumb|Poster of Chairman Gonzalo]]Gonzalo views [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] as a great person, and the person that he believes to have created a new stage for Marxism. During the [[Deng Xiaoping]] era of reforms, Gonzalo called him a revisionist and stated that he "restored capitalism".<ref name=":0" /> Most Maoists think that the modern [[People's Republic of China]] is social imperialist, and a [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]].

====Vietnam====
Gonzalo views [[Ho Chi Minh]] as a "centrist", that aligns with the Marxists and Revisionists.<ref name=":0" /> He claims that he was a revisionist, because he didn't tackle revisionism, and after his death, the [[Doi Moi reforms]] occurred.

====DPRK====
Gonzalo never specifically states that the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea|DPRK]] is a revisionist nation,<ref name=":0" /> however, most Maoists despise the DPRK and the Leader [[Kim Il-sung|Kim Il-Sung]].

====Cuba====
Gonzalo never specifically states that [[Republic of Cuba|Cuba]] is a revisionist nation, however, he claims that [[Fidel Castro|Castro]] let the Soviet Union commit "social imperialism" onto the nation.<ref name=":0" /> Most Maoists also despise Cuba, especially during the private reforms that have taken place.

===Aim for revolutionary violence===
Most Marxist–Leninists despise the aim that Maoism achieves, particularly because it is acting in a similar that [[Vladimir Lenin]] described as "[[Adventurism|Revolutionary Adventurism]]".

=== Use of the peasantry===
Gonzalo stated that the number of the proletariat is insufficient,<blockquote>The peasantry, especially the poor peasants, are the main participants, as fighters and commanders at different levels in the People's Guerrilla Army. The workers participate in the same ways, although the percentage of workers at this time is insufficient.<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>This could mean that this is a peasant-led revolution and not a proletarian-led one.

==See also==

*[[Gonzalo Thought]]
*[[New Synthesis]]
*[[Mao Zedong Thought]]
*[[Marxism–Leninism]]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Left-wing ideologies]]
[[Category:Maoism]]
[[Category:Communist ideologies]]

Eugene V. Debs

2023-10-09T23:32:31Z

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{{Infobox politician|image_size=200|birth_date=November 5, 1855|birth_place=Terre Haute, [[Indiana]], [[United States of America|United States]]|death_date=October 20, 1926|death_place=Elmhurst, [[Illinois]], United States|political_orientation=[[Marxism]]<br>[[Democratic socialism]]|political_party=[[Socialist Party of America]]|image=Eugene V. Debs.png}}

'''Eugene Victor''' "'''Gene'''" '''Debs''' (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was a [[United States of America|Statesian]] [[Socialism|socialist]], [[political activist]], [[Trade union|trade unionist]], one of the founding members of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] (IWW), and five times the candidate of the [[Socialist Party of America]] for President of the United States. Through his presidential candidacies as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.

Early in his political career, Debs was a member of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. After working with several smaller unions, including the [[Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen]], Debs led his union in [[Burlington railway strike of 1888|a major ten-month strike against the CB&Q Railroad in 1888]]. Debs was instrumental in the founding of the [[American Railway Union]] (ARU), one of the nation's first [[Industrial union|industrial unions]]. After workers at the [[Pullman Palace Car Company]] organized a [[Wildcat strike action|wildcat strike]] over pay cuts in the summer of 1894, Debs signed many into the ARU. He led a [[boycott]] by the ARU against handling trains with Pullman cars in what became the nationwide [[Pullman Strike]], affecting most lines west of Detroit and more than 250,000 workers in 27 states. Purportedly to keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison.

In prison, Debs read various works of socialist theory and emerged six months later as a committed adherent of the [[Marxism|international socialist]] movement. Debs was a founding member of the [[Social Democracy of America]] (1897), the [[Social Democratic Party of America]] (1898) and the Socialist Party of America (1901). Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for [[President of the United States]] five times, including 1900 (earning 0.6 percent of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0 percent), 1908 (2.8 percent), 1912 (6.0 percent), and 1920 (3.4 percent), the last time from a prison cell.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Deirdre Grisworld|newspaper=[[Workers World]]|title=The anti-war presidential candidate|date=2020-02-24|url=https://www.workers.org/2020/02/46531/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221203052940/https://www.workers.org/2020/02/46531/|archive-date=2022-12-03|retrieved=2023-01-14}}</ref> He was also a candidate for United States Congress from his native state Indiana in 1916.

Debs was noted for his oratorical skills, and his speech denouncing American participation in [[World War I]] led to his second arrest in 1918. He was convicted under the [[Sedition Act of 1918]] and sentenced to a ten-year term. President [[Warren G. Harding]] commuted his sentence in December 1921. Debs died in 1926, not long after being admitted to a sanatorium due to cardiovascular problems that developed during his time in prison.

== Works ==

* [https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/index.htm Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive] by [[Marxists Internet Archive|Marxists.org]]

== References ==
[[Category:Statesian communists]]
[[Category:Communist political candidates]]

Actually Existing Socialism

2023-10-09T19:54:40Z

TDM: Minor edits and tweaks

'''Actually existing socialism''' ('''AES''') is a term for currently existing [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] [[Socialist state|socialist states]] which are specifically under a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]. The five current AES states are [[People's Republic of China|China]], [[Republic of Cuba|Cuba]], [[Lao People's Democratic Republic|Laos]], [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam|Vietnam]], and the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea|DPRK]]. Examples of former AES states include the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]], [[Mongolian People's Republic|Mongolian People’s Republic]], and the [[Warsaw Pact]] countries of [[Eastern Europe]], among others. This is the most common consensus amongst Marxist–Leninists.

== Controversies ==

=== Ultra-Leftists denying the Existence of AES ===
[[Ultra-leftism|Ultra-leftists]] (particularly [[Maoism|Maoists]] and [[Hoxhaism|Hoxhaists]]), deny the existence of currently existing socialist states on the basis of [[revisionism]] and due to socialist nations such as China and the Soviet Union enacting '[[social-imperialism]]'. They also argue that 'AES' was coined by Soviet leader [[Leonid Brezhnev]] and thus it is just revisionist terminology.<ref>{{Citation|author=Leonid Brezhnev|year=1977|title=Brezhnev on the Theory of Developed Socialism|title-url=https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1980-2/our-little-father/our-little-father-texts/brezhnev-on-the-theory-of-developed-socialism/}}</ref> However the modern usage of the word does not necessarily correlate the original term, and it had been changed overtime.

=== Eritrea ===
Some [[Marxism|Marxists]] (or other socialists) argue that there exists a sixth socialist state which is the [[State of Eritrea]].<ref>{{Web citation|author=Thomas C Mountain|newspaper=TesfaNews|title=Eritrea: 25 Years Of Struggle Building Socialism|date=2016-05-11|url=https://tesfanews.net/eritrea-25-years-struggle-building-socialism/|retrieved=2023-09-06}}</ref> However, due to Eritrea not including the word '[[socialism]]' in their constitution,<ref>[https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Eritrea_1997 1997 Constitution of the State of Eritrea]</ref> and the existence of a dictatorship of the proletariat is hard to justify, makes it a somewhat contentious issues among Marxist–Leninists.

== References ==
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]

Lao People's Democratic Republic

2023-10-09T19:07:53Z

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{{Infobox country
| name = Lao People's Democratic Republic
| native_name = ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ
| image_coat = Emblem of Laos.svg
| image_flag = Flag of Laos.svg
| symbol_type = Emblem
| image_map = Laos (orthographic_projection).svg
| map_width = 220px
| capital = [[Vientiane]]
| largest_city = capital
| government_type = [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[Kaysone Phomvihane Thought]] [[Socialist state]]
| established_event1 = Establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic
| established_date1 = 2 December 1975
| population_estimate = 7,749,595
| population_estimate_year = 2022
| leader_title1 = President
| leader_name1 = Thongloun Sisoulith
| leader_title3 = Prime Minister
| leader_name3 = Sonexay Siphandone
| leader_title2 = Vice President
| leader_name2 = Bounthong Chitmany<br>Pany Yathotou
}}
'''Laos''', officially, the '''Lao People's Democratic Republic''' ('''LPDR'''), is a modern-day socialist country, established in Southeast Asia after having achieved independence through its liberation movement led by [[Kaysone Phomvihane]] (a figure analogous to [[Vietnam]]'s [[Ho Chi Minh]]).<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Andre Barahamin|date=2017-11-05|title=The hero of Laos: Kaysone Phomvihane|url=https://rallu.xyz/2017/11/05/the-hero-of-laos-kaysone-phomvihane/}}</ref>

The Laotian constitution states that the [[Lao People's Revolutionary Party|LPRP]] "is a people’s democratic state" defending "the interests of the multi-ethnic people of all social strata with the [[Proletariat|workers]], [[Peasantry|farmers]] and intelligentsia as key components."<ref>Constitution of Lao People's Democratic Republic ([https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Laos_2003.pdf?lang=en PDF])</ref>

The Lao People's Democratic Republic is one of only five [[Socialism|socialist]] states in the world today (alongside [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam|Vietnam]], [[Republic of Cuba|Cuba]], [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea|People's Korea]] and [[People's Republic of China|China]]). The Lao PDR adheres to [[Marxism–Leninism]] and [[Kaysone Phomvihane Thought]] as its guiding ideology.

== History ==

=== Early history ===
[[Fa Ngum|Tiao Fangum]] united Laos in 1353 to form the kingdom of [[Kingdom of Lan Xang (1353–1707)|Lan Xang Hom Khao]]. In 1536, King [[Photisarath|Photisalat]] defeated invading armies from [[Ayutthaya Kingdom (1351–1767)|Thailand]]. King [[Setthathirath|Sayasetha]] defeated invading [[Toungoo dynasty (1510–1752)|Burmese]] forces in 1563 and 1569.

In the 18th century, Laos split apart, and Thai [[Feudalism|feudal]] lords occupied it. Anouvong began an uprising in 1827.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|author=[[Kaysone Phomvihane]]|title=Revolution in Laos: Practice and Prospects|chapter=The Long Road to Victory|pdf=https://www.marxists.org/archive/kaysone/revolution-in-laos.pdf|page=11–15}}</ref>

=== French colonization ===
The [[French Republic (1870–1940)|French]] annexed Laos in 1893 after a war against the [[Rattanakosin Kingdom (1782–1932)|Rattanakosin Kingdom]] in modern-day [[Kingdom of Thailand|Thailand]]. In 1898, Laos was incorporated into [[French Indochina (1887–1954)|French Indochina]]. [[Pho Cadouad]] led a rebellion in central Laos in 1901. The spiritual leaders [[Ong Keo]] and [[Ong Kommandam]] united Hmong people and and southern hill tribes in the [[Holy Man's Rebellion]] against the [[Colonialism|colonizers]] from 1901 to 1937.

On 9 March 1945, [[Japanese empire|fascist Japan]] annexed French Indochina. After the [[Second World War]], the Laotian monarchy began to support the independence movement against the French.<ref name=":1">{{News citation|author=Morgan Artyukhina|newspaper=[[Liberation School]]|title=Mung Lao: A Portrait of The Lao People’s Democratic Republic|date=2017-09-22|url=https://www.liberationschool.org/mung-lao-a-portrait-of-the-lao-peoples-democratic-republic/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308162610/https://www.liberationschool.org/mung-lao-a-portrait-of-the-lao-peoples-democratic-republic/|archive-date=2021-03-08|retrieved=2022-05-22}}</ref> Laos declared independence from France on 12 October 1945. <ref name=":2" />

=== Revolution and civil war ===
{{Main article|Laotian Civil War}}
France recolonized Laos in 1949 with the help of the [[United States of America|USA]] and [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|UK]]. [[Souphanouvong]] founded the [[Pathet Lao]] in 1950 as the successor of anti-French [[Nationalism|nationalist]] groups.<ref name=":3">{{Web citation|author=Devin Cole|newspaper=[[Workers World]]|title=A revolutionary salute to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic|date=2022-02-10|url=https://www.workers.org/2022/02/61652/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517204840/https://www.workers.org/2022/02/61652/|archive-date=2022-05-17|retrieved=2022-12-27}}</ref>

The [[Lao People's Revolutionary Party|Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP)]], led by Kaysone Phomvihane and Souphanouvong, waged a war of liberation against the [[Kingdom of Laos (1953–1975)|Kingdom of Laos]] and its allies, including the United States. The three forces in the Laotian Civil War were the [[Monarchism|monarchists]] led by [[Boun Oum]], the [[Liberalism|liberals]] led by [[Souvanna Phouma]], and the [[Communism|communist]] Pathet Lao.<ref name=":1" /> In 1954, communist forces liberated the province of Phongsaly and most of Luang Prabang from French colonizers, forcing the French to give Laos independence under King [[Sisavang Vong]].<ref name=":3" />

The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and [[United States Department of State|State Department]] organized coups in Laos in 1958, 1959, and 1960.<ref name=":12">{{Citation|author=[[William Blum]]|year=2002|title=Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower|chapter=A Concise History of United States Global Interventions, 1945 to the Present|isbn=9781842772201|publisher=Zed Books Ltd|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=29EED3C6906FF165E08303B9EAF66B4F|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacedas5bwprytpzcih6tof3ipede5uzmcvt47tfzwp4cptdau6vmjpy?filename=William%20Blum%20-%20Rogue%20State_%20A%20Guide%20to%20the%20World%27s%20Only%20Superpower-Zed%20Books%20Ltd%20%282002%29.pdf|page=116}}</ref> During the civil war, the US military dropped 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos between 1964 and 1973<ref name=":0">{{News citation|newspaper=[[Socialist Voice]]|title=Laos: Building the foundations of socialism|date=2018-05-02|url=https://socialistvoice.ie/2018/05/laos-building-the-foundations-of-socialism/|retrieved=2022-04-23}}</ref>—more than they dropped in all of World War II,<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Ralph McGehee|date=1995-10-09|title=Bombing Laos|url=|newspaper=|archive-url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54/057.html|archive-date=|retrieved=2021-12-31}}</ref> killing hundreds of thousands and turning a quarter of Laotians into refugees. 78 million unexploded bombs remained after the war, which still kill or injure 50 civilians every year.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Rebecca Wright|date=2016-09-06|title='My friends were afraid of me': What 80 million unexploded US bombs did to Laos|url=https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/05/asia/united-states-laos-secret-war/|newspaper=CNN|archive-url=|archive-date=|retrieved=2021-31-21}}</ref> The CIA also spent $500 million training Hmongs to fight on behalf of the monarchy.

The United States withdrew from Laos after the [[National Liberation Front of South Vietnam|Viet Minh]]'s victory in Vietnam in April 1975. In December 1975, the Pathet Lao took power and established a socialist republic in Laos, abolishing the monarchy.<ref name=":1" />

=== Independence ===
After liberation, Kaysone would dominate Laotian politics until his death in 1992.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Andrew Nette|date=1996-03-27|title=LAOS: Kaysone – Big in Life, Bigger in Death|url=http://www.ipsnews.net/1996/03/laos-kaysone-big-in-life-bigger-in-death/}}</ref> Laos signed a 25-year friendship treaty with Vietnam in 1977.<ref name=":1" /> The First Five-Year Plan began in 1981, but only achieved an economic growth rate of 5% per year. In 1986, Laos began the [[New Economic Mechanism]], based on the [[New Economic Policy]] of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|USSR]].<ref name=":0" /> By the end of the Second Five-Year Plan, rice production had doubled and sugar production had increased by 40%.<ref name=":1" />

== Economy ==
The main investors in Laos's economy are [[People's Republic of China|China]], Vietnam, and the [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea|DPRK]]. Mining takes up 7% of the Laotian economy and includes gold, silver, copper, tin, and potash mines. Industry takes up 28.6% of the economy. Hydroelectric power forms 30% of Laos's exports, and Laos is projected to be able to export 14.6 gigawatts of electricity to neighboring countries by 2025.<ref name=":3" />

=== Working conditions ===
Working hours are limited to 48 hours per week or eight hours per day. Paid sick leave, vacation time, and maternity leave are all provided.<ref name=":1" /> Workers are well-represented in [[Trade union|trade unions]] and workers' councils.<ref name=":3" />

== Geography ==
[[File:Laos 2003 Physical Map.jpg|alt=Physical Map of Laos. The North has many mountains and hills while the south is flat and tropical|thumb|Physical Map of Laos]]
Laos is a landlocked country and straddled between the tropical monsoon climate which prevails in the Southern half of the country and the temperate and mountainous climate of the North.

== Governance ==

=== Efforts against malnutrition ===
In recent years, the issue of malnutrition is still present in Laos, though the government has made inroads in combating this problem with the help of UNICEF.<ref>(October 19, 2018) https://laotiantimes.com/2018/10/19/nutrition-kids-unicef-xepon-laos/</ref> In addition, Laos has tackled such problems as inequality and poverty in its aim to shed its Least Developed Country Status by 2024. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and as ''The Laotian Times'' reports, "Lao PDR’s Human Development Index (HDI) value which is calculated based on the life expectancy, level of education and income per capita of a country’s people, has increased by over 50% since 1990."<ref>(October 30, 2018) [https://laotiantimes.com/2018/10/30/progress-inequality-push-education-laos/ Inequality, Disasters Risks to Development as Progress Pushed in Laos: UNDP]</ref> From 1992 to 2008, the poverty rate decreased from 46% to 28%.<ref name=":0" /> Laos is also the only [[Association of Southeast Asian Countries|ASEAN]] member to give up luxury state cars in a move by Lao Prime Minister [[Thongloun Sisoulith]] to reclaim all Lao leaders' luxury vehicles.<ref>Yap, Jasmina (February 23, 2017) [https://laotiantimes.com/2017/02/23/laos-only-asean-member-give-up-luxury-state-cars/?platform=hootsuite "Laos Only ASEAN Member To Give Up Luxury State Cars"]</ref>
== Politics ==

=== International solidarity ===
In 1977, [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam|Vietnam]] and Laos signed a 25-year treaty of friendship, and Vietnamese advisors provided much-needed expertise in government and economic policies. Vietnam and Laos fit together, as the common saying goes, “like lips and teeth.” Laos grew closer to Vietnam as its primary trade partner and only route to the sea. The Soviet Union provided most foreign aid to Laos and especially the Laotian armed forces.<ref name=":1" />

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Countries]]
[[Category:Marxist-Leninist states]]
[[Category:Asian countries]]

Socialist Republic of Vietnam

2023-10-09T19:06:15Z

TDM: Minor edits and tweaks

{{Infobox country
| name = Socialist Republic of Vietnam
| native_name = Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam
| image_coat = Emblem of Vietnam.svg
| image_flag = Flag of Vietnam.svg
| image_map = Vietnam_Map.svg
| map_width = 220px
| capital = [[Hanoi]]
| largest_city = Ho Chi Minh City
|mode_of_production=[[Socialism]]| government_type = [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[socialist state]]
| established_event1 = Declaration of independence
| established_date1 = 2 September 1945
|established_event2=Liberation of Saigon|established_date2=30 April 1975|established_event3=Reunification and end of US occupation|established_date3=2 July 1976| population_estimate = 98,510,000
| population_estimate_year = 2021
| leader_title1 = General Secretary
| leader_name1 = [[Nguyễn Phú Trọng]]
| leader_title2 = President
| leader_name2 = [[Võ Văn Thưởng]]
| leader_title3 = Vice President
| leader_name3 = [[Võ Thị Ánh Xuân]]
| leader_title4 = Prime Minister
| leader_name4 = [[Phạm Minh Chính]]
|leader_title5=Deputy Prime Minister|leader_name5=Lê Văn Thành}}
'''Vietnam''', officially the '''Socialist Republic of Vietnam''', is a country on the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia. The 2020 census counted a population of 98.51 million people.<ref>https://www.gso.gov.vn/en/category/population/</ref> The country borders [[China]] to the north and [[Cambodia]] and [[Laos]] to the west. The capital city is [[Hanoi]] while the most populous city is Ho Chi Minh City (also known by its previous name of Saigon). The Vietnamese constitution states that Vietnam "is a [[Socialist state|socialist rule of law state]] of the People, by the People, for the People".<ref>http://www.fao.org/faolex/results/details/en/c/LEX-FAOC127527/</ref>

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is one of only five [[:Category:Marxist-Leninist states|Marxist–Leninist states]] in the world today (alongside [[China]], [[Laos]], [[People's Korea]] and [[Cuba]]). Since 1986, it has adopted the [[Doi Moi reforms|Đổi Mới economic reforms]], becoming a [[socialist-oriented market economy]].
==History==

=== Ancient history ===
Vietnam was ruled by China for 900 years and often had [[Peasantry|peasant]] rebellions against the Chinese. During the [[Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE)|Han dynasty]], the Trung sisters led a rebellion but were defeated in 43 CE.<ref name=":0">{{News citation|newspaper=Alpha History|title=Vietnamese Resistance to French Colonialism|date=2018-01-09|url=https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/resistance-to-french-colonialism/|retrieved=2022-05-07}}</ref>

=== French colonization ===
[[Hàm Nghi]] became emperor of Vietnam in 1884 at 12 years of age. His officials condemned French colonization, leading to the royal palace being raided by the French in 1885. Hàm Nghi fled to the forest with his regent, [[Tôn Thất Thuyết]]. After Hàm Nghi's deposition, [[French Republic|France]] signed the [[Treaty of Tientsin]] with the [[Qing dynasty (1636–1912)|Qing dynasty]], relinquishing all Chinese claims on Vietnam, and the French installed his brother [[Đồng Khánh]] as emperor. Thuyết and his supporters formed the nationalist resistance movement [[Cần Vương movement|Cần Vương]], which fought against the French with [[guerrilla warfare]]. They also attacked Vietnamese [[Christianity|Christians]]. In 1888, Hàm Nghi was captured and exiled to [[North Africa]].

[[Phan Đình Phùng]], a former royal official under Hàm Nghi, introduced military discipline with uniforms and ranks to resistance. In an attempt to intimidate him, French soldiers raided his home village and kidnapped his brother. In 1895, Phùng was defeated and his supporters were executed by the French.

In 1903, Vietnamese nationalist [[Phan Bội Châu]] joined forces with former prince [[Cường Để]], who had been deposed by the French. They unsuccessfully sought financial assistance from [[Empire of Japan (1868–1947)|Japan]] and China. While in Japan, Châu attempted to smuggle weapons to Vietnamese rebels but was exiled to [[British Hong Kong (1841–1997)|Hong Kong]]. After the 1911 [[Xinhai Revolution]] in China, he decided that [[republicanism]] was better than a restoration of the imperial monarchy.<ref name=":0" />

In 1940, after [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Nazi Germany]] conquered France, the Vichy government continued to rule Vietnam. [[Ho Chi Minh]], [[Vo Nguyen Giap]], and others began a guerrilla struggle against the French and Japanese colonizers. In 1945, Japan took over direct control from the Vichy regime and continued to export rice during a famine that killed over 1.5 million Vietnamese people.<ref name=":2">{{Web citation|author=Richard Becker|newspaper=[[Liberation News]]|title=Vietnam’s national liberation struggle in perspective|date=2005-05-01|url=https://www.liberationnews.org/05-05-01-vietnams-national-liberation-st-html/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190714154922/https://www.liberationnews.org/05-05-01-vietnams-national-liberation-st-html/|archive-date=2019-07-14|retrieved=2022-12-17}}</ref>

=== Anti-French Resistance War ===
Ho Chi Minh declared independence from France on 2 September 1945.<ref name=":2" /> [[Republic of China|Nationalist China]] occupied northern Vietnam and the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|UK]] occupied the south, and they soon returned both regions to French control. In October 1946, France bombed the port of Haiphong, beginning an eight-year independence war. The U.S. provided 80% of French supplies, including 300,000 small arms and machine guns.<ref name=":02">{{Citation|author=[[Howard Zinn]]|year=1980|title=A People's History of the United States|title-url=https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/peoples-history/|chapter=The Impossible Victory: Vietnam|page=439|pdf=https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People's%20History%20of%20the%20Unite%20-%20Howard%20Zinn.pdf|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=0060194480}}</ref> In 1946, U.S. ships sent French troops back to Vietnam in an attempt to recolonize the region. In 1954, General Vo Nguyen Giap led Vietnamese forces at the [[Battle of Dien Bien Phu]], in which the Vietnamese carried 200 heavy artillery guns through 80 km of jungle and finally defeated the French colonizers.<ref name=":2" />

=== Resistance War against the United States ===
{{Main article|Vietnam War}}
After the Anti-French Resistance War, Vietnam was divided across the 17th parallel and the United States replaced France as the colonial power. By the end of 1956, the country was supposed to hold a national election and reunify, but the United States did not allow this because they knew communist leader Hồ Chí Minh would win by at least 80%.<ref name=":1">{{News citation|author=Richard Becker|newspaper=Liberation School|title=How Vietnam defeated U.S. imperialism|date=2015-03-08|url=https://www.liberationschool.org/how-vietnam-defeated-u-s-imperialism/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220203233120/https://www.liberationschool.org/how-vietnam-defeated-u-s-imperialism/|archive-date=2022-02-03|retrieved=2022-05-07}}</ref> While the north was led by Hồ Chí Minh, the south was under a [[Republic of Vietnam|US puppet dictatorship]] led by pro-Japanese collaborators [[Ngô Đình Diệm]] and [[Bảo Đại]], the latter of which had lived in the USA for several years.<ref name=":2" /> The division of the country led to the Vietnam war, in which the north fought against the south and the US. From 1960, the north was also aided by communist guerrillas in the south, called the [[Viet Minh|National Liberation Front]], but often known by the pejorative nickname of "Viet Cong." The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] targeted and killed tens of thousands of suspected guerrillas through the [[Phoenix Program]]. The southern military had high rates of desertion and frequently killed civilians, unlike the heroic communist forces.<ref name=":2" /> By 1963, the NLF had liberated most of the south,<ref name=":1" /> and U.S. president [[John F. Kennedy]] ordered Diệm to be assassinated for his incompetence.<ref name=":2" />

Kennedy himself was soon assassinated and succeeded by [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], who began bombing Vietnam and authorized a full-scale invasion.<ref name=":2" /> In 1965, the United States invaded Vietnam with over half a million soldiers. They were supported by 75,000 troops from [[Republic of Korea|South Korea]], and over 800,000 from South Vietnam serving the puppet government. Half of the US troops were tied down defending their military bases in the south from guerrillas.<ref name=":1" /> In March of 1968, American forces killed hundreds of civilians in the [[My Lai Massacre]]. The soldiers that tried to prevent the massacre were considered traitors by other soldiers and US congressmen. The United States dropped more bombs on Vietnam than all of the bombs that were used in [[Second World War|World War II]] and sprayed 21 million gallons of [[Agent Orange]], a chemical weapon, on Vietnam.<ref name=":1" /> They also destroyed two-thirds of villages in the south. U.S. troops destroyed 9,000 of the 15,000 villages in the south and badly damaged all six of the northern industrialized cities.<ref name=":2" />

The US began withdrawing in 1969, and the south was liberated on 30 April 1975.

==Politics==
Vietnam is a [[Marxism-leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] one-party socialist [[republic]]. The ruling party is the [[Communist Party of Vietnam]].

==Economy==
After reunification in 1975 Vietnam became a centrally planned economy. In the late 1980s the economy was suffering from a decline in [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] aid, the decomposition of the Eastern Bloc and the effects of the post-war embargo by the USA. In 1986, the CPV adopted a series of market reforms known as Đổi Mới which would transition the country to a [[socialist-oriented market economy]].

According to a forecast by PwC in February 2017, Vietnam may be the fastest-growing of the world's economies, with a potential annual GDP growth rate of about 5.1%, which would make its economy the 20th-largest in the world by 2050.<ref>{{News citation|date=2017-02|title=How will the global economic order change by 2050?|url=https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/world-2050/assets/pwc-the-world-in-2050-full-report-feb-2017.pdf}}</ref>

== External resources ==

* [https://youtu.be/bQX_F-fQS2k ''Vietnam's Path To Socialism''] by [[CPUSA]] International Department on [[YouTube]]

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Countries]]
[[Category:Marxist-Leninist states]]
[[Category:Asian countries]]

Brazilian Communist Party

2023-10-09T05:14:33Z

TDM:

{{Infobox political party
| colorcode = red
| name = Brazilian Communist Party
| native_name = Partido Comunista Brasileiro
| native_name_lang = Portuguese
| logo = File:PCB_Logo.svg
| abbreviation = PCB
| general_secretary = Edmilson Costa
| founded = March 25, 1922
| newspaper = ''People's power''
| think_tank = Dinarco Reis Foundation
| youth_wing = Communist Youth Union
| womens_wing = Classist Feminist Collective Ana Montenegro
| political_orientation = [[Marxism–Leninism]]
| website = https://pcb.org.br
}}{{Communist parties}}
The '''Brazilian Communist Party''' [Portuguese: ''Partido Comunista Brasileiro'' ('''PCB''')] is a [[Federative Republic of Brazil|Brazilian]] [[communist party]] that defines itself as a party of militants and revolutionary cadres that are formed in the class struggle, in the organization of the proletariat, and in the study of the works of [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]]. Its theoretical basis for [[praxis]] is [[Marxism-leninism|Marxism–Leninism]], which is based on the principles developed by [[Vladimir Lenin]].

==History==
===Background===
Until the 1920s, the labor movement in [[Federative Republic of Brazil|Brazil]] was mostly led by [[Anarchism|anarchists]]. Striking movements, sporadic in the early years of the Republic, became more frequent in the beginning of the 20th century, sometimes having state or national reach. The main demands of the movements were to improve wages, reduce the working day to eight hours, regulate the work of women and children, and stipulate weekly rest.<ref name=":0">CPDOC da Fundação Getúlio Vargas. ''[http://www.fgv.br/cpdoc/acervo/dicionarios/verbete-tematico/partido-comunista-brasileiro-pcb Partido Comunista Brasileiro].'' Accessed on 2021-06-16</ref>

The [[October Revolution|October Revolution of 1917]] awakened the interest of anarchists in the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and in 1918, the Communist League of Livramento was founded by former anarchist militants sympathetic to communism. The following year, the Brazillian-[[Lebanese Republic|Lebanese]] barber Abilio de Nequete founded the Maximalist Union in Porto Alegre, making it the first communist organization in Brazil.<ref>{{Textcite|author=Edgar Carone|year=1982|title=O PCB – 1922 a 1943|chapter=Do I ao III Congresso (1922–1929)|pdf=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=3E128FFCD798BF093276AD8816183E84|trans=The PCB – 1922 to 1943|translang=Portuguese|transchap=From the 1st to the 3rd Congress (1922–1929)}}</ref> The term "maximalist" was used to refer to [[Bolshevik party|Bolsheviks]] at that time.<ref name=":0" />

Disagreements between anarchists and communists soon began to sharpen. In Brazil, part of the anarcho-syndicalist movement launched violent attacks on the [[III International]] after Bolshevik crackdown on anarchist terrorists. A few anarchist newspapers denounced in 1920 "Bolshevik terror" in [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russia]]. With the beginning of the shootings of anarchists in the Soviet Union, the rupture between anarchists and communists was also consummated in Brazil.<ref name=":0" />

A small group led by Astrojildo Pereira, on the November 4, 1921 founded the Communist Group of Rio de Janeiro, the first of a series of communist nuclei to be established in other states. The Rio de Janeiro communist group had a goal of fulfilling the 21 conditions necessary for admission to the [[Communist International]]. To be accepted, the parties had to fundamentally adopt the name of communists, dissociate themselves from all [[Reformism|reformist]] positions, fight for the [[Revolution|revolutionary]] overthrow of [[capitalism]] and the establishment of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]].<ref name=":0" />

===Early years (1922–1945)===
<ref>{{Textcite|author=Pedro Chadarevian|year=2012|title=Raça, classe e revolução no Partido Comunista Brasileiro (1922-1964)|pdf=https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/politica/article/download/2175-7984.2012v11n20p255/25503|lg=|doi=10.5007/2175-7984.2012v11n20p255|trans=Race, class and revolution in the Brazilian Communist Party (1922-1964)|translang=Portuguese}}</ref><ref>{{Textcite|author=Marcelo A. Camurça|year=1998|title=Intelectualidade rebelde e militância política: adesão dos intelectuais ao Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) – 1922–1960|pdf=https://periodicos.ufjf.br/index.php/locus/article/download/20458/10877/82276|lg=|trans=Rebellious intelligentsia and political militancy: adherence of intellectuals to the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) – 1922–1960|translang=Portuguese}}</ref><ref>{{Textcite|author=Marco Aurélio Santana|year=2020|title=Um partido em dois tempos: o Partido Comunista
Brasileiro (PCB) nas conjunturas pré e pós golpe de 1964|pdf=https://web3.rosario-conicet.gov.ar/ojs/index.php/AvancesCesor/article/download/v17n22a09/1149|lg=|doi=|trans=A party in two stages: the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) before and after coup d’etat of 1964|translang=Portuguese}}</ref><ref>{{Textcite|author=Astrojildo Pereira|year=1960|title=Primeiros dias do partido|pdf=|publisher=Dinarco Reis Foundation|lg=|trans=First days of the party|translang=Portuguese|web=https://fdinarcoreis.org.br/2012/10/01/primeiros-dias-do-partido-astrojildo-pereira/}}</ref>

PCB, then named Communist Party of Brazil [''Partido Comunista do Brasil''] was founded in March 25th, 1922 in Rio de Janeiro during its first congress, after initiative from the communist groups of Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro to establish a national communist party and carry out the resulting party's admission to the [[Communist International]]. The congress had 9 delegates representing 73 members from the several communist groups active in Brazil at the time.<ref>{{Textcite|author=Apoena Canuto Cosenza|year=2012|title=Um partido, duas táticas: uma história organizativa e política do Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB), de 1922 a 1935|pdf=https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8137/tde-21082013-111540/publico/2012_ApoenaCanutoCosenza.pdf|city=São Paulo|lg=|doi=10.11606/D.8.2013.tde-21082013-111540|trans=A party, two tactics: an organizational and political history of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), from 1922 to 1935|translang=Portuguese|chapter=O advento do PCB (1922 a 1935)|transchap=The emergence of PCB (1922 to 1935)}}</ref>

===Dissolution of the old party and reconstruction period. (1992–2001)===
After the fall of the [[Federative Republic of Brazil|Brazilian]] [[Corporate-military dictatorship of Brazil|military dictatorship]] and the [[dissolution of the USSR]], a group led by Roberto Freire (a Brazilian analogue of [[Gorbachev]]) wanted to extinguish PCB, but encountered resistance from within the party. Then, the group called for an "extraordinary congress" with the intention of creating a "new political formation". They invited non-members of the party as delegates, granted them voting rights to declare the extinction of the party, and the creation, in its place, of the Popular Socialist Party (PPS).<ref name=":1">{{Textcite|author=Partido Comunista Brasileiro|year=2013|title=O novo que nasce velho|pdf=|lg=|trans=The new that is born old|translang=Portuguese|web=https://pcb.org.br/portal2/4687/o-novo-que-nasce-velho/}}</ref>

The congress, considered controversial, ended up being recognized by the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil and the bourgeois media. Older members classified the action of the group linked to its then president, Roberto Freire, as a coup, and decided to launch a national campaign for the preservation of the party and its symbols.<ref name=":1" />

===The PCB today (2002–)===

==Congresses==

===I Congress — 1922===

===II Congress — 1925===

===III Congress — 1929===

===IV Congress — 1954===

===V Congress — 1960===

===VI Congress — 1967===

===VII Congress — 1982===

===VIII Congress — 1987===

===IX Congress — 1991===

===X Congress — 1993===

===XI Congress — 1996===

===XII Congress — 2000===

===XIII Congress — 2005===

===XIV Congress — 2009===

===XV Congress — 2014===

==References==
<references />

==External sources==
http://www.fgv.br/cpdoc/acervo/dicionarios/verbete-tematico/partido-comunista-brasileiro-pcb
{{External links|Wikipedia=Brazilian Communist Party|EcuRed=Partido Comunista Brasileño}}
[[Category:Communist parties]]

Library:Gadafi's speech at the 64th UN General Assembly

2023-10-09T02:19:47Z

TDM: TDM moved page Library:Gadafi's speech at the 64th UN General Assembly to Library:Gaddafi's Speech at the 64th UN General Assembly

#REDIRECT [[Library:Gaddafi's Speech at the 64th UN General Assembly]]

Library:Gaddafi's Speech at the 64th UN General Assembly

2023-10-09T02:19:47Z

TDM: TDM moved page Library:Gadafi's speech at the 64th UN General Assembly to Library:Gaddafi's Speech at the 64th UN General Assembly

{{Library work|title=Gaddafi's Speech at the 64th UN General Assembly|author=Muammar Gaddafi|published_date=September 23, 2009|source=https://www.africanews.com/2017/09/19/speech-muammar-gaddafi-at-the-64th-un-general-assembly-in-2009//}}

In the name of the African Union, I would like to greet the members of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and I hope that this meeting will be among the most historic in the history of the world.

In the name of the General Assembly at its sixtyfourth session, presided over by Libya, of the African Union, of one thousand traditional African kingdoms [trans.] and in my own name, I would like to take this opportunity, as President of the African Union, to congratulate our son Obama because he is attending the General Assembly, and we welcome him as his country is hosting this meeting.

This session is taking place in the midst of so many challenges facing us, and the whole world should come together and unite its efforts to defeat the challenges that are our principal common enemy — those of climate change and international crises such as the capitalist economic decline, the food and water crises, desertification, terrorism, immigration, piracy, man-made and natural epidemics and nuclear proliferation. Perhaps influenza H1N1 was a virus created in a laboratory that got out of control, originally being meant as a military weapon. Such challenges also include hypocrisy, poverty, fear, materialism and immorality.

As is known, the United Nations was founded by three or four countries against Germany at the time. The United Nations was formed by the nations that joined together against Germany in the Second World War. Those countries formed a body called the Security Council, made its own countries permanent members and granted them the power of veto.

We were not present at that time. The United Nations was shaped in line with those three countries and wanted us to step into shoes originally designed against Germany. That is the real substance of the United Nations when it was founded over 60 years ago.

That happened in the absence of some 165 countries, at a ratio of one to eight; that is, one was present and eight were absent. They created the Charter, of which I have a copy. If one reads the Charter of the United Nations, one finds that the Preamble of the Charter differs from its Articles. How did it come into existence? All those who attended the San Francisco Conference in 1945 participated in creating the Preamble, but they left the Articles and internal rules of procedures of the so-called Security Council to experts, specialists and interested countries, which were those countries that had established the Security Council and had united against Germany.

The Preamble is very appealing, and no one objects to it, but all the provisions that follow it completely contradict the Preamble. We reject such provisions, and we will never uphold them; they ended with the Second World War. The Preamble says that all nations, small or large, are equal. Are we equal when it comes to the permanent seats? No, we are not equal.

The Preamble states in writing that all nations are equal whether they are small or large. Do we have the right of veto? Are we equal? The Preamble says that we have equal rights, whether we are large or small.

That is what is stated and what we agreed in the Preamble. So the veto contradicts the Charter. The permanent seats contradict the Charter. We neither accept nor recognize the veto.

The Preamble of the Charter states that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest. That is the Preamble that we agreed to and signed, and we joined the United Nations because we wanted the Charter to reflect that. It says that armed force shall only be used in the common interest of all nations, but what has happened since then? Sixty-five wars have broken out since the establishment of the United Nations and the Security Council — 65 since their creation, with millions more victims than in the Second World War. Are those wars, and the aggression and force that were used in those 65 wars, in the common interest of us all? No, they were in the interest of one or three or four countries, but not of all nations.

We will talk about whether those wars were in the interest of one country or of all nations. That flagrantly contradicts the Charter of the United Nations that we signed, and unless we act in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to which we agreed, we will reject it and not be afraid not to speak diplomatically to anyone. Now we are talking about the future of the United Nations. There should be no hypocrisy or diplomacy because it concerns the important and vital issue of the future of the world. It was hypocrisy that brought about the 65 wars since the establishment of the United Nations.

The Preamble also states that if armed force is used, it must be a United Nations force — thus, military intervention by the United Nations, with the joint agreement of the United Nations, not one or two or three countries using armed force. The entire United Nations will decide to go to war to maintain international peace and security. Since the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, if there is an act of aggression by one country against another, the entire United Nations should deter and stop that act.

If a country, Libya for instance, were to exhibit aggression against France, then the entire Organization would respond because France is a sovereign State Member of the United Nations and we all share the collective responsibility to protect the sovereignty of all nations. However, 65 aggressive wars have taken place without any United Nations action to prevent them. Eight other massive, fierce wars, whose victims number some 2 million, have been waged by Member States that enjoy veto powers. Those countries that would have us believe they seek to maintain the sovereignty and independence of peoples actually use aggressive force against peoples. While we would like to believe that these countries want to work for peace and security in the world and protect peoples, they have instead resorted to aggressive wars and hostile behaviour. Enjoying the veto they granted themselves as permanent members of the Security Council, they have initiated wars that have claimed millions of victims.

The principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of States is enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. No country, therefore, has the right to interfere in the affairs of any Government, be it democratic or dictatorial, socialist or capitalist, reactionary or progressive. This is the responsibility of each society; it is an internal matter for the people of the country concerned. The senators of Rome once appointed their leader, Julius Caesar, as dictator because it was good for Rome at that time. No one can say of Rome at that time that it gave Caesar the veto. The veto is not mentioned in the Charter.

We joined the United Nations because we thought we were equals, only to find that one country can object to all the decisions we make. Who gave the permanent members their status in the Security Council? Four of them granted this status to themselves. The only country that we in this Assembly elected to permanent member status in the Security Council is China. This was done democratically, but the other seats were imposed upon us undemocratically through a dictatorial procedure carried out against our will, and we should not accept it.

The Security Council reform we need is not an increase in the number of members, which would only make things worse. To use a common expression, if you add more water, you get more mud. It would add insult to injury. It would make things worse simply by adding more large countries to those that already enjoy membership of the Council. It would merely perpetuate the proliferation of super-Powers. We therefore reject the addition of any more permanent seats. The solution is not to have more permanent seats, which would be very dangerous. Adding more super-Powers would crush the peoples of small, vulnerable and third world countries, which are coming together in what has been called the Group of 100 — 100 small countries banding together in a forum that one member has called the Forum of Small States. These countries would be crushed by superPowers were additional large countries to be granted membership in the Security Council. This door must be closed; we reject it strongly and categorically.

Adding more seats to the Security Council would increase poverty, injustice and tension at the world level, as well as great competition between certain countries such as Italy, Germany, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Japan, Brazil, Nigeria, Argentina, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey, Iran, Greece and Ukraine. All these countries would seek a seat on the Security Council, making its membership almost as large as that of the General Assembly and resulting in an impractical competition.

What solution can there be? The solution is for the General Assembly to adopt a binding resolution under the leadership of Mr. Treki based on the majority will of Assembly members and taking into account the considerations of no other body. The solution is to close Security Council membership to the admission of further States. This item is on the agenda of the General Assembly during the present session presided over by Mr. Treki. Membership through unions and the transference of mandates should supersede other proposals. We should focus on the achievement of democracy based on the equality of Member States. There should be equality among Member States and the powers and mandates of the Security Council should be transferred to the General Assembly.

Membership should be for unions, not for States. Increasing the number of States Members would give the right to allcountries to a seat, in accordance with the spirit of the Preamble of the Charter. No country could deny a seat in the Council to Italy, for instance, if a seat were given to Germany. For the sake of argument, Italy might say that Germany was an aggressive country and was defeated in the Second World War. If we gave India a seat, Pakistan would say that it, too, is a nuclear country and deserves a seat, and those two countries are at war. This would be a dangerous situation. If we gave a seat to Japan, then we should have to give one to Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. Then Turkey, Iran and Ukraine would make the same claim. What could we say to Argentina or Brazil? Libya deserves a seat for its efforts in the service of world security by discarding its weapons of mass destruction programme.

Then South Africa, Tanzania and Ukraine would demand the same. All of these countries are important. The door to Security Council membership should be closed. This approach is a falsehood, a trick that has been exposed. If we want to reform the United Nations, bringing in more super-Powers is not the way. The solution is to foster democracy at the level of the general congress of the world, the General Assembly, to which the powers of the Security Council should be transferred. The Security Council would become merely an instrument for implementing the decisions taken by the General Assembly, which would be the parliament, the legislative assembly, of the world.

This Assembly is our democratic forum and the Security Council should be responsible before it; we should not accept the current situation. These are the legislators of the Members of the United Nations, and their resolutions should be binding. It is said that the General Assembly should do whatever the Security Council recommends. On the contrary, the Security Council should do whatever the General Assembly decides. This is the United Nations, the Assembly that includes 192 countries. It is not the Security Council, which includes only 15 of the Member States. How can we be happy about global peace and security if the whole world is controlled by only five countries?

We are 192 nations and countries, and we are like Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park. We just speak and nobody implements our decisions. We are mere decoration, without any real substance. We are Speakers’ Corner, no more, no less. We just make speeches and then disappear. This is who you are right now. Once the Security Council becomes only an executive body for resolutions adopted by the General Assembly, there will be no competition for membership of the Council. Once the Security Council becomes a tool to implement General Assembly resolutions, there will be no need for any competition. The Security Council should, quite simply, represent all nations. In accordance with the proposal submitted to the General Assembly, there would be permanent seats on the Security Council for all unions and groups of countries. The 27 countries of the European Union should have a permanent seat on the Security Council. The countries of the African Union should have a permanent seat on the Security Council.

The Latin American and ASEAN countries should have permanent seats. The Russian Federation and the United States of America are already permanent members of the Security Council. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), once it is fully established, should have a permanent seat. The 22 countries of the Arab League should have a permanent seat. The 57 countries of the Islamic Conference should have a permanent seat. The 118 countries of the Non-Aligned Movement should have a permanent seat. Then there is the G-100; perhaps the small countries should also have a permanent seat. Countries not included in the unions that I have mentioned could perhaps be assigned a permanent seat, to be occupied by them in rotation every six or twelve months.

I am thinking of countries like Japan and Australia that are outside such organizations as ASEAN or like the Russian Federation that is not a member of the European or Latin American or African unions. This would be a solution for them if the General Assembly votes in favour of it. The issue is a vitally important one. As has already been mentioned, the General Assembly is the Congress and Parliament of the world, the leader of the world. We are the nations, and anyone outside this General Assembly will not be recognized. The President of the Assembly, Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will produce the legal draft and set up the necessary committees to submit this proposal to a vote: that from now on, the Security Council will be made up of unions of nations.

In this way, we will have justice and democracy, and we will no longer have a Security Council consisting of countries which have been chosen because they have nuclear weapons, large economies or advanced technology. That is terrorism. We cannot allow the Security Council to be run by super-Powers; that is terrorism in and of itself. If we want a world that is united, safe and peaceful, this is what we should do. If we want to remain in a world at war, that is up to you.

We will continue to have conflict and to fight until doomsday or the end of the world. All Security Council members should have the right to exercise the veto, or else we should eliminate the whole concept of the veto with this new formation of the Council. This would be a real Security Council. According to the new proposals submitted to the General Assembly, it will be an executive council under the control of the General Assembly, which will have the real power and make all the rules. In this way, all countries will be on an equal footing in the Security Council just as they are in the General Assembly. In the General Assembly we are all treated equally when it comes to membership and voting. It should be the same in the Security Council.

Currently, one country has a veto; another country does not have a veto; one country has a permanent seat; another country does not have a permanent seat. We should not accept this, nor should we accept any resolution adopted by the Security Council in its current composition. We were under trusteeship; we were colonized; and now we are independent. We are here today to decide the future of the world in a democratic way that will maintain the peace and security of all nations, large and small, as equals. Otherwise, it is terrorism, for terrorism is not just Al-Qaida but can also take other forms. We should be guided by the majority of the votes in the General Assembly alone. If the General Assembly takes a decision by voting, then its wishes should be obeyed and its decision should be enforced. No one is above the General Assembly; anyone who says he is above the Assembly should leave the United Nations and be on his own. Democracy is not for the rich or the most powerful or for those who practise terrorism. All nations should be and should be seen to be on an equal footing.

At present, the Security Council is security feudalism, political feudalism for those with permanent seats, protected by them and used against us. It should be called, not the Security Council, but the Terror Council. In our political life, if they need to use the Security Council against us, they turn to the Security Council. If they have no need to use it against us, they ignore the Security Council. If they have an interest to promote, an axe to grind, they respect and glorify the Charter of the United Nations; they turn to Chapter VII of the Charter and use it against poor nations. If, however, they wished to violate the Charter, they would ignore it as if it did not exist at all. If the veto of the permanent members of the Security Council is given to those who have the power, this is injustice and terrorism and should not be toloerated by us.

We should not live in the shadow of this injustice and terror. Super-Powers have complicated global interests, and they use the veto to protect those interests. For example, in the Security Council, they use the power of the United Nations to protect their interests and to terrorize and intimidate the Third World, causing it to live under the shadow of terror. From the beginning, since it was established in 1945, the Security Council has failed to provide security. On the contrary, it has provided terror and sanctions. It is only used against us. For this reason, we will no longer be committed to implementing Security Council resolutions after this speech, which marks the 40th anniversary.

Sixty-five wars have broken out: either fighting among small countries or wars of aggression waged against us by super-Powers. The Security Council, in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations, failed to take action to stop these wars or acts of aggressions against small nations and peoples. The General Assembly will vote on a number of historic proposals. Either we act as one or we will fragment. If each nation were to have its own version of the General Assembly, the Security Council and the various instruments and each were to have an equal footing, the Powers that currently fill the permanent seats would be confinded to use of their own soverign bodies, whether there be three or four of them, and would have to exercise their rights against themselves. This is of no concern to us.

If they want to keep their permanent seats, that is fine; permanent seats will be of no concern to us. We shall never submit to their control or to their exercise of the veto that was given to them. We are not so foolish as to give the right of veto to the super-Powers to use so they can treat us as second-class citizens and as outcast nations. It is not we who decided that those countries are the super-Powers and respected nations with the power to act on behalf of 192 countries. You should be fully aware that we are ignoring the Security Council resolutions because those resolutions are used solely against us and not against the super-Powers which have the permanent seats and the right of veto. Those Powers never use any resolutions against themselves.

They are, however, used against us. Such use has turned the United Nations into a travesty of itself and has generated wars and violations of the sovereignty of independent States. It has led to war crimes and genocides. All of this is in violation of the Charter of the United Nations. Since no one pays attention to the Security Council of the United Nations, each country and community has established its own security council, and the Security Council here has become isolated. The African Union has already established its own Peace and Security Council, the European Union has already established a security council, and Asian countries have already established their own security council. Soon, Latin America will have its own Security Counci,l as will the 120 non-aligned nations.

This means that we have already lost confidence in the United Nations Security Council, which has not provided us with security, and that is why we now are creating new regional security councils. We are not committed to obeying the rules or the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council in its present form because it is undemocratic, dictatorial and unjust. No one can force us to join the Security Council or to obey or comply with resolutions or orders given by the Security Council in its present composition. Furthermore, there is no respect for the United Nations and no regard for the General Assembly, which is actually the true United Nations, but whose resolutions are non-binding. The decisions of the International Court of Justice, the international judicial body, take aim only at small countries and Third World nations. Powerful countries escape the notice of the Court. Or, if judicial decisions are taken against these powerful countries, they are not enforced.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an important agency within the United Nations. Powerful countries, however, are not accountable to it or under its jurisdiction. We have discovered that the IAEA is used only against us. We are told that it is an international organization, but, if that is the case, then all the countries of the world should be under its jurisdiction. If it is not truly international, then right after this speech we should no longer accept it and should close it down. Mr. Treki, in his capacity as President of the General Assembly, should talk to the Director General of the IAEA, Mr. ElBaradei, and should ask him if he is prepared to verify nuclear energy storage in all countries and inspect all suspected increases. If he says yes, then we accept the Agency’s jurisdiction.

But if he says that he cannot go into certain countries that have nuclear power and that he does not have any jurisdiction over them, then we should close the Agency down and not submit to its jurisdiction. For your information, I called Mr. ElBaradei when we had the problem of the Libyan nuclear bomb. I called Mr. ElBaradei and asked him if the agreements by the super-Powers to reduce nuclear supplies were subject to Agency control and under inspection, and whether he was aware of any increases in their activity. He told me that he was not in a position to ask the super-Powers to be inspected. So, is the Agency only inspecting us? If so, it does not qualify as an international organization since it is selective, just like the Security Council and the International Court of Justice. This is not equitable nor is it the United Nations. We totally reject this situation.

Regarding Africa, Mr. President, whether the United Nations is reformed or not, and even before a vote is taken on any proposals of a historic nature, Africa should be given a permanent seat on the Security Council now, having already waited too long. Leaving aside United Nations reform, we can certainly say that Africa was colonized, isolated and persecuted and its rights usurped. Its people were enslaved and treated like animals, and its territory was colonized and placed under trusteeship. The countries of the African Union deserve a permanent seat. This is a debt from the past that has to be paid and has nothing to do with United Nations reform. It is a priority matter and is high on the agenda of the General Assembly. No one can say that the African Union does not deserve a permanent seat. Who can argue with this proposal?

I challenge anyone to make a case against it. Where is the proof that the African Union or the African continent does not deserve a permanent seat? No one can possibly deny this. Another matter that should be voted on in the General Assembly is that of compensation for countries that were colonized, so as to prevent the colonization of a continent, the usurpation of its rights and the pillaging of its wealth from happening again. Why are Africans going to Europe? Why are Asians going to Europe? Why are Latin Americans going to Europe? It is because Europe colonized those peoples and stole the material and human resources of Africa, Asia and Latin America — the oil, minerals, uranium, gold and diamonds, the fruit, vegetables and livestock and the people — and used them.

Now, new generations of Asians, Latin Americans and Africans are seeking to reclaim that stolen wealth, as they have the right to do. At the Libyan border, I recently stopped 1,000 African migrants headed for Europe. I asked them why they were going there. They told me it was to take back their stolen wealth — that they would not be leaving otherwise. Who can restore the wealth that was taken from us? If you decide to restore all of this wealth, there will be no more immigration from the Philippines, Latin America, Mauritius and India. Let us have the wealth that was stolen from us. Africa deserves $777 trillion in compensation from the countries that colonized it. Africans will demand that amount, and if you do not give it to them, they will go to where you have taken those trillions of dollars. They have the right to do so.

They have to follow that money and to bring it back. Why is there no Libyan immigration to Italy, even though Libya is so close by? Italy owed compensation to the Libyan people. It accepted that fact and signed an agreement with Libya, which was adopted by both the Italian and Libyan Parliaments. Italy admitted that its colonization of Libya was wrong and should never be repeated, and it promised not to attack the Libyan people by land, air or sea. Italy also agreed to provide Libya with $250 million a year in compensation over the next 20 years and to build a hospital for Libyans maimed as a result of the mines planted in Libyan territory during the Second World War.

Italy apologized and promised that it would never again occupy the territory of another country. Italy, which was a kingdom during the Fascist regime and has made rich contributions to civilization, should be commended for this achievement, together with Prime Minister Berlusconi and his predecessor, who made their own contributions in that regard. Why is the Third World demanding compensation? So that there will be no more colonization — so that large and powerful countries will not colonize, knowing that they will have to pay compensation. Colonization should be punished. The countries that harmed other peoples during the colonial era should pay compensation for the damage and suffering inflicted under their colonial rule. There is another point that I would like to make. However, before doing so — and addressing a somewhat sensitive issue — I should like to make an aside.

We Africans are happy and proud indeed that a son of Africa is now President of the United States of America. That is a historic event. Now, in a country where blacks once could not mingle with whites, in cafés or restaurants, or sit next to them on a bus, the American people have elected as their President a young black man, Mr. Obama, of Kenyan heritage. That is a wonderful thing, and we are proud. It marks the beginning of a change. However, as far as I am concerned, Obama is a temporary relief for the next four or eight years. I am afraid that we may then go back to square one. No one can guarantee how America will be governed after Obama. We would be content if Obama could remain President of the United States of America for ever.

The statement that he just made shows that he is completely different from any American President that we have seen. American Presidents used to threaten us with all manner of weapons, saying that they would send us Desert Storm, Grapes of Wrath, Rolling Thunder and poisonous roses for Libyan children. That was their approach. American Presidents used to threaten us with operations such as Rolling Thunder, sent to Viet Nam; Desert Storm, sent to Iraq; Musketeer, sent to Egypt in 1956, even though America opposed it; and the poisonous roses visited upon Libyan children by Reagan. Can you imagine? One would have thought that Presidents of a large country with a permanent seat on the Security Council and the right of veto would have protected us and sent us peace. And what did we get instead? Laser-guided bombs carried to us on F-111 aircraft. This was their approach: we will lead the world, whether you like it or not, and will punish anyone who opposes us. What our son Obama said today is completely different. He made a serious appeal for nuclear disarmament, which we applaud. He also said that America alone could not solve the problems facing us and that the entire world should come together to do so. He said that we must do more than we are doing now, which is making speeches.

We agree with that and applaud it. He said that we had come to the United Nations to talk against one another. It is true that when we come here, we should communicate with one another on an equal footing. And he said that democracy should not be imposed from outside. Until recently, American Presidents have said that democracy should be imposed on Iraq and other countries. He said that this was an internal affair. He spoke truly when he said that democracy cannot be imposed from outside. So we have to be cautious. Before I make these sensitive remarks I note that the whole world has so many polarities. Listen: should we have a world of so many polarities? Can we not have nations on an equal footing? Let us have an answer. Does anyone have an answer as to whether it is better to have a world of so many polarities? Why can we not have equal standing? Should we have patriarchs? Should we have popes? Should we have gods? Why should we have a world of so many polarities? We reject such a world and call for a world where big and small are equal.

The other sensitive point is the Headquarters of the United Nations. Can I have your attention, please? All of you came across the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, crossing the Asian continent or the African continent to reach this place. Why? Is this Jerusalem? Is this the Vatican? Is this Mecca? All of you are tired, have jet lag, have sleepless nights. You are very tired, very low, physically. Somebody just arrived now, flying 20 hours. Then we want him to make a speech and talk about this. All of you are asleep, all of you are tired. It is clear that all of you are lacking energy because of having to make a long journey. Why do we do that? Some of our countries are in nighttime and people are asleep. Now you should be asleep, because your biological clock, your biological mind is accustomed to be asleep at this time. I wake up at 4 o’clock New York time, before dawn, because in Libya it is 11 in the morning. When I wake up at 11 o’clock it is supposed to be daytime; at 4 o’clock I am awake. Why? Think about it.

If this was decided in 1945, should we still retain it? Why can we not think about a place that is in the middle, that is comfortable? Another important point is that America, the host country, bears the expenses and looks after the Headquarters and diplomatic missions and looks after the peace and security of the heads of State who come here. They are very strict; they spend a lot of money, New York and all of America being very tight. I want to relieve America of this hardship. We should thank America; we say to America, thank you for all the trouble that you have taken on yourself. We say thank you to America. We want to help reassure America and New York and keep them calm.

They should not have the responsibility of looking after security. Perhaps some day a terrorist could cause an explosion or bomb a president. This place is targeted by Al-Qaida, this very building. Why was it not hit on 11 September? It was beyond their power. The next target would be this place. I am not saying this in an offhand manner. We have tens of members of Al-Qaida detained in Libyan prisons. Their confessions are very scary. That makes America live under tension. One never knows what will happen. Perhaps America or this place will be targeted again by a rocket. Perhaps tens of heads of State will die. We want to relieve America from this worry. We shall take the place to where it is not targeted. Now after 50 years United Nations Headquarters should be taken to another part of the hemisphere. After 50 years in the western hemisphere, for the next 50 years it should be in the eastern hemisphere or in the middle hemisphere, by rotation.

Now, with 64 years we have an extra 14 years over the 50 that Headquarters should have been moved to somewhere else. This is not an insult to America; it is a service to America. We should thank America. This was possible in 1945, but we should not accept it now. Of course this should be put to the vote in the General Assembly — only in the Assembly, because in section 23 of the Headquarters Agreement it says that the United Nations Headquarters can be moved to another location only by a resolution of the General Assembly. If 51 per cent of the Assembly approve relocation of Headquarters, then it can be moved. America has the right to make security tight because it is targeted by terrorists and by Al-Qaida. America has the right to take all security measures; we are not blaming America for that. However, we do not tolerate these measures.

We do not have to come to New York and be subjected to all these measures. One president told me that he was told that his co-pilot should not come to America because there are restrictions. He asked how he could cross the Atlantic without a co-pilot. Why? He does not have to come here. Another president complained that his honour guard could not come because there was some misunderstanding regarding his name when it came to granting a visa. Another president said his own doctor could not get a visa and could not come to America. The security measures are very strict. If a country has any problem with America, they will set up restrictions on the movements of member delegations, as if one is in Guantanamo. Is this a Member State of the United Nations, or is it a prisoner in the Guantanamo camp that cannot be allowed free movement? This is what is submitted to the General Assembly for a vote — moving the Headquarters. If 51 per cent agree, then we come to the second vote: to the middle of the globe, or to the eastern part. If we say that we must move the Headquarters to the middle of the hemisphere, why do we not move to Sirte or Vienna?

One can come even without a visa. Once you come as a president, Libya is a secure country. We are not going to restrict you to 100 or 500 metres. Libya has no hostile actions against anybody. I think the same holds true of Vienna. If the vote says we should move Headquarters to the eastern part, then it will be Delhi or Beijing, the capital of China or the capital of India. That is logical, my brothers. I do not think there will be any objection to that. Then you will thank me for this proposal, for eliminating the suffering and the trouble of flying 14, 15 or 20 hours to come here. No one can blame America or say that America will reduce its contributions to the United Nations. No one should have that bad thought. America, I am sure, is committed to its international obligations. America will not be angry; it will thank you for alleviating its hardship, for taking on all that hardship and all the restrictions, even though this place is targeted by terrorists. We come now to the issues that will be considered by the General Assembly.

We are about to put the United Nations on trial; the old organization will be finished and a new one will emerge. This is not a normal gathering. Even son Obama said that this is not a normal gathering. It is a historic meeting. The wars that took place after the establishment of the United Nations — why did they occur? Where was the Security Council, where was the Charter, where was the United Nations? There should be investigations and judicial intervention. Why have there been massacres? We can start with the Korean War because it took place after the establishment of the United Nations. How did a war break out and cause millions of victims? Nuclear weapons could have been used in that war. Those who are responsible for causing the war should be tried and should pay compensation and damages. Then we come to the Suez Canal war of 1956. That file should be opened wide. Three countries with permanent seats on the Security Council and with the right of veto in the Council attacked a member State of this General Assembly.

A country that was a sovereign State — Egypt — was attacked, its army was destroyed, thousands of Egyptians were killed and many Egyptian towns and entities were destroyed, all because Egypt wanted to nationalize the Suez Canal. How could such a thing have happened during the era of the United Nations and its Charter? How is it possible to guarantee that such a thing will not be repeated unless we make amends for past wrongs? Those were dangerous events and the Suez Canal and Korean war files should be re-opened. Next we come to the Viet Nam war. There were 3 million victims of that war. During 12 days, more bombs were dropped than during four years of the Second World War. It was a fiercer war, and it took place after the establishment of the United Nations and after we had decided that there would be no more wars.

The future of humankind is at stake. We cannot stay silent. How can we feel safe? How can we be complacent? This is the future of the world, and we who are in the General Assembly of the United Nations must make sure that such wars are not repeated in the future. Then Panama was attacked, even though it was an independent member State of the General Assembly. Four thousand people were killed, and the President of that country was taken prisoner and put in prison. Noriega should be released — we should open that file. How can we entitle a country that is a United Nations Member State to wage war against another country and capture its president, treat him as a criminal and put him in prison? Who would accept that? It could be repeated. We should not stay quiet. We should have an investigation. Any one of us Member States could face the same situation, especially if such aggression is by a Member State with a permanent seat on the Security Council and with the responsibility to maintain peace and security worldwide.

Then there was the war in Grenada. That country was invaded even though it was a Member State. It was attacked by 5,000 war ships, 7,000 troops and dozens of military aircraft, and it is the smallest country in the world. This occurred after the establishment of the United Nations and of the Security Council and its veto. And the President of Grenada, Mr. Maurice Bishop, was assassinated. How could that have happened with impunity? It is a tragedy. How can we guarantee that the United Nations is good or not, that a certain country is good or not? Can we be safe or happy about our future or not? Can we trust the Security Council or not? Can we trust the United Nations or not? We must look into and investigate the bombing of Somalia. Somalia is a United Nations Member State. It is an independent country under the rule of Aidid. We want an investigation. Why did that happen? Who allowed it to happen? Who gave the green light for that country to be attacked? Then there is the former Yugoslavia.

No country was as peaceful as Yugoslavia, constructed step by step and piece by piece after being destroyed by Hitler. We destroyed it, as if we were doing the same job as Hitler. Tito built that peaceful country step by step and brick by brick and then we arrived and broke it apart for imperialistic, personal interests. How can we be complacent about that? Why can we not be satisfied? If a peaceful country like Yugoslavia faced such a tragedy, the General Assembly should have an investigation and should decide who should be tried before the International Criminal Court. Then we have the war in Iraq — the mother of all evils. The United Nations should also investigate that. The General Assembly, presided over by Mr. Treki, should investigate that. The invasion of Iraq was a violation of the United Nations Charter. It was done without any justification by super-Powers with permanent seats on the Security Council. Iraq is an independent country and a member State of the General Assembly. How could those countries attack Iraq? As provided for in the Charter, the United Nations should have intervened and stopped the attack. We spoke in the General Assembly and urged it to use the Charter to stop that attack. We were against the invasion of Kuwait, and the Arab countries fought Iraq alongside foreign countries in the name of the United Nations Charter.

In the first instance, the Charter was respected, The second time when we wanted to use the Charter to stop the war against Iraq, no one used it and that document was ignored. Why did that occur? Mr. Treki and the General Assembly should investigate to determine whether there was any reason at all to invade Iraq. Because the reasons for that attack remain mysterious and ambiguous, and we might face the same destiny. Why was Iraq invaded? The invasion itself was a serious violation of the United Nations Charter, and it was wrong. There was also a total massacre or genocide. More than 1.5 million Iraqis were killed. We want to bring the Iraqi file before the International Criminal Court (ICC), and we want those who committed mass murder against the Iraqi people to be tried. It is easy for Charles Taylor to be tried, or for Bashir to be tried, or for Noriega to be tried. That is an easy job. Yes, but what about those who have committed mass murder against the Iraqis? They cannot be tried? They cannot go before the ICC?

If the Court is unable to accommodate us, then we should not accept it. Either it is meant for all of us, large or small, or we should not accept it and should reject it. Anyone who commits a war crime can be tried, but we are not livestock or animals like those that are slaughtered for the Eid. We have the right to live, and we are ready to fight and to defend ourselves. We have the right to live in dignity, under the sun and on earth; they have already tested us and we have withstood the test. There are other things as well. Why is it that Iraqi prisoners of war can be sentenced to death? When Iraq was invaded and the President of Iraq was taken he was a prisoner of war. He should not have been tried; he should not have been hanged. When the war was over, he should have been released. We want to know why a prisoner of war should have been tried.

Who sentenced the President of Iraq to death? Is there an answer to that question? We know the identity of the judge who tried him. As to who tied the noose around the President’s neck on the day of sacrifice and hanged him, those people wore masks. How could this have happened in a civilized world? These were prisoners of war of civilized countries under international law. How could Government ministers and a head of State be sentenced to death and hanged? Were those who tried them lawyers or members of a judicial system? Do you know what people are saying? They are saying that the faces behind the masks were those of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and that it was they who put the President of Iraq to death. Why do the executioners not unmask their faces? Why do we not know their ranks? Why do we not know whether they were officers, judges, soldiers or doctors? How does it come about that the President of a State Member of the United Nations was sentenced to death and killed? We do not know the identity of the executioners.

The United Nations is duty-bound to answer these questions: who carried out the death sentence? They must have legal status and official responsibilities; we should know their identities and we should know about the presence of a physician and the nature of all the legal proceedings. That would be true for an ordinary citizen, let alone for the President of a State Member of the United Nations who was put to death in that manner. My third point on the Iraq war relates to Abu Ghraib. This was a disgrace to humankind. I know that the United States authorities will investigate this scandal, but the United Nations must not ignore it either. The General Assembly should investigate this matter. Prisoners of war held in Abu Ghraib prison were torturers; dogs were set on them; men were raped.

This is unprecedented in the history of war. It was sodomy, and it was an unprecedented sin, never before committed by past aggressors or invaders. Prisoners of war are soldiers, but these were raped in prison by a State, a permanent member of the Security Council. This goes against civilization and humankind. We must not keep silent; we must know the facts. Even today, a quarter of a million Iraqi prisoners, men and women alike, remain in Abu Ghraib. They are being maltreated, persecuted and raped. There must be an investigation. Turning to the war in Afghanistan, this too must be investigated. Why are we against the Taliban? Why are we against Afghanistan? Who are the Taliban? If the Taliban want a religious State, that is fine.

Think of the Vatican. Does the Vatican pose a threat to us? No. It is a religious, very peaceful State. If the Taliban want to create an Islamic Amirate, who says that this makes them an enemy? Is anyone claiming that Bin Laden is of the Taliban or that he is Afghan? Is Bin Laden of the Taliban? No; he is not of the Taliban and he is not Afghan. Were the terrorists who hit New York City of the Taliban? Were they from Afghanistan? They were neither Taliban nor Afghan. Then, what was the reason for the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan? If I truly wanted to deceive my American and British friends, I would encourage them to send more troops and I would encourage them to persist in this bloodbath. But they will never succeed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Look what happened to them in Iraq, which is a desert. It is even worse in mountainous Afghanistan.

If I wanted to deceive them I would tell them to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But no, I want to save the citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I tell them: leave Afghanistan to the Afghans; leave Iraq to the Iraqis. If they want to fight each other, they are free to do so. America had its Civil War, and no one interfered in it. There were civil wars in Spain, China and countries all over the world — no place on Earth has been free of civil wars. Let there be a civil war in Iraq. If the Iraqis want to have a civil war and fight each other, that is fine. Who says that if the Taliban form a Government they would possess intercontinental missiles or the kind of aeroplanes that hit New York? Did those aeroplanes take off from Afghanistan or Iraq? No; they took off from American airports. So why is Afghanistan being struck? The terrorists were not Afghans or Taliban or Iraqis. Why are we silent? We must never be war devils: anyone who does not speak the truth is a silent devil. We are committed to international peace and security. We do not wish to scorn or ridicule humankind. We want to save humanity.

As President of the General Assembly, Mr. Ali Treki should open an investigation of the assassinations file — in addition to the war files. Who killed Patrice Lumumba, and why? We merely want to record it in the annals of African history; we want to know how an African leader, a liberator, came to be assassinated. Who killed him? We want our sons to be able to read the history of how Patrice Lumumba, the hero of Congo’s liberation struggle, was assassinated. We want to know the facts, even 50 years on. That is one file that should be reopened. And who killed Secretary-General Hammarskjöld? Who fired on his aeroplane in 1961, and why? Then, there is the assassination of United States President Kennedy in 1963. We want to know who killed him and why. There was somebody called Lee Harvey Oswald, who was then killed by one Jack Ruby. Why did he kill him? Jack Ruby, an Israeli, killed Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed Kennedy. Why did this Israeli kill Kennedy’s killer? Then Jack Ruby, the killer of the killer of Kennedy, died in mysterious circumstances before he could be tried. We must open the files. The whole world knows that Kennedy wanted to investigate the Israeli Dimona nuclear reactor.

This involves international peace and security and weapons of mass destrucion. That is why we should open this file. Then there is the assassination of Martin Luther King, the black reverend and human rights activist. His assassination was a plot, and we should know why he was killed and who killed him. Then Khalil Wazir, or Abu Jihad, a Palestinian, was attacked. He was living peacefully in Tunisia, a Member State, and that country’s sovereignty was not respected. We cannot keep silent. Even though submarines and ships were detected along the coast of Tunisia, where he was killed, no one was accused or tried. Abu Iyad was also killed, and we should know how he was killed. He was killed in ambiguous circumstances. In Operation Spring of Youth, Kamal Nasser, a poet, Kamal Adwan and Abu Youssef al-Najjar, three Palestinians, were killed in Lebanon, a country that is a free, sovereign State member of the General Assembly. They were attacked and killed while sleeping peacefully. We should know who killed them, and he should be tried so that those crimes against humanity are not repeated. We have already talked about the size of the force used in the invasion of Grenada — 7,000 troops, 15 battleships and dozens of bombers — and President Bishop was killed even though Grenada was a Member State. Those are crimes, and we cannot keep silent.

Otherwise, we will look like sacrificial beasts. We are not animals. Year after year, we are attacked. We defend ourselves, our sons and our children, and we are not afraid. We have the right to live, and the Earth is not destined for violence, but for us all. We can never live on this Earth in such humiliation. So those are the wars. The last file is that of the massacres. In the Sabra and Shatila massacre, 3,000 people were killed. That area, under the protection of the occupying Israeli army, was the site of a huge and calamitous massacre in which 3,000 Palestinian men, women and children were killed. How can we keep quiet? Lebanon is a sovereign State; a member of the General Assembly was occupied, Sabra and Shatila were under Israeli control, and then the massacre took place. Then there was the 2008 massacre in Gaza. There were 1,000 women and 2,200 children among the victims killed in the massacre in Gaza in 2008. Sixty United Nations facilities and another 30 belonging to non-governmental organizations were damaged. Fifty clinics were destroyed. Forty doctors and nurses were killed while carrying out humanitarian activities. This took place in Gaza in December 2008. The perpetrators are still alive, and they should be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Should we try only the underdogs, the weak and the poor of third-world countries, and not important and protected figures? Under international law, they should all face trial for the consequences of the crimes that they have committed. Otherwise, the role of the ICC will never be recognized. If the decisions of the ICC are not respected or implemented, if the General Assembly and the Security Council mean nothing, and if the International Atomic Energy Agency serves only certain countries and organizations, then what is the United Nations? It would mean that the United Nations is nothing and is insignificant. Where is it? There is no United Nations. Then, while piracy may be a phenomenon of the high seas, a form of terrorism, we talk about the piracy in Somalia. Somalis are not pirates. We are the pirates. We went there and usurped their economic zones, their fish and their wealth. Libya, India, Japan and America — any country in the world — we are all pirates. We all entered the territorial waters and economic zones of Somalia and stole.

The Somalis are protecting their own fish, their sustenance. They have become pirates because they are defending their children’s food. Now, we seek to address that matter in the wrong way. Should we send warships to Somalia? We should send warships to the pirates who have attacked and seized the economic zones and wealth of the Somalis and the food of their children. I met the pirates, and I told them that I would negotiate an agreement between them and the international community that respects the 200-mile exclusive economic zone under the law of the sea, that protects all marine resources belonging to the Somali people, and that stops all countries from disposing of toxic waste along the Somali coast. In return, the Somalis would no longer attack ships. We will propose and draft such an international treaty and submit it to the General Assembly. That is the solution. The solution does not lie in sending more military ships to fight the Somalis. That is not the solution. We are addressing the phenomena of piracy and terrorism in the wrong way. Today there is swine flu.

Perhaps tomorrow there will be fish flu, because sometimes we produce viruses by controlling them. It is a commercial business. Capitalist companies produce viruses so that they can generate and sell vaccinations. That is very shameful and poor ethics. Vaccinations and medicine should not be sold. In The Green Book, I maintain that medicines should not be sold or subject to commercialization. Medicines should be free of charge and vaccinations given free to children, but capitalist companies produce the viruses and vaccinations and want to make a profit. Why are they not free of charge? We should give them free of charge, and not sell them.

The entire world should strive to protect our people, create and manufacture vaccinations and give them free to children and women, and not profit by them. All those items are on the agenda of the General Assembly, which has only to exercise that duty. The Ottawa Convention on Landmines forbids the production of landmines. That is wrong. Landmines are defensive weapons. If I place them along the border of my country and someone wants to invade me, they may be killed. That is all right, because they are invading me. The Convention should be reconsidered. I am not taking that defensive weapon to another country. The enemy is coming to me. On the Al-Qadhafi website, I call for that treaty to be modified or annulled. This treaty should be modified or annulled. I want to use anti-personnel mines to defend my home against invasion. Eliminate weapons of mass destruction, not landmines, which are defensive weapons. With regard to the Palestinian situation, the twoState solution is impossible; it is not practical. Currently, these two States completely overlap. Partition is doomed to failure.

These two States are not neighbours; they are coextensive, in terms of both population and geography. A buffer zone cannot be created between the two States because there are half a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank and a million Arab Palestinians in the territory known as Israel. The solution is therefore a democratic State without religious fanaticism or ethnicity. The generation of Sharon and Arafat is over. We need a new generation, in which everyone can live in peace. Look at Palestinian and Israeli youth; they both want peace and democracy, and they want to live under one State. This conflict poisons the world. The White Book actually has the solution; I hold it here. The solution is Isratine. Arabs have no hostility or animosity towards Israel.

We are cousins and of the same race. We want to live in peace. The refugees should go back. You are the ones who brought the Holocaust upon the Jews. You, not we, are the ones who burned them. We gave them refuge. We gave them safe haven during the Roman era and the Arab reign in Andalusia and during the rule of Hitler. You are the ones who poisoned them; you are the ones who annihilated them. We provided them with protection. You expelled them. Let us see the truth. We are not hostile; we are not enemies of the Jews. And one day the Jews will need the Arabs. At that point, Arabs will be the ones to give them protection, to save them, as we have done in the past. Look at what everybody else did to the Jews.

Hitler is an example. You are the ones who hate the Jews, not us. In brief, Kashmir should be an independent State, neither Indian nor Pakistani. We must end that conflict. Kashmir should be a buffer State between India and Pakistan. With regard to Darfur, I truly hope that the assistance provided by international organizations can be used for development projects, for agriculture, for industry and for irrigation. You are the ones who made it a crisis; you put it on the altar; you wanted to sacrifice Darfur so that you could interfere in its internal affairs. You have turned the Hariri problem into a United Nations problem. You are selling Hariri’s corpse. You just want to settle scores with Syria.

Lebanon is an independent State; it has laws, courts, a judiciary and police. At this stage, it is no longer the perpetrators that are being sought; the real wish is to settle scores with Syria, not ensure justice for Hariri. The cases of Khalil al-Wazir, Lumumba, Kennedy, and Hammarskjöld should also have been turned over to the United Nations, if the Hariri case merits such attention. The General Assembly is now under the presidency of Libya. This is our right. Libya hopes that you will assist in making the transition from a world fraught with crises and tension to a world in which humanity, peace and tolerance prevail. I will personally follow up on this issue with the General Assembly, President Treki and the Secretary-General. It is not our habit to compromise when it comes to the destiny of humanity and the struggles of the third world and the 100 small nations, which should live in peace always.

[[Category:Library works by Muammar Gaddafi]]

Library:Gaddafi's Speech at the 64th UN General Assembly

2023-10-09T02:18:44Z

TDM: Created article

All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

2023-10-07T03:43:16Z

TDM: Minor edits and tweaks

{{Infobox political party|name=All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks|native_name=Всесоюзная Коммунистическая партия большевиков|logo=[[File:Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.png|100px]]||founded=1991|abbreviation=VKPB|dissolution=|newspaper=''Serp i Molot'' (''Sickle and Hammer'')<br>''Raboche-krest'yanskaya pravda'' (''Workers' and Peasants' Truth'')<br>''Vpered'' (''Forward'')|political_orientation=[[Communism]]<br>[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Scientific socialism]]<br>[[Anti-revisionism]]<br>[[Soviet restorationism]]}}

The '''All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks''' '''(VKPB)''' is an [[anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[communist party]] that operates in [[Russia]] and throughout the former [[Soviet Union]]. It was founded in November 1991 by [[Nina Andreyeva]]. The party opposes the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]], considering it [[reformist]], and refuses to back its candidates in presidential elections. The party is strictly atheistic, being outspoken against religion and is a critic of [[Vladimir Putin]]'s regime.<ref>https://www.vkpb.ru/index.php/programma-vkpb/the-programme#P7</ref> The party is critical of [[Khrushchevism]] and aims for the [[Soviet restorationism|restoration of the Soviet Union]]. The party had 22,000 members as of 2013.

==Platform==
* Overthrow of the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] and establishment of a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] in the form of [[soviet (governmental body)|soviets]].
* Abolishment of religion.
* Liquidation of [[private property]].
* [[Nationalization]] of industry.
* Nationalization of all mass-media.
* [[Collectivization]] of agriculture.
* Free housing.
* Free education.
* Free [[universal healthcare]].
* Pensions for the elderly and disabled.
* Restoration of the [[USSR]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Communist parties]]

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

2023-10-07T03:34:46Z

TDM:

{{Infobox political party
| colorcode = red
| name = Communist Party of the Soviet Union
| native_name = Коммунисти́ческая па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за
| native_name_lang = Russian
| logo = [[File:CPSU.svg|frameless|175px]]
| abbreviation = CPSU
| founded = May, 1917
| dissolved = 6 November, 1991
| newspaper = ''Pravda''
| think_tank = Central Policy Research Office
| youth_wing = Young Communist League </br> Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization
| political_orientation = [[Marxism–Leninism]]
}}
{{Communist parties}}

The '''Communist Party of the Soviet Union''' ('''CPSU'''),<ref name=":0" group="lower-alpha" /> was a [[communist party]] tracing back to the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party]] (RSDLP), which was established in its second congress in 1903.<ref>{{Citation|author=Central Committee of the CPSU|year=1938|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=Formation of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Appearance of the Bolshevik and the Menshevik groups within the party|quote=Notwithstanding the fact that the First Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Party had been held in 1898, and that it had announced the formation of the Party, no real party was as yet created. There was no party program or party rules. The Central Committee of the Party elected at the First Congress was arrested and never replaced, for there was nobody to replace it. Worse still, the ideological confusion and lack of organizational cohesion of the Party became even more marked after the First Congress.<br><br>[...]<br><br>Iskra linked up the scattered Social-Democratic circles and groups and prepared the way for the convocation of the Second Party Congress. At the Second Congress, held in 1903, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was formed, a Party Program and Rules were adopted, and the central leading organs of the Party were set up.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/index.htm}}</ref> The party brought together the [[Vanguard party|vanguard]] of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet]] peoples in the construction of [[Socialism|socialist]] society.

Its predecessor, the RSDLP, had split into [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] and [[Mensheviks|Menshevik]] factions in 1903. The CPSU emerged in continuity with the Bolshevik political line.

The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist Party of Russia (Bolsheviks) in 1918, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1925, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) in 1952.

== Names==

*1917–1918: Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks); RSDLP(b)<ref group="lower-alpha">Russian: Российская социал-демократическая рабочая партия (большевиков); РСДРП(б)</ref>
*1918–1925: Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks); RCP(b)<ref group="lower-alpha">Russian: Российская коммунистическая партия (большевиков); РКП(б)</ref>
*1925–1952: All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks); AUCP(b)<ref group="lower-alpha">Russian: Всесоюзная коммунистическая партия (большевиков); ВКП(б)</ref>
*1952–1991: Communist Party of the Soviet Union; CPSU<ref group="lower-alpha" name=":0">Russian: Коммунистическая партия Советского Союза; КПСС</ref>

== History ==

=== Russian Social Democratic Labour Party ===
In 1898 the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party]] was created, uniting the several communist study groups scattered around Russia. Among its founders were people like [[Vladimir Lenin]] and [[Julius Martov]]. It established itself as a Marxist party that had the task of overthrowing the monarchy and bring about socialism. However during the course of the struggle there was a lot of disagreement about when this goal was to be implemented and how. In 1903 emerged a ''de facto'' split in the party, and two factions were formed: the [[Mensheviks]] led by Martov and the [[Bolsheviks]] led by Lenin.

Although Lenin and many others first anticipated the two groups could merge again, the split ended up worsening and the two factions became separate parties: the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks) and the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks).

The main differences between the groups were the following:<blockquote>1. The Bolsheviks wanted an organisationally united party of serious revolutionaries while the Mensheviks wanted a more loose [[Reformism|reformist]] party.

2. Both parties agreed that the next course of action was to overthrow the monarchy and carry out the so-called “[[Bourgeois revolution|bourgeois-democratic revolution]].” This would make Russia a capitalist [[Bourgeois democracy|parliamentary democracy]]. However the Mensheviks argued that the class to lead the revolution was the [[bourgeoisie]], the capitalist class, as the bourgeois class served this function in the [[French Revolution]]. The Bolsheviks disagreed, they thought the [[Bourgeoisie|capitalists]] couldn’t be trusted to carry out the democratic revolution: they were weaker than the bourgeoisie in [[French Republic (1792–1804)|France]] at the time, they allied with the monarchy, and they feared the workers and peasants. In fact, Lenin argued that the Russian [[proletariat]] was much stronger and more developed than the French proletariat of the late 1700s and therefore should lead the democratic revolution, and not merely support it.

3. Lastly, the Mensheviks didn’t think Russia was ready for socialism, in their opinion the workers could never take power in Russia until after a long time of capitalist and parliamentary development. Even though the debate about workers revolution and socialism would only come about fully later, this attitude relates to the Menshevik position that the workers shouldn’t lead the democratic revolution, but only support the capitalist class against the monarchy.</blockquote>

=== Split with Mensheviks ===

=== October Revolution ===
The party grew from 10,000 members in April 1917 to 500,000 by the time of the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October Revolution]].<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Vijay Prashad]]|year=2017|title=Red Star over the Third World|chapter=Red October|page=28|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacecu7gb2ei65us6ip3r2ugcgkblneqcftbm456mb6bzvprkbqk55qm?filename=Vijay%20Prashad%20-%20Red%20Star%20Over%20the%20Third%20World-LeftWord%20Books%20%282018%29.pdf|city=New Delhi|publisher=LeftWord Books}}</ref>

=== Civil War ===
The party reached 600,000 members in 1921. Lenin conducted the first purge of the party in 1921 and expelled 25% of its members including 45% in the countryside. This purge was the largest in the party's history. Party members could be expelled for the following reasons:

* Being former [[Kulak|kulaks]], [[White Army|Whites]], or [[Counterrevolution|counterrevolutionaries]]
* Being [[Corruption|corrupt]], [[Bureaucracy|bureaucratic]], or overly ambitious
* Rejecting [[Democratic centralism|party discipline]] or disobeying the Central Committee
* Committing crimes or sexual misconduct or being drunk publicly<ref name=":02">{{Citation|author=Ludo Martens|year=1996|title=Another View of Stalin|chapter=The struggle against bureaucracy|isbn=9782872620814|publisher=Editions EPO|pdf=https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceab64vxtxpqt2cdl4zsrsftmedqidn4foq74gr25qkd35z5nwogdi?filename=Ludo%20Martens%20-%20Another%20View%20of%20Stalin-Editions%20EPO%20%281996%29.pdf|page=102–105}}</ref>

=== Internal struggles ===
[[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] and [[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]] formed an anti-Party bloc in 1926, leading the Central Committee to organize a general party discussion. 724,000 party members voted for the Central Committee and only 4,000 voted for the [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]].<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Joseph Stalin]]|year=1939|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|chapter=The Bolshevik Party in the Struggle for the Socialist Industrialization of the Country|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch03.htm|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch10.htm}}</ref>

The Central Committee purged Trotsky and his followers from the party in December 1927. In June 1928, several Trotskyists, including Zinoviev, [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]], [[Yevgeni Preobrazhensky|Preobrazhensky]], and [[Alexei Rykov|Rykov]], returned to the party after recanting their views. [[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]] and the Right Opposition soon formed an alliance with the Trotskyists against [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]].<ref name=":022">{{Citation|author=Ludo Martens|year=1996|title=Another View of Stalin|chapter=The Great Purge|isbn=9782872620814|publisher=Editions EPO|pdf=https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceab64vxtxpqt2cdl4zsrsftmedqidn4foq74gr25qkd35z5nwogdi?filename=Ludo%20Martens%20-%20Another%20View%20of%20Stalin-Editions%20EPO%20%281996%29.pdf|page=116–117}}</ref>

Between 1928 and 1931, the CPSU accepted 1.4 million new members, including many who lacked [[Theory|theoretical]] knowledge. 11% of the party was purged in 1929. Another purge began in 1933 and lasted two years. It was difficult to tell who was a party member because 250,000 party cards were lost or stolen.<ref name=":02" /> Zinoviev and Kamenev were purged a second time in the early 1930s.<ref name=":022" />

=== 17th Congress ===
The 17th Party Congress was held in 1934 following the success of the First Five-Year Plan. Opposition leaders were invited to make speeches.<ref name=":022" />

=== 1937–38 purges ===
278,818 people were expelled from the party during the [[Soviet purges of 1937–1938|purges of 1937 and 1938]]. The number of expulsions was lower than in previous years, but a much higher proportion of those purged were active cadres. Many wrongfully purged members appealed to rejoin the party, and 54% them were readmitted. Out of 182,000 Old Bolsheviks (party members before 1921) in 1934, 125,000 remained in the party by 1939.<ref name=":022332">{{Citation|author=Ludo Martens|year=1996|title=Another View of Stalin|chapter=The Great Purge|isbn=9782872620814|publisher=Editions EPO|pdf=https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceab64vxtxpqt2cdl4zsrsftmedqidn4foq74gr25qkd35z5nwogdi?filename=Ludo%20Martens%20-%20Another%20View%20of%20Stalin-Editions%20EPO%20%281996%29.pdf|page=167–170}}</ref>

=== 19th Congress ===
At the 19th Party Congress in 1952, the last congress before the death of Stalin, [[Georgy Malenkov|Malenkov]] upheld Marxism–Leninism, [[self-criticism]], and party discipline. Stalin criticized [[Anastas Mikoyan|Mikoyan]] and [[Lavrentiy Beria|Beria]] and worried that the party would not be able to recognize enemies without him.<ref name=":02233232">{{Citation|author=Ludo Martens|year=1996|title=Another View of Stalin|chapter=From Stalin to Khrushchev|isbn=9782872620814|publisher=Editions EPO|pdf=https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceab64vxtxpqt2cdl4zsrsftmedqidn4foq74gr25qkd35z5nwogdi?filename=Ludo%20Martens%20-%20Another%20View%20of%20Stalin-Editions%20EPO%20%281996%29.pdf|page=253–260}}</ref>

=== Perestroika ===
The CPSU held its 19th Conference in June 1988, and [[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]] and [[Alexander Yakovlev|Yakovlev]] implemented parliamentary policies. Gorbachev purged non-revisionists, including [[Andrei Gromyko]], from the Politburo, and changed [[Yegor Ligachyov|Ligachyov]] from head of ideology to head of agriculture. Party membership began dropping, and the party lost more than 250,000 members in 1990.

The 28th Party Congress in July 1990 weakened the Central Committee and made the entire Congress instead of just the CC elect the General Secretary. It allowed the formation of factions within the party.<ref name=":032">{{Citation|author=Roger Keeran, Thomas Kenny|year=2010|title=Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union|chapter=Crisis and Collapse, 1989-91|page=180–187|pdf=https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzaceaj5ucph44bjwyhlhsbycckr3ts76zbucn2hbrea32tltcd4s5ekg?filename=Roger%20Keeran_%20Thomas%20Kenny%20-%20Socialism%20Betrayed_%20Behind%20the%20Collapse%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union-iUniverse.com%20%282010%29.pdf|publisher=iUniverse.com|isbn=9781450241717}}</ref>

== Demographics ==
In 1922, [[Judaism|Jews]] made up 5.2% of party membership, roughly five times their total proportion of the population. From the late 1920s through the 1940s, the percentage of Jews in the party was about 4.3%.'''<ref name=":023">{{Citation|author=Albert Szymanski|year=1984|title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union|chapter=The European Nationalities in the USSR|page=88|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceazdmtb2y3qq27fve5ib3gk7uv2unt6ae2xss74xmfpur7k5uhl5m?filename=Albert%20Szymanski%20-%20Human%20Rights%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union_%20Including%20Comparisons%20with%20the%20U.S.A.-Zed%20Books%20Ltd.%20%281984%29.pdf|city=London|publisher=Zed Books Ltd|isbn=0862320186|lg=https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=C597B1232D9EA6B0F3DCB438D7E15A81}}</ref>'''

In 1972, the majority of CPSU members were [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1991)|Russians]], but [[Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1991)|Georgians]] made up the highest ratio of party members per capita, followed by Russians and then [[Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1936–1991)|Armenians]]. [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940–1991)|Moldovans]] were the most underrepresented nationality in the party.<ref>{{Citation|author=Albert Szymanski|year=1984|title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union|title-url=https://archive.org/details/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion/page/n37/mode/1up|chapter=The Asian Nationalities in the USSR|page=59|city=London}}</ref> The percentage of women in the party rose from 7.4% in 1920 to 26.5% in 1981.<ref>{{Citation|author=Albert Szymanski|year=1984|title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union|title-url=https://archive.org/details/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion/page/n37/mode/1up|chapter=Women in the USSR|page=118|city=London}}</ref>

==References==
<references />

===Notes===
<references group="lower-alpha"/>
[[Category:Communist parties]]
[[Category:History of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Politics of the Soviet Union]]

Library:The Day of the People

2023-10-06T22:15:20Z

TDM: Created article

{{Library work|title=The Day of the People|author=Eugene V. Debs|published_date=1919|source=[https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1919/daypeople.htm Marxists Internet Archive]}}

Upon his release from the Kaiser’s bastile – the doors of which were torn from their hinges by the proletarian revolution – Karl Liebknecht, heroic leader of the rising hosts, exclaimed: “The Day of the People has arrived!” It was a magnificent challenge to the Junkers and an inspiring battle-cry to the aroused workers.

From that day to this Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and other true leaders of the German proletariat have stood bravely at the front, appealing to the workers to join the revolution and make it complete by destroying what remained of the criminal and corrupt old regime and ushering in the day of the people. Then arose the cry that the people were not yet ready for their day, and Ebert and Scheidemann and their crowd of white-livered reactionaries, with the sanction and support of the fugitive Kaiser, the infamous Junkers arid all the allied powers, now in beautiful alliance, proceeded to prove that the people were not yet ready to rule themselves by setting up a bourgeois government under which the working class should remain in substantially the same state of slavish subjection they were in at the beginning of the war.

And now upon that issue – as to whether the terrible war has brought the people their day or whether its appalling sacrifices have all been in vain – the battle is raging in Germany as in Russia, and the near future will determine whether revolution has for once been really triumphant or whether sudden reaction has again won the day.

In the struggle in Russia the revolution has thus far triumphed for the reason that it has not compromised. The career of Kerensky was cut short when he attempted to turn the revolutionary tide into reactionary bourgeois channels.

Lenin and Trotsky were the men of the hour and under their fearless, incorruptible and uncompromising leadership the Russian proletariat has held the fort against the combined assaults of all the ruling class powers of earth. It is a magnificent spectacle. It stirs the blood and warms the heart of every revolutionist, and it challenges the admiration of all the world.

So far as the Russian proletariat is concerned, the day of the people has arrived, and they are fighting and dying as only heroes and martyrs can fight and die to usher in the day of the people not only in Russia but in all the nations on the globe.

In every revolution of the past the false and cowardly plea that the people were “not yet ready” has prevailed. Some intermediate class invariably supplanted the class that was overthrown and “the people” remained at the bottom where they have been since the beginning of history. They have never been “ready” to rid themselves of their despots, robbers and parasites. All they have ever been ready for has been to exchange one brood of vampires for another to drain their veins and fatten in their misery.

That was Kerensky’s doctrine in Russia and it is Scheidemann’s doctrine in Germany. They are both false prophets of the people and traitors to the working class, and woe be to their deluded followers if their vicious reaction triumphs, for then indeed will the yokes be fastened afresh upon their scarred and bleeding necks for another generation.

When Kerensky attempted to side-track the revolution hi Russia by joining forces with the bourgeoisie he was lauded by the capitalist press of the whole world. When Scheidemann patriotically rushed to the support of the Kaiser and the Junkers at the beginning of the war, the same press denounced him as the betrayer of socialism and the enemy of the people. And now this very press lauds him to the heavens as the savior of the German nation! Think of it! Scheidemann the traitor has become Scheidemann the hero of the bourgeoisie. Could it be for any other reason on earth than that Scheidemann is doing the dirty work of the capitalist class?

And all this time the prostitute press of the robber regime of the whole world is shrieking hideously against Bolshevism. “It is worse than Kaiserism” is the burden of their cry. Certainly it is. They would a thousand times rather have the Kaiser restored to his throne than to see the working class rise to power. In the latter event they cease to rule, their graft is gone and their class disappears, and well do they know it. That is what we said from the beginning and for which we have been sentenced as disloyalists and traitors.

Scheidemann and his breed do not believe that the day of the people has arrived. According to them the war and the revolution have brought the day of the bourgeoisie. Mr. Bourgeois is now to take the place of Mr. Junker – to evolute into another Junker himself by and by – while Mr. Wage-Slave remains where he was before, under the heels of his master, and all he gets out of the carnage, in which his blood dyed the whole earth, is a new set of heels to grind into his exploited bones and a fresh and lusty vampire to drain his life-blood.

Away with all such perfidious doctrines; forever away with such a vicious subterfuge and treacherous betrayal!

The people are ready for their day. THE PEOPLE, I say. Yes, the people!

Who are the people? The people are the working class, the lower class, the robbed, the oppressed, the impoverished, the great majority of the earth. They and those who sympathize with them are THE PEOPLE, and they who exploit the working class, and the mercenaries and menials who aid and abet the exploiters, are the enemies of the people.

That is the attitude of Lenin and Trotsky in Russia and was of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, and this accounts for the flood of falsehood and calumny which poured upon the heads of the brave leaders and their revolutionary movement from the filthy mouthpieces of the robber regime of criminal capitalism throughout the world.

The rise of the working-class is the red spectre in the bourgeois horizon. The red cock shall never crow. Anything but that! The Kaiser himself will be pitied and forgiven if he will but roll his eyes heavenward, proclaim the menace of Bolshevism, and appeal to humanity to rise in its wrath and stamp out this curse to civilization.

And still the “curse” continues to spread – like a raging conflagration it leaps from shore to shore. The reign of capitalism and militarism has made of all peoples inflammable material. They are ripe and ready for the change, the great change which means the rise and triumph of the workers, the end of exploitation, of war and plunder, and the emancipation of the race. Let it come! Let us all help its coming and pave the way for it by organizing the workers industrially and politically to conquer capitalism and usher in the day of the people.

In Russia and Germany our valiant comrades are leading the proletarian revolution, which knows no race, no color, no sex, and no boundary lines. They are setting the heroic example for worldwide emulation. Let us, like them, scorn and repudiate the cowardly compromisers within our own ranks, challenge and defy the robber-class power, and fight it out on that line to victory or death!

From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and proud of it.

“The Day of the People has arrived!”

[[Category:Library works by Eugene V. Debs]]

Eugene V. Debs

2023-10-06T22:10:07Z

TDM: Changed "American" to "Statesian"

{{Infobox politician|image_size=200|birth_date=November 5, 1855|birth_place=Terre Haute, [[Indiana]], [[United States of America|United States]]|death_date=October 20, 1926|death_place=Elmhurst, [[Illinois]], United States|political_orientation=[[Marxism]]|political_party=[[Socialist Party of America]]|image=Eugene V. Debs.png}}

'''Eugene Victor''' "'''Gene'''" '''Debs''' (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was a [[United States of America|Statesian]] [[Socialism|socialist]], [[political activist]], [[Trade union|trade unionist]], one of the founding members of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] (IWW), and five times the candidate of the [[Socialist Party of America]] for President of the United States. Through his presidential candidacies as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.

Early in his political career, Debs was a member of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. After working with several smaller unions, including the [[Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen]], Debs led his union in [[Burlington railway strike of 1888|a major ten-month strike against the CB&Q Railroad in 1888]]. Debs was instrumental in the founding of the [[American Railway Union]] (ARU), one of the nation's first [[Industrial union|industrial unions]]. After workers at the [[Pullman Palace Car Company]] organized a [[Wildcat strike action|wildcat strike]] over pay cuts in the summer of 1894, Debs signed many into the ARU. He led a [[boycott]] by the ARU against handling trains with Pullman cars in what became the nationwide [[Pullman Strike]], affecting most lines west of Detroit and more than 250,000 workers in 27 states. Purportedly to keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison.

In prison, Debs read various works of socialist theory and emerged six months later as a committed adherent of the [[Marxism|international socialist]] movement. Debs was a founding member of the [[Social Democracy of America]] (1897), the [[Social Democratic Party of America]] (1898) and the Socialist Party of America (1901). Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for [[President of the United States]] five times, including 1900 (earning 0.6 percent of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0 percent), 1908 (2.8 percent), 1912 (6.0 percent), and 1920 (3.4 percent), the last time from a prison cell.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Deirdre Grisworld|newspaper=[[Workers World]]|title=The anti-war presidential candidate|date=2020-02-24|url=https://www.workers.org/2020/02/46531/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221203052940/https://www.workers.org/2020/02/46531/|archive-date=2022-12-03|retrieved=2023-01-14}}</ref> He was also a candidate for United States Congress from his native state Indiana in 1916.

Debs was noted for his oratorical skills, and his speech denouncing American participation in [[World War I]] led to his second arrest in 1918. He was convicted under the [[Sedition Act of 1918]] and sentenced to a ten-year term. President [[Warren G. Harding]] commuted his sentence in December 1921. Debs died in 1926, not long after being admitted to a sanatorium due to cardiovascular problems that developed during his time in prison.

== Works ==

* [https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/index.htm Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive] by [[Marxists Internet Archive|Marxists.org]]

== References ==
[[Category:Statesian communists]]
[[Category:Communist political candidates]]

Communist Party of Greece

2023-10-04T03:05:24Z

TDM: Party did not dissolve in 1918

{{Infobox political party
| colorcode = red
| name = Communist Party of Greece
| native_name = Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας
| native_name_lang = Greek
| general_secretary = Dimitris Koutsoumpas
| logo = [[File:Kke.svg|frameless|175px]]
| abbreviation = KKE
| founded = May, 1917
| dissolved =
| newspaper = Rizospastis
| youth_wing = Communist Youth of Greece
| wing1_title = Trade Union Wing
| wing1 = All-Workers Militant Front
| political_orientation = [[Marxism–Leninism]]
|website=https://www.kke.gr/|country=[[Greece]]}}{{Communist parties}}

The '''Communist Party of Greece''' is a political party founded in 1918, being the oldest political party in [[Hellenic Republic|Greece]]. It is now the third largest party in Greece and one of the most influential communist parties in Europe. It was the initiator of the organization of the [[International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties]].

== History ==

=== Formation ===
The party was founded on 17 November 1918 as the Socialist Labor Party of Greece.

=== World War 1 and aftermath (1918-1922) ===

==== First Congress and Greco-Turkish war ====
Its First Congress took Place in the same month in Pireaus.

SEKE pushed the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]] to persuade [[Mustafa Kemal Ataturk|Mustafa Kemal Atatürk]] to give autonomy in Turkish areas with a large Greek minority, but opposed the [[Imperialism|imperialist]] Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 and also wanted [[Eleftherios Venizelos]] to withdraw Greek troops from Asia Minor.

==== Second Congress ====
During the Second Congress of SEKE in April 1920, the party got affiliated with [[Communist International (1919–1943)|Comintern]] and, as such, changed their name to SEKE-K (Socialist Labor Party of Greece - Communist).

=== Interwar Period (1922-1939) ===

==== People's Front ====
After the Comintern encouraged the formation of [[Anti-fascism|anti-fascist]] fronts worldwide, and as such SEKE-K formed the People's front, an anti-Metaxist front, the largest [[Marxism|Marxist]] one during the time.

==== Third Congress ====
During the Third Congress of SEKE-K in November 1924, SEKE-K was renamed to Communist Party of Greece (KKE). [[Marxism–Leninism]] was adopted as an official ideology and [[democratic centralism]] was adopted as the party's system.

==== Macedonian Issue ====
KKE supported an independent Macedonia and Thrace, as this was the Comintern's position at the time, though some members of KKE disagreed with this position. In turn, many communists were expelled from Greece.<ref>{{Citation|author=Richard Clogg|year=1992|title=A Concise History of Greece|page=106, 141|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref>

KKE (and the Comintern) believed in the [[self-determination]] of the people in these areas and wanted to prevent a new imperialist war in the [[Balkans]]. The USSR was a model for an independent Macedonia, where all [[Hellenic Republic|Greeks]], [[Republic of Bulgaria|Bulgarians]] and [[Republic of Türkiye|Turks]] could self-determine, just like how [[Russian SFSR|Russians]], [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–1991)|Ukrainians]] and [[Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1991)|Byelorussians]] could in the USSR.<ref>{{Citation|author=Vladimir Lenin|year=1914|title=For The Issue of Self-Determination of the People}}</ref>

==== Idionymon ====
In 1929, as minister of Education in the government of [[Eleftherios Venizelos]], [[Georgios Papandreou]] passed legislation against organised communist teachers, known as Idionymon. Such legislation was often used to prosecute KKE members and other leftist activists.

==== Metaxist Dictatorship ====
By 1940, KKE was in turmoil due to the Metaxist [[Fascism|fascist]] dictatorship. By October 1940, half of the party's two thousand members were in prison or in exile. The Security Police (the secret fascist police) proved successful in dismantling the party structure; not only had it imprisoned the leadership, but it created a fake series of ''Rizospastis'', the Central Committee newspaper. This generated further confusion among the remaining scattered underground members.<ref>{{Citation|author=Aggelos Elefantis|year=1999|title=The Promise of the Impossible Revolution, Greek Communist Party self-meditation and the bourgeois during the inter-war Period|publisher=Themelio}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author=KKE|title=Official Documents|chapter=Vol. 5}}</ref>

=== World War 2 (1939-1945) ===

==== Before Nazi Occupation ====
The KKE was divided in whether it should support Metaxas in Greece's struggle against [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]] or not. Whereas the "pro-Metaxas" faction was the one that the Comintern supported, as it encouraged KKE to fight against [[Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)|fascist Italy]] whereas the "anti-Metaxas" faction considered Greece as a de facto colony of the [[British Empire]] and that the war which was taking place was an imperialist one.

==== During Nazi Occupation ====

===== Prisoners =====
On 6 April 1941, the Germans invaded Greece and occupied Athens on 27 April following an unconditional surrender of the Greek forces by General Georgios Tsolakoglou, who was later appointed Prime Minister by the [[National Socialism|Nazis]]. Many of the communists in Crete, which wasn't yet occupied, asked to be freed so as to fight the Nazi invaders, but the Greek government-in-exile had no power to do so, so they escaped. The pro-Nazi occupation government handed some political prisones of KKE over to the Nazis fearing that they—following the pro-Soviet party line—would resort to sabotage in Greece following the commence of Operation Barbarossa. It became German policy—especially after it became obvious to them that they were losing the war—to execute civilians in retaliation for attacks against them by communist or non-communist partisans. Approximately 200 communists, delivered to the Germans on 1941, were executed at the Kaisariani Shooting Range on 1 May 1944. <ref>{{Citation|title=History of the National Resistance 1940–1945|chapter=Vol. 1}}</ref>

===== Resistance Movements =====
Along with five other left-wing parties, KKE formed the National Liberation Front (EAM) on 27 September 1941, in Athens and militia units, called the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) on 16 February 1942. By 1943, ELAS had 50,000 members and 30,000 reserves in major cities.

During 1943, ELAS clashed with other resistance movements, which spend more time fighting [[Communism|communists]] than the Axis itself. This prepared the ground and tension for the [[Greek Civil War]].

[[Nikos Zachariadis]] was freed from the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1945 and returned to Greece as KKE's General Secretary.

=== Civil War (1945-1949) ===
''Main Article: [[Greek Civil War]]''

In October 1944, the last German soldiers left Greece and ELAS reached [[Athens]]. After the Axis retreated, a National Unity government was formed under [[Georgos Papandreou]]. While the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|British]] released [[National Socialist German Workers' Party|Nazis]] from prison, they also pushed for disarmament of ELAS. After leftists were prevented from joining the new army, the KKE withdrew from the government.<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|author=Arturo Rodriguez|newspaper=Socialist Appeal|title=The Greek Revolution and Civil War: the Battle of Athens – Part Two|date=2015-07-31|archive-date=2017-10-05|retrieved=2022-05-15}}</ref>

On 3 December 1944, British snipers and Greek police opened fire on a communist demonstration in Athens. <ref>{{Web citation|author=Arturo Rodriguez|newspaper=Socialist Appeal|title=The Greek Revolution and Civil War: the Battle of Athens – Part One|date=2015-07-31|retrieved=2022-05-15}}</ref>Later that day, 60,000 rallied in Syntagma Square and began an uprising against the British. 25,000 people were killed in the Battle of Athens and 12,000 leftists were deported or imprisoned in its aftermath. The British set up machine gun nests and bombed [[Proletariat|proletarian]] neighborhoods. They also released thousands of fascist collaborators to help them fight the communists.<ref name=":0" />

=== Kingdom of Greece and Military Junta (1949-1974) ===
During the post-WW2 Kingdom of Greece, KKE was banned and communists were harshly persecuted by the [[United States of America|US]]-backed police state. Most of its prominent members had to either flee the country or denounce communism. Nikos Beloyannis and Nikos Ploumpidis were executed in 1952 and 1954 respectively. In 1955, there were 4,498 political prisoners and 898 exiles while in 1962 there were 1,359 prisoners and 296 exiles.<ref>{{Citation|author=Polymeris Voglis|year=2002|title=Becoming a Subject: Political Prisoners During the Greek Civil War|page=223|publisher=Berghahn Books}}</ref> During this period, KKE supported the United Democratic Left, a leftist party.

Since [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]'s death in 1953, Zachariadis (a supporter of Stalin) clashed with the new [[Revisionism|revisionist]] leadership of the USSR, and as KKE followed this leadership's line, Zachariadis was expelled from the party in 1957, a year after [[Nikita Khrushchev|Khrushchev]]'s "secret speech" was made, denouncing Stalin.

The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-backed military Junta which seized power in 21 April 1967 outlawed all political parties and persecuted communists even more harshly.

In 1968, a [[Eurocommunism|Eurocommunist]] faction split from the KKE and was named KKE (interior), claiming that the original KKE was directed from the USSR. During the same year, the Communist Youth of Greece was founded.

=== Third Hellenic Republic (1974-present) ===

==== Cold war (1974-1991) ====
The new Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis legalized KKE, however it was [[Andreas Papandreou]] who allowed communists to return in Greece and receive special pensions for their resistance in WW2.

During the 1989 and 1990 elections (and [[Counterrevolutions of 1989|counter-revolutions of 1989]]), KKE participated under a left-wing alliance of parties (Synaspismos) under the leadership of Charilaos Florakis. They formed a coalition government with the parties of [[New Democracy (political party in the Hellenic Republic)|New Democracy]] and [[Panhellenic Socialist Movement|PASOK]] (only in the first temporary government).

In 1991, [[Aleka Papariga]] got elected as General Secretary.

Days before the [[Overthrow of the Soviet Union|overthrow of the USSR]], Zachariadis' remains were returned to his homeland of Greece, and he was given a funeral, which gave his supporters the opportunity to honour him.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Rizospastis|title=Μια ιστορική προσωπικότητα του κομμουνιστικού κινήματος (Translation: A historical personality of the communist movement)|date=2003-08-03|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724130817/http://www1.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=1898874|archive-date=2011-07-24}}</ref> At the same time, the [[Reformism|reformist]] faction of the party split from KKE and formed Synaspismos, which was what would become today's [[Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance|Syriza]].

==== Post-Cold War (1992-present) ====
KKE actively participated in the anti-austerity protests beginning in 2010 and also supported Greek steel worker's strikes.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Gus Lubin|newspaper=Business Insider|title=KKE actively participated in the anti-austerity protests beginning in 2010 [79] and also supported Greek steel worker's strikes.[80]|date=2010-05-07}}</ref>

In the 1993 elections, they had significant losses.

In 2011, a National Conference of the Communist Party of Greece fully rehabilitated Zachariadis as General Secretary of the KKE and denounced the revisionist line followed from 1953 up until 1991. That was in line with the KKE's general political reorientation since the overthrow of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Michael Karadjis|newspaper=Links|title=Greece: SYRIZA, the Communist Party and the desperate need for a united front|date=2012-05-16|url=https://links.org.au/greece-syriza-communist-party-and-desperate-need-united-front}}</ref>

In March 2022, the party announced it would not attend [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] president [[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]]’s speech at the [[Hellenic Parliament]] on April 7 after he banned several left-wing opposition parties.<ref>{{News citation|date=2022-04-02|title=No to Zelensky: Why the KKE will not attend Zelensky's address to Greek Parliament|url=https://www.idcommunism.com/2022/04/no-to-zelensky-why-kke-will-not-attend-zelensky-address-to-greek-parliament.html?m=1|newspaper=In Defense of Communism|retrieved=2022-04-02}}</ref>

In the 2023 elections, KKE reached a 7.7% and completely won in Icaria.

== References ==
[[Category:Communist parties]]

Democratic centralism

2023-10-03T22:36:45Z

TDM:

{{Marxism–Leninism sidebar}}
'''Democratic centralism''' is a practice in which political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the [[political party]]. Although mainly associated with [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxism–Leninism]],<ref name="freedomunity">{{Citation|author=Lenin, Vladimir|year=1906|title=The Congress Summed Up|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/rucong/index.htm|series=Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/rucong/viii.htm|volume=VIII|retrieved=2020-02-14}}</ref> democratic centralism has also been practiced by [[Social Democracy|social democratic]] parties.<ref>{{Citation|author=Lih, Lars|year=2005|title=Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? in Context|publisher=Brill Academic Publishers|isbn=978-90-04-13120-0}}</ref><ref>{{News citation|author=Sunkara, Bhaskar|date=2020-01-15|url=https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/social-democracy-democratic-socialism-capital-unions-strategy|title=The Long Shot of Democratic Socialism Is Our Only Shot|newspaper=Jacobin|retrieved=2020-02-14}}</ref>

== In practice ==
In party meetings, a motion (new policy or amendment, goal, plan or any other kind of political question) is proposed. After a period of debate, a vote is taken. If the decision passes, all party members are expected to follow that decision, and not continue propagandizing or otherwise working against it, even if they disagree with it. In the development of [[socialism]] in the [[Soviet Union]] and [[China]], democratic centralism was largely taken up in response to instability following their respective revolutions which required faster mechanisms of decision-making.

The decision can always be recalled if there is grounds for it, but until it is cancelled, all members of the party are expected to uphold it as if they agreed with it.

Consensus is generally sought over pure results, and there is often a lengthy period of debates before a decision is put to the vote. The debate period is used to refine the proposal that will be voted on until all (or most) members agree to it.

== History ==

=== Lenin's conception ===
The text ''[[Library:What is to be done?|What Is to Be Done?]]'' written in 1902 is generally considered the foundational work of democratic centralism. At the time, democratic centralism was generally viewed as a set of principles for the organizing of a revolutionary workers' party. However, [[Vladimir Lenin]]'s model for such a party, which he repeatedly discussed as being "democratic centralist", was the German [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic Party]], inspired by remarks made by the social democrat [[Jean Baptista von Schweitzer]]. Lenin described democratic centralism as consisting of "freedom of discussion, unity of action".<ref name="freedomunity" />

The doctrine of democratic centralism served as one of the sources of the split between the [[Bolsheviks]] and the [[Mensheviks]]. The Mensheviks supported a looser party discipline within the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] in 1903 as did [[Leon Trotsky]], in ''[[Our Political Tasks]]'',<ref>{{Citation|mia=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1904/tasks/index.htm|title=Our Political Tasks|author=Leon Trotsky|year=1904}}</ref> although Trotsky joined ranks with the Bolsheviks in 1917.

The Sixth Party Congress of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks)]] held at [[Saint Petersburg|Petrograd]] between 26 July and 3 August 1917 defined democratic centralism as follows:

# That all directing bodies of the Party, from top to bottom, shall be elected.
# That Party bodies shall give periodical accounts of their activities to their respective Party organizations.
# That there shall be strict Party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority.
# That all decisions of higher bodies shall be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members.<ref>{{Citation|title=History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)|year=1939|city=New York City|publisher=International Publishers|page=198}}</ref>

After the successful consolidation of power by the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] following the [[October Revolution]] and the [[Russian Civil War]], the Bolshevik leadership, including Lenin, instituted a [[Ban on factions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|ban on factions in the party]] as Resolution No. 12 of the [[10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|10th Party Congress]] in 1921. It was passed in the morning session on 16 March 1921.<ref>{{Citation|title=Protokoly|year=1933}} ed. 585–7; 1963 ed. 571–573.</ref> Trotskyists sometimes claim that this ban was intended to be temporary, but there is no language in the discussion at the 10th Party Congress suggesting such.<ref>{{Citation|title=Protokoly|year=1933}} ed. 523–548.</ref>

The [[Group of Democratic Centralism]] was a group in the Soviet Communist Party who advocated different concepts of party democracy.

=== Soviet practice ===
Within the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]], evey citizen, regardless of race, gender, or nationality, and of voting age, was eligible to vote for a person, recall somebody, or run for a position themselves. The most fundamental unit of these elections would be the soviet (worker council), in which every person from a local soviet could vote for leaders to govern said soviet or even a larger governmental unit. Furthermore, it would be common for the people in that soviet to hold discussions about the candidate, often to assess the candidate's skill for the administraitive post. The soviets themselves would often include a village, factory, or group of factories.

The soviets would also be able to elect delegates to represent them in the higher organs of the government. Furthermore, it was common for the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|communist party]] to ask the soviets about their thoughts and experiences with particular policies.<ref>{{Citation|author=Pat Sloan|year=1937|title=Soviet Democracy|title-url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36659963-soviet-democracy|chapter=Electors and Administraitors|page=170-173|pdf=https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/pat-sloan-soviet-democracy-victor-gollancz-1937.pdf|publisher=Victor Gollancz LTD|trans-lang=English}}</ref>

Such democratic procedures where further reinforced by the constitution of the USSR. For example, in the [[Soviet Constitution of 1936]], it states in chapter 11:<blockquote>Article 134'''.''' Member s of all Soviets of Working People's Deputies - of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics, the Soviets of Working People's Deputies of the Territories and Regions, the Supreme Soviets of the Autonomous Republics, the Soviets of Working People’s Deputies of Autonomous Regions, area, district, city and rural (stanitsa, village, hamlet, kishlak, aul) Soviets of Working People's Deputies - are chosen by the electors on the basis of universal, direct and equal suffrage by secret ballot.<ref>{{Citation|year=1936|title=Constitution (Fundamental law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/12/05.htm|chapter=11|city=Moscow}}</ref></blockquote>

=== People's Republic of China ===
Democratic centralism is also stated in Article 3 of the [[Constitution of the People's Republic of China|present Constitution]] of the [[China|People's Republic of China]]:<blockquote>Article 3. The state organs of the People's Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism''.'' The National People's Congress and the local people's congresses at different levels are instituted through democratic election. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the state are created by the people's congresses to which they are responsible and under whose supervision they operate. The division of functions and powers between the central and local state organs is guided by the principle of giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the local authorities under the unified leadership of the central authorities.<ref name="art3">English language text of [http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html Constitution of the People's Republic of China] adopted 4 December 1982. Chapter 1. Article 3. Retrieved 29 December 2014.</ref></blockquote>This idea is translated into the supremacy of the [[National People's Congress]], which represents China's citizens and exercises legislative authority on their behalf. Other powers, including the power to appoint the head of state and head of government, are also vested in this body.

=== Vietnam ===
The [[Communist Party of Vietnam]] is organized according to the Leninist principle of democratic centralism. In article 8 of the [[2013 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam]] the ideas of democratic centralism are laid out as:<blockquote>Article 8 1. The State is organized and operates in concordance with the Constitution and the laws, governs the society by the Constitution and the laws, and practices the principle of democratic centralism. 2. All State agencies, cadres, officials and employees must show respect for the people, devotedly serve the people, maintain close contact with the people, listen to their opinions and submit to their supervision; resolutely struggle against corruption, wastefulness and all manifestations of bureaucracy, arrogance, authoritarianism.<ref name="2013_VConst">English Version of the [https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Socialist_Republic_of_Vietnam_2013.pdf?lang=en Vietnamese Constitution]. This version of the constitution was ratified on the 28th of November 2013.</ref></blockquote> The Vietnamese constitution makes it law to follow the ideals of democratic centralism. In practice, legislators of [[The National Assembly of Vietnam]] are in charge of ratifying laws made by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, and to elect the Chairman and Prime Minster of the National Assembly.<ref name="2013_VConstart95">English Version of the [https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Socialist_Republic_of_Vietnam_2013.pdf?lang=en Vietnamese Constitution Articles 95-100]. This section of the constitution outlines the powers of the government.</ref> The National Assembly is the supreme body for legislature and executive motions and with the [[Communist Party of Vietnam]] as the vanguard, it follows the principles of democratic centralism.

== Arguments for ==
In ''On Party Unity'', Lenin argued that democratic centralism prevents factionalism. He argued that factionalism leads to less friendly relations among members and that it can be exploited by enemies of the party.

By the [[History of the Soviet Union (1964–82)|Brezhnev period]], democratic centralism was described in the [[Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1977)|1977 Soviet Constitution]] as a principle for organizing the state: "The Soviet state is organized and functions on the principle of democratic centralism, namely the electiveness of all bodies of state authority from the lowest to the highest, their accountability to the people, and the obligation of lower bodies to observe the decisions of higher ones". Democratic centralism combines central leadership with local initiative and creative activity and with the responsibility of each state body and official for the work entrusted to them.

== See also ==
*[[Autonomy]]
*[[Blanquism]]
*[[Cabinet collective responsibility]]
*[[Disagree and commit]]
*[[Dominant-party system]]
*[[Eastern Bloc politics]]
*[[Federalism]]
*[[One-party state]]
*[[Organic centralism]]
*[[Revolutionary spontaneity]]
*[[Twenty-one Conditions]]
*[[Vanguardism]]

== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Marxism-Leninism]]
[[Category:Leninism]]

Vanguard party

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{{Marxism–Leninism sidebar}}The '''vanguard party''', also called the '''vanguard''', is the political party that is the most able to organize the [[proletariat]] and other [[Social class|popular classes]] (such as the peasantry) into a [[revolutionary party]], and thus bring socialism to their country.

The vanguard plays an important role in instilling revolutionary [[class consciousness]] amongst the proletariat and plays a critical role in the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] in consolidating ties with the proletariat of other nations and maintaining the alliance of the workers and peasants.

The vanguard is not a name a party gives themselves or gets bestowed upon them. A party becomes the vanguard when it proves to be the most capable at organizing the proletariat and achieving results. This also means the status of the vanguard can be lost if the party suddenly stops achieving results, or another party achieves even better results towards [[socialism]].

== Origins ==
The concept of the vanguard party is attributed to [[Lenin]], and synthesized from his different writings. It was effectively used by the [[Bolsheviks]], themselves firstly a wing of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party]], during and after the [[Russian revolution of 1917|October Revolution]].

While the vanguard party is most associated with Marxism–Leninism, it is possible to apply the concept of the vanguard to other parties and ideologies.

== Organization ==

=== Central committee ===
The vanguard party is usually composed of a [[central committee]], which acts as the executive and (to an extent) the legislative branch of the party. The committee is composed of the most knowledgeable Marxists, and elected by the rest of the members.

=== Democratic centralism ===
{{Main article|Democratic centralism}}
[[Democratic centralism]] is the practice in which political decision are taken by the central committee inside the party after discussion, and expects that all members will follow these decisions even if they personally disagree with them. Unity in action is important for several reasons. First, it makes party work easier as it prevents sabotage or other difficulties from inside the party.

Second, the party needs to be flexible and react fast to events as they unfold, which is why these decisions must be taken quickly.

If there are disagreements, members can bring that up and bring a vote to change the decision later, after it has passed.

An example of democratic centralism would be the decision to show up and participate in a protest officially, as the party. Some members might disagree with that protest but if the decision is taken to support and participate in it, they are expected not to voice their disagreement in public.

=== Guiding the people ===
The vanguard party does not seek to establish itself as superior to the masses. Rather, it must guide the people. To do this, the vanguard party correctly identifies popular concerns and participates to guide the people towards socialism. Through example and good behaviour (leading the people to a positive resolution of the problem), the party shows it is able to respond to popular needs and therefore becomes a vanguard.

For example, when a strike is being discussed by industry workers, it is possible for the party to show support in different ways:

* Publicise the strike and publish arguments for it,
* Educate the strikers in successful methods,
* Set up funds to help make ends meet while the strike is ongoing,
* Advise on how the strike is going and what else could be demanded.

However, the party does not take ownership of the strike and try to redirect its energy. The party must listen to the demands made by the strikers and advise them on this, but never decide for them. This is how a party becomes the vanguard to the people, with proper practice and discipline.
[[Category:Marxist theory]]
[[Category:Marxism–Leninism]]

Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute

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The '''Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute''' was a [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet]] archival library located in [[Moscow]], founded in 1919.

Library:Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism

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{{Library work|title=Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism (or "I Shall Be a Marxist-Leninist to the End of My Life")|author=Fidel Castro|published_date=1961|source=http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-12-02-1961.html}}

Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism
December 2, 1961.

FOREWORD

No statement by a world leader has ever been so willfully distorted as Fidel Castro's historic speech of December 2nd, 1961. Made in a Havana television studio during the early hours of the morning and broadcast live over television and radio, the speech is a lengthy and complex analysis of the development of the Cuban Revolution, so frank .that it bars comparison. It was not a formal diplomatic utterance of a statesman, but an incredibly sincere and searching account by a tested revolutionary leader of the evolution of his own political thinking. Officially, the speech opened a series of talks to the Cuban people by revolutionary leaders on the organization of the new United Party of the Socialist Revolution. And Fidel takes great pains to outline the political and ideological reasons behind the formation of this new integrated revolutionary party.

The speech was monitored in the Miami bureau of United Press International by a Cuban exile, and at 3:36 a.m., UPI transmitted this dispatch:'

"MIAMI, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Cuban Premier Fidel Castro said today he really has been a dedicated Communist since his college days but he concealed his views so it would be easier to seize power."

The Associated Press sent the following', more truthful version from its Havana bureau:

"HAVANA, Dec. 2 (AP) -- Declaring he is a Marxist-Leninist opposed to the personality cult, Fidel Castro said today 'the world is on the road toward communism' and he is taking Cuba down that path... Castro said that as a student at Havana University he was not a Marxist because he was 'influenced by imperialist and reactionary propaganda against the Communists. "

But, as James Wechsler has pointed out in the New York Post of December 14th, the U.S. mass media almost unanimously used the UPI version. Anti-Castro columns and editorials mushroomed across the country. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who should have known better because a hastily prepared U.S. Government translation of the entire speech was available, gleefully declared that Castro had branded himself a Communist, making the task of the U.S. easier at the forthcoming Punta del Este conference. In other words, Rusk hoped to use the speech as part of U.S. propaganda against the Cuban Revolution. As Wechsler commented: "The hard fact is that much of the country has been duped by a misleading report which reflected a sad lack of sophistication in dealing with the intricacies of Communist world politics."

The following translation is offered by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to the American public, in keeping with FPPC's policy of presenting factual and first-hand information about Cuba and the Cuban Revolution.

Why is the United Party of the Socialist Revolution a necessity?
I would certainly have liked a little more time to make a serious study of this topic, since the subject of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution is a matter of extraordinary importance to the Revolution. I, therefore, told some of my comrades that I was going to give a sort of provisional talk now, since I expect to return to this question in the future when I have more time to develop it thoroughly.

I am, therefore, simply going to express at this time a series of fundamental ideas with which the United Party of the Revolution is concerned.

In the first place, what is the United Party of the Revolution and why is it being organized? Of course, on previous occasions, in different public ceremonies, we have already referred to thlo4ues.- tion and have expressed certain ideas about it.

The United Party of tile Revolution was, in the first place, a necessity. Why was it a necessity? To begin with, you cannot make a revolution, and above all, you cannot carry a revolution forward without a strong and disciplined organization.

This necessity is becoming more and more evident as the revolutionary process advances and deepens and faces even more difficult tasks.

It has always been said, and rightly so, that it is easier to win power than to hold it; it is easier to win power than to govern.

And that is a great truth. The tasks a revolutionary movement faces in the struggle for power become enormous and multiply the minute that revolutionary movement seizes power. It has also been said in various books, (and we are really reviewing all of the boors we have read and studied, seeing that we all studied in places where we often had to learn a lot of foolishness, things of no great importance); it has been said that the harder it is to win power, that is, consolidate it, the easier it is to keep it; that the easier it is to win power, the harder it is to hold on to it.

The only truth there can be in that assertion is basically the following: that it is in the struggle for power that the cadres who will later govern the country are trained. The longer and more protracted the struggle, the greater the number of men it trains capable of later discharging other duties.

To recall briefly the experience, our experience, an experience that was relatively short when compared with much longer struggles which other countries had to wage, armed struggles, as for example in China where the guerillas fought for more than 20 years before they seized power. Of course, the struggle for power does not begin only at the moment of armed conflict.

I remember when we gave the word to strike, prematurely, when the revolutionary movement made what you could call an error in evaluating the objective conditions, already trying to seize power in April, 1958.

At that time, we still had very few men. If I am not mistaken, the total of our guerilla forces numbered about 180 combatants. When we decided to open the Second Front, we did it with 50 men; we opened the front around Santiago de Cuba with 35 men; and this left other forces that numbered no more than 130 men, all told, perhaps less; there were fewer than 100 men left in the Sierra Maestra at the time.

Resisting with Limited Resources
Well, if, at that time, we had succeeded in overthrowing the tyranny from the military point of view, our military leaders would not have been able to get the experience they got later. Up to that time, our guerilla forces had never launched a serious frontal attack from prepared positions against the enemy forces. It had been, indeed, a guerilla war.

However, it was during the last stage of the struggle, right after the failure of that attempt to seize power, when the guerilla forces faced the most complex and crucial military problems. Once, we had to defend some national territory that we could not abandon because we had set up workshops, the Rebel Radio Station, and a whole lot of fighting equipment there which we would lose if the enemy took over.

We had to make a stand there with the limited resources at our disposal.

Among other things, we had to regroup all our forces, excepting those at the Second Front in Oriente, to resist the enemy offensive and we8

However, that new situation brought about a serious battle in defense of that territory, which was getting smaller and smaller, to the point where we could not, allow it to get any smaller. We fought some important battles. Once, the enemy surrounded us and we surrounded them, in turn. An enemy battalion surrounded us and other enemy forces surrounded our other forces. But we had our first successes here in that sector, we became stronger and were able to counterattack. But one thing is certain: A complex battle developed and we acquired a lot of experience from it. And the experience,'and arms, and men strengthened by that struggle made it possible for us to start more important operations, for example, the invasion of Las Villas.

The Fight Against the Army

It goes without saying that without the men forged by those 71 days of fighting, it would have been difficult to undertake the invasion of Las Villas from Oriente.

The more we analyse the conditions under which we began that operation, the number of men who carried it out, facing an enemy militarily much stronger, the more extraordinary a feat it seems. crossing all Camaguey from Oriente without cover, without anything in our favor, and arriving in Las Villas was a truly :great feat.

One often wonders how this was possible. The answer is simply that the men who made the crossing were comrades who already had an extraordinary confidence in themselves, had developed a great composure, a great skill and were men who were fully tested. These are the things that made it possible to undertake that operation, and those operations in the lowlands that at first seemed incredible.

In other words, the continuation of the struggle kept developing a set of human values, and the ability to carry out more and more difficult tasks, and we kept on acquiring more experience.

So that by the war not ending in April but at the end of the year, the Revolution, at the moment of triumph, could count on a large group of comrades tested in battle and quite experienced.

Can anyone deny that all the experience acquired in those months has become of the greatest importance to the Revolution now? If we have a large number of comrades competent in defending the Revolution against imperialist attacks; if the Armed Forces of the Revolution can face up to the enemy planes, to oppose his aggression, then that is due, in great part, to the fact that the prolongation of the struggle developed a group of leaders. Of course, not in what they

understood when the war ended; but still they at least were tested men, known men, who in time, after the triumph of the conquest of power were able to develop even more.

And so, we have many comrades who took part in all those military actions who today have been trained in our military academies and who have devoted themselves fervently to study. Of course, all this involved a little work. The guerilla war from which most of our leaders sprang up -- although at a given moment it was no longer a guerilla war, but a war of major proportions, of maneuvers, and of positions -- made those who came out of it feel a certain scorn for military academies, a certain disdain for military theories and military manuals. That is an attitude we must overcome, though it will be hard at first. But this training has already brought about a change in the thinking of our war companions, a change in their attitude. And in fact today there is not a single revolutionary leader who is not interested in attending the academies.

Well, then, our military schools are training comrades of high rank, and it is not rare to find a major going to a school for sergeants and taking a course for privates, for one of the things we are doing is to see that, they learn about the problems of the people whom they are going to lead. And they are doing so with extraordinary enthusiasm.

But the continuation of the struggle resulted in all those men ending up the war with much, and enough experience of a military nature, experience that was to develop still further in the months ahead.

This is an example from the military field which is exactly the same as other fields, when it comes to organization, when it comes to the solution of administrative and political problems. During the struggle, of course, we didn't have vast areas to administer. In China, for example, they had a lot of problems, indeed, to resolve, even before they seized power. There were certain problems that we discussed after seizing power, such as the problems relating to art, which the revolutionary movement in China discussed before they seized power.

The Political Struggle Developed Revolutionary Values
It can't be said that there weren't experienced men among us. No one can deny that the political struggle in our country has developed a series of values in the public life of our country, revolutionary values and well-trained men. In the end, however, the Revolution came to power. Under what conditions does a revolution come to power? Does it come with an organized and disciplined movement perfectly prepared for the c' 'pies of government? No. Do all of the revolutionary forces organic, embodied in that revolutionary movement come to power? No.

There is only one revolutionary movement, not two or three or four revolutionary movements. There is really one revolutionary movement and, in the long run, revolution or counter-revolution. A revolutionary movement can be more or less limited; with a revolution, it is possible to reach the objectives the revolution has set (and it cannot be denied that they may be revolutionary as far as they go) and from that moment, either the revolution ceases to be truly revolutionary or it goes forward. In other words, one movement can be more or less radical, which cannot be the case with two, three or four revolutionary movements. That's absurd. Furthermore, those other movements are really counter-revolutionary.

The Various Revolutionary Forces

The truth is that a revolution does not come to power with an organization that embodies all of the revolutionary forces. There were different revolutionary organizations, and these different revolutionary organizations represented different revolutionary forces. In the common goal that united all revolutionary and nonrevolutionary organizations -- because there were forces against Batista's tyranny which you could not call revolutionary -- there were politicians who were simply against Batista because he had kept them out of his government; there were politicians of the ruling classes, those very ruling classes that Batista's government represented, who were really angling for a change of power. The politicians ousted from power, for example, on March 10th, that whole political group headed by the celebrated Sr. Carlos Prio Socar•as, was a group that in the long run represented the same interests as Batista. They, as agents of imperialism dressed in mufti, and Batista, as an agent of imperialism with a milit ary apparatus, an apparatus of force and oppression.

All those people...What did those people intend to do when they got into the government? Did they intend to do anything different from what they did? Let us imagine for just a second that the group of Prio, Tony Varona and their ilk had come to power. Of course, that was-vi•tually impossible. Here you had Prio, Tony Varona and that whole crowd after maybe ten or twelve years in exile alone and they've entered into an election, in a deal with Batista, content just to serve as senators or mayors or provincial governors. That's the way everything ended up. But let us imagine hypothetically that those people had regained power, were once again ruling our country.

What would they have done? What would they have done that was different from what they did in the years when they were in power? They were definitely going to do exactly the same thing, that is, serve the interests of imperialism and serve the interests of the upper middle classes here, insofar as those interests did not conflict with the interests of imperialism, because the interests of imperialism -- that is, the foreign monopolies -- had a privileged position here in our country, even at the expense of the native middle classes.

They Were Going to Squeeze You Dry
Those people in power would have simply limited themselves to doing the same as they had done. They would not have passed a single revolutionary law; they would not even have reduced rents, as the Revolution did, let alone instituted an Agrarian Reform or Educational Reform, or reform of any kind. Everybody knows what those people would have done. What would they have done? Don't you know? I am talking to the people. What would they have done, had they attained power? Listen to me, Lionel, it seems that this subject was not explained to your students at the School of Revolutionary Instruction. Man, everybody knows that!

What they did was to rob; what the government and that whole crowd would simply have done was to rob. That is, they were going to squeeze you dry for their services to the ruling economic interests. They would have maintained a professional army, instruments of repression; they would have maintained all the organs of persecution; they would have maintained the existing social system -- that's all. In other words, there was a group representing the dominant economic interests and imperialists which was against Batista simply because they wanted to be the ones in the government; they did not at all like having Batista and Batista's clique instead of them doing the robbing. Of course, they would be against Batista.

What did they do against Batista? Not a thing, absolutely nothing! They devoted themselves to the purchase of arms, to bringing arms here. Often they were successful in bringing them into the country, although they never had the least success in using them; they never even used them.

Everyone remembers the great supply of arms which they smuggled. into the country and which the police seized. At the time when we were beginning to set up a revolutionary movement, to train some young people; at a time when we were expecting to see those bigwigs of public life, men with money and property, do something effective against the Batista dictatorship. They had arms, they had money, they had everything; in fact, all they lacked was the will to fight. They were merely playing at revolution. It is true that they brought arms into the country, were looking for people, instructed them in the use of the arms. There were a number of cliques. They acted exactly as they did in the ward politics. Some of them had one or two machine guns hidden and they were looking for people in the wards to fight Batista. How did they win them over? They taught them how to use a machine gun. But, it was the same old, classical politics carried over into the insurrection. Well, these characters were politicking with machine guns; for, indeed, they were all of them thinking of when Batista would fall, one way or the other, and they would bring back the same old thing.

Playing Politics with Arms

We, for our part, went about recruiting young people, picking from the youthful elements we moved around in those who were more serious, more willing, more involved and had a more sincere revolutionary inclination. And what sometimes happened? Where we had organized a cell, they would come -- the genuine articles, Autenticos, the Prio, the Aureliano crowd, all of them, with a machine gun.

In the first place, we didn't have machine guns; and in the second place, even if we had had them, we would not have been able to teach anyone to use them. You cannot imagine what these people did. For example, they had a room full of arms and when they wanted to win over someone, they would tell him: "How can you join that bunch if they have no arms, haven't got a thing?" And they would take him to the house where there were thirty M-1's, forty machine guns. I remember that some people left us that way.

There were a lot of people, serious and willing to fight who, in despair of fighting Batista, in view of his abuses, crimes and villainies, joined the organization which taught them how to use machine guns. There were a lot of people like that who were ready to fight, and proved it later on. But the greatest majority, the leadership of that whole movement, was a group of people who did nothing but play politics with arms.

This was a stage we passed through. They took some people away from us. We trained them, spoke to them, explained to them what a revolution was, what we proposed to do, but the months passed and as there was no....they became discouraged and joined any group which offered them arms. It was a most interesting experience. Some day when we are discussing the insurrection, I'll have a lot to say about the experiences in those days when we were organizing....

Our attitude at first was one of willingness to collaborate with any movement prepared to fight for the downfall of Batista, for this Was essential to us. We spent months, too, waiting for all those people.

Fooling the People

Don't forget that there were a number of political leaders who had prestige among the people, with wealth; some had wealth, but no prestige; others had prestige, but no wealth. During one stage, we were simply taking stock of what was happening, ready to collaborate with any movement; above all, when you consider that the university had become a focus of rebellion. We thought that we could organize the movement around the university forces.

When We Decided to Start Organizing a Revolutionary Movement

We did not decide to organize a revolutionary movement until we became convinced that the people were really being deceived and that it was all madness, all that madness; people were desperate and were joining just any organization. There were twenty organizations at that "Montreal meeting"; there came a whole series of....I do not even wish to recall all that, but many of those important bigwigs -the Pardo Lladas and that whole crowd -- were terribly divided. We decided then to start organizing a revolutionary movement with ideas that we would eventually carry out. We were convinced that absolutely nothing was going to come out of all that, about which part of the people had conceived certain illusions; and we were convinced, moreover, that the tactics were wrong.

The whole plan of organizing an army and taking barracks and overthrowing Batista in twenty-four hours seemed absurd to us and we fully realized that civilians -- because in our country there was no background nor tradition of military instruction -- those men called upon to fight in the streets against a professional army with discipline and technical training that had at its disposal tanks, aircraft, fighter planes, weapons of all types and, moreover, organization and experience; experience....I do not mean military experience, but experience in killing people in the streets and splitting up groups and breaking up demonstrations and all that -- we realized that in those circumstances an organization of civilians, armed but without training, could be completely defeated in a putsch-type movement like the one we were planning.

It was not a type of insurrection that is accompanied by a condition indispensable for overthrowing a government, such as a strong and powerful mass movement, that is, a general strike. Neither the objective nor subjective conditions existed for organizing a general strike and it was simply a completely adventurous type of operation. We became convinced that it was all absurd and that was when we conceived the idea of launching another type of struggle, like the one we finally carried out, seizing an army barracks.

I remember that I always had a plan. I do not know whether I managed to convince many people, but when they told me that they had brought in 50 Garand M-1's in a ship, I said to them: "But there are places where you can get more than 50 M-1's; there are places where there are a thousand rifles, greased and well cared for. You don't have to buy them, you don't have to grease them, you don't have to bring them in, you don't have to do anything; all you have to do is take them." I always really believed that there are far more weapons in a barracks than you can import in tons of oil and grease and so on.

I do not know whether I convinced them of that. In the end, we set about getting the first weapons in order to see how we could get the second weapons and how we could launch the revolutionary struggle with the second weapons.

What we always had in mind was, first, to attempt an uprising in one region and try to keep it going and, if that failed, then to go into the mountains with all those weapons and begin a struggle in the mountains.

It seemed to us that revolutionary conditions had to be created by fighting. We were smart enough to realize that we could wage that type of struggle and, under existing conditions, carry it forward to success. From that point of view, we made only one mistake. Do you know what it was? We believed that to begin that type of struggle, we needed more resources than was actually the case. Reality later taught us the following: that while we thought we needed several hundred armed men, (and we were unable to gather those forces and

had to start with fewer than one hundred men) experience later demonstrated that it was possible to begin the struggle with far fewer than one hundred -- with ten or twelve men. Had we known that, possibly we would not have planned to take Moncada Barracks. We would have planned to take Bayamo Barracks, close as it was to the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. And with the forces we used to attack Moncada Barracks, we would have been able to take Bayamo Barracks and would have certainly succeeded in taking it. And we wouldn't have had to work as hard as we did to get weapons for 82 men; so much fuss was not needed and the fuss was created in order to get money; no one believes that the fuss was....The fuss had two objectives: agitation regarding the revolutionary struggle. No, it had three objectives: one, to paralyze the politicking elements that were making a tremendous effort to bring the country into a truce and an electoral solution, that is, a nonrevolutionary solution; second, to uplift the revolutionary spirit of the people; and third, to gather the minimum resources necessary for us to carry on the revolutionary movement.

We were correct in opposing the elections of those days as a political sell-out, and in .doing everything to encourage the revolutionary mood of the people. But the fact was that to start some action, we needed a great deal less than we had imagined.

Now, why did we follow those tactics? Can anyone imagine that you can win revolutionary power with a handful of men? We never imagined such a thing. Our entire revolutionary strategy was geared to our revolutionary understanding. We knew that you can win power only with the support of the people, by mobilizing the masses. We never thought we could win power with ten, twelve or a hundred men. We intended to lay the groundwork for revolutionary struggle through a guerilla action and to develop the struggle until it becomes a mass struggle, and to win power simply with the backing of the masses, as we eventually did. There is no question that the conquest of revolutionary power was due fundamentally to the support of the masses.

Our People Were Eager For a Revolutionary Change

We simply thought out how to take advantage of existing objective conditions, the objective conditions existing in our country and, above all, the system of exploitation prevailing in our country. The situation of the peasants. It wouldn't have occurred to anyone, at least not to me -- although there are counterrevolutionaries who think that way, who try to bring off a revolution the way we did. But it would never have occurred to us to start a revolutionary struggle in a country where there are no owners of vast estates; a revolutionary struggle with guerillas in the countryside where there are no estate owners, where the peasants are owners of the land, where there are cooperatives and people's farms, where there is full employment for the entire population. That would not have occurred to us.

Everyone in our country was aware of conditions in the rural areas. Peasants who were not squatters were tenants. Squatters on public lands were the victims of constant evictions and abuse. Cane workers toiled three of four months during the harvest, and two or three months during "the dead season."

Unemployment in the countryside was high. The rural population had migrated to the city where in turn there was already much unemployment. Those who were not squatters were tenants. A tenant on the coffee plantation had to pay one-third or one-quarter of his crops. The tobacco tenant farmer or sharecropper also had to pay 25 or 30 per cent of his crop. The cane planter had to pay a lower percentage, but still it was high, considering the value of raw cane. He had to pay at least 5 per cent of the value of the raw cane. As for prices, the peasants were victims of all kinds of levies and speculating. Their crops were bought cheap and speculators took advantage of their condition to exploit them miserably. In the countryside, commodities were very dear; the peasants had to sell their produce cheap. That was the situation in the countryside. The coffee planters were in the mountains. Who picked the coffee? Well, tens of thousands of men and women from the cane fields, from the sugar plantations, who had no work during "the dead season" went into the mountains to pick coffee. Coffee was grown in the mountains, because the peasants, evicted by the sugar and cattle barons, had taken refuge in the mountains and planted coffee there. It is not because coffee grows exclusively in the mountains, but because that was the only place where they could go to survive.

When we reached the Sierra Maestra, however, it was evident that we had not organized certain aspects of the struggle we were undertaking. For example, we hadn't even made a geographical survey of the Sierra Maestra. We hadn't even set up a preliminary organization in the Sierra Maestra; in short, we could not have started the struggle under worse conditions. It may be good to point up these things so that they can serve as examples to other exploited peoples. We have to say that we did not know a single peasant in the Sierra Maestra and, furthermore, the only ideas we had of the Sierra Maestra were those we had acquired in geography books, and I am sure that if you were to ask anyone here what they learned in their geography books about the Sierra Maestra, they would not know the name of a single river in the Sierra Maestra. They might know that the sources of the Cauto is there, in the Sierra Maestra, and the Contramaestre and the Yara. And what we knew of the Yara was the song about the Rio Yara -- that's all.

In other words, conditions were very difficult, but it's true that where the objective conditions are favorable, the Revolution can develop, that it's only on the basis of objective conditions that you can, at a given historical moment, make a revolution. This was fully demonstrated, because the other circumstances, the subjective ones, did not exist. We began that struggle on the basis of certain premises, correct premises, the premise of an exploitative social system in our country and the conviction that our people wanted a revolutionary change. Though they may not have been very aware of it, nevertheless, that's what they wanted. It showed in their general discontent, in the fact that a rebel band immediately found support among wide sectors of the public, in the rebellious spirit of the people and in the degree of political maturity of our people; in spite of all the confusion sown, in spite of all of the propaganda and of all of the lies of imperialism and reaction.

We started with that assumption. That assumption was correct and since it was correct, the hopes and possibilities we had envisaged were fulfilled. So, this teaches the first lesson: that there can be no revolution, in the first place, unless there are objective circumstances at a given historical moment to facilitate and make the revolution. In other words, a revolution cannot be created out of the minds of men. We can give one very clear and evident example. Let us suppose that Marti had been born not in the middle of the past century, the 19th century, but had been born in the middle of the 18th century. With all his extraordinary intelligence, Marti would not have played the role he actually played in the era when he lived and carried on his revolutionary action, under really objective conditions, to start a struggle, a struggle that could not have been launched one century earlier.

Lenin. Let us suppose that Lenin had been born at the end of the 18th century. Well, he could not have developed the theories he developed as leader of the Russian proletariat, as interpreter of Marxism, since if Marx, in turn, had been born in the 18th century, in the middle of the 18th century, he would possibly have done only what Voltaire, Diderot and all those intellectuals did. One could not have been the intellectual of a class that did not exist; the other, creator of the doctrine of a revolution that could not be realized.

In other words, revolutions do not spring from the minds of men. People can interpret an historical law, a certain moment of historical development. To make a correct interpretation is to propel the revolutionary movement. In Cuba, our role has been that of propellers of that movement, through evaluating a series of objective conditions. Of course, the analysis is not as simple as this, inasmuch as there was another series of circumstances that favored the revolutionary movement we started -- certain circumstances which, in the first place, were not taken into account. In the second place, many people thought we were romantics, that we were going to die right there. In the third place, many thought we were ambitious. In the fourth place, many thought that the group of revolutionary leaders was a group of leaders of conservative or non-radical ideas. There is no doubt that had we, when we were getting strength, been known as people with very radical ideas, the social class which is fighting us today would have fought us right then and not only since we took power.

There was a series of circumstances which favored the role of we who initiated, on an objective basis, the guerilla movement in the mountains.

And what did we find in the Sierra Maestra? Well, we met with the first peasants who wanted to join us, peasants who were in a bad way; first, we had met setbacks and were scattered. Some peasants helped to bring the remnants of our forces together. This group of peasants, a very small group, helped us to go deeper into the Sierra Maestra. Some peasants began to join our ranks.

Terror of the Army

But to the majority of peasants what were the hard facts at that time? First of all, there was great fear of the Army. This was the important fact. In the second place, it was difficult for them to realize how such a small group of starving people, ragged, with only a few arms, could destroy all those forces moving about in trucks, trains, airplanes -- with so many resources. That is why at first we were, indeed, in a very precarious and difficult position. Indeed, many times we had to move around without the people seeing us. Why? Because in a village or group of 100 persons, there was always a Batista supporter, a grafter, a political sergeant, a something. Well, although he did not see us, he was able to find out where we were from rumors that an armed group had passed through. And he would then go and inform the army.

Nevertheless, we succeeded fairly well in passing through unnoticed until we reached one area, the area of La Plata. And what did we find there? The Army had taken advantage of the existence of our expedition, which it had already assumed to be entirely liquidated, to carry out a series of evictions and terrible abuses.

At the time, there was a certain amount of resistance among the farmers there to a company -- La Viti, who owned an estate and the Media Luna sugar mill -- I believe it is one of the sugar mills with thousands of acres of land in the area of Niquero. They owned large tracts of land in that area. They even owned Pico Turquino Mountain!

There was a private road going through there. You know that the history of peasants' evictions had always been intimately connected with the problems of roads. A private road is a boundary which the company sets, saying: "To enter, you must go this way; no one can get in." There was one of these roads there and the peasants had been fighting against them. There was a peasants' movement there, very embryonic, it is true. They received us well. Well, then, in those days we planned our first operation. All right, I wish to establish the following: that the day on which we took the first district, that of La Plata on January 17, we-launched a surprise attack at dawn on a mixed patrol of soldiers and marines consisting of twelve men -- we were about sixteen. We took them by surprise and overcame them. We took all their arms. Our forces came out of the operation that day with twenty-nine men. Then we turned inland towards the Palma Mocha River to the east, on the coast, facing Pico Turquino.

They Wanted to Evict the Peasants

When we arrived in the morning, a large caravan of peasants were coming down the hillside. These peasants who were about ten kilometers from the scene of action had heard nothing about what had happened. We asked them what had happened to them, but we already knew, for we had captured a harbor pilot who was part of the patrol before we attacked their post and we questioned him thoroughly and found out that a certain Corporal Baso had been around Palma Mocha River telling the peasants to leave the area, that it was going to be bombarded the following day. The patrol was staying at the house of the Viti Company's foreman. They had taken advantage of the presence of our expedition which they had already said was liquidated. No one knew we were there. However, they took advantage of this circumstance to evict the peasants. No airplane had bombed or was going to bomb. It was absurd to think of bombing these hillocks. Nevertheless, this corporal had told all the peasants living along the Palma Mocha River and on the slopes of Pico Turquino that they were going to bomb the next day, so that the peasants would abandon their houses. Then the patrol went around burning all the houses and simply evicting the peasants.

Just imagine, when we were going up along the Palma Mocha River early that morning, we saw a stream of peasants, some with seven children, ten children, four children, coming down and when we met up with them and asked them, "Why are you coming down?" they replied, "Because they are going to bomb." And I told them: "That's a lie. How can you believe that? No one knew yesterday that we were around here, no one knew that we were going to attack that post which we did early in the morning. They have done this to make you all abandon the area. Go on back." And the peasants, just imagine, when they saw us there in the flesh, after having attacked a post, thought it the more true that the place was going to be bombed. Very few went back. For -- just think of it -- a marine corporal had been there the day before, saying to them: "Clear out, they are going to bomb here." And the following day, early in the morning, while they are going down, they meet up with a patrol of revolutionaries who had just captured a post and was going to set up camp right there. What doubt could these peasants have had that they were really going to bomb the place? There was no bombing because it was absurd to bomb woods many square kilometers in area with no idea of where the devil a patrol might be. But we saw no bombing. So they had taken advantage of our expedition to force them off the land.

A Heroic Worker

There, when we crossed over into the area of San Lorenzo, what did we find? The peasants there were scared, too. It was reported that some people from Maffo with money, who owned a coffee warehouse, were going to evict them because they had title to all the land around. Wherever we went, we found peasants who were faced with lawsuits. All the peasants were faced with the problem of eviction. Even those who were not being evicted lived in fear of being evicted.

Naturally, we began to do some political work among the peasants, explaining to them the aims of the Revolution. But the problem of the peasants was not only that the landowners wanted to deprive them of their lands and were actually taking their land away, and in a number of cases, had already done so, but that in addition, it took a thousand labors to cultivate the land on the slopes of these hills. There were places in the mountains that even goats could hardly climb. Still, the peasants had cultivated the slopes with sweet potatoes and coffee.

Here, we thought, was the truly heroic type of worker. And how did he work? He worked in the lowlands for a fortnight, saved up fifteen or twenty pesos, bought a little salt, a little lard, and would go back into the hills. And for years while he went on like this, harvesting a few coffee beans; nobody helped him. But not only that. When this peasant cleared a patch of hill, a couple of rural police would show up and if it wasn't the rural police, it was a man sent by the chief of the nearest post to collect a fee for the clearing.

The unfortunate guajiro would come down into the lowlands to work for a fortnight under extreme hardships for a peso because they paid him a peso in the valley to keep a tiny coffee plantation going, and a corporal of the rural police or a sergeant from a distant post had some character in charge of collecting money every time there was a clearing. This made the peasants extremely annoyed.

These peasants had another problem: when they sold their coffee, they were paid thirteen pesos, fourteen pesos for it. They lent them money and charged them high interest. BANFAIC was already in operation, of course, but to whom did the BANFAIC lend money? They lent money to the peasant who already had a crop, to the person who already held cash, who was almost a capitalist, or to the one who with a lot of hard labor had been able to plant half a caballeria and was harvesting 100 quintals. They were willing to finance the man who collected 100 quintals, but those who didn't have a single quintal to harvest, in other words, the vast majority of the campesinos in the Sierra, would get no money because they didn't have title to the land. The BANFAIC demanded title to land. They also demanded that the peasant must already have a crop, that he harvest beans. If he didn't,. no loan. This was the situation of the peasants.

Besides, whenever a rural guard came, he was sure to carry off at least a fine rooster, if not a little pig and things of that sort.

Misery and Illiteracy

The merchandise they sold to the peasants was sold at an extremely high price. There was not one school there; not one teacher. If these peasants had realized much sooner what they could have done, it is possible that with only half a dozen rifles they could at least have made themselves independent in the mountains! For the conditions were very favorable. It was a better fate for the peasant to grab a rifle and rise up than to be thrown off his land and endure the hardship and misery he suffered.

These were the conditions, the objective conditions, that we found in the Sierra Maestra. Everything else, organization of the military apparatus, organization of the political apparatus, was still to be done! These things we had already done in the valley. In the valley we formed the suitable organization, but it was very embryonic. It was very new and, therefore, it did not have the discipline of a revolutionary organization tempered by many years of battle.

It is beyond question that in the valley, many young people struggled, made sacrifices, staked their lives, and fought heroically. Of course, it was a heroic type of fight, but it was not able to get the results that we were beginning to-get in the mountains.

The arena of the struggle was the mountains. There began our task of organizing a guerilla movement, giving it experience, and at the same time, winning, conquering the masses of peasants for the Revolution. It was perfectly logical that in those objective conditions existing in the Sierra Maestra, the revolutionary work should develop until it could count on practically unanimous support of the peasants -- as it eventually did.

In other words, we were already counting on that social force although we had few weapons and a great many difficulties. The struggle continued to unfold; it developed throughout the land. Guerilla fighting became nationwide: first, in the Second Front of Las Villas; then, in the Second Front of Oriente. The tactics we were promoting had triumphed. In other words, events had demonstrated that, under certain conditions, that way was correct. We began to give up the putschist type of tactics, organizing forces to try to win the power in a frontal attack at great disadvantage against armed forces. The tactics we favored were wearing down the forces of the tyranny.

Needless to say, that's why we have tremendous faith in guerilla warfare. We believe in guerilla fighting under the conditions of our country, which are similar to the conditions in many Other Latin-American countries -- and don't think that this is the reason...(applause)...you didn't let me finish....We seriously believe we have the right to think so because we have gone through the experience.

The Revolutionary Movement is Invincible

Naturally, we know that when this conviction takes hold of other people equally oppressed by imperialism and the cliques in the pay of imperialism, by the military castes; equally exploited by the landowners, other people going through the same things as the Cuba of hungry peasants, exploited, landless, without schools, without doctors, without credit, without aid of any sort; when they become convinced as we were convinced -- and we are convinced, above all, by facts -- I am sure that no imperialist force, no reactionary one, no military caste, no NATO army will be able to withstand the revolutionary movement.

We simply believe that given Cuba's circumstances, we must be on guard against one tactical move. Our enemies tried to use the same tactics, but with only one difference: they think they can make a revolution in a country that has done with landlords, that has done with rent; where there is a teacher in every neighborhood, hospitals, doctors, credits, aid; where the day of the middleman is over, speculation is done with, harvests guaranteed. In other words, conditions that are the absolute opposite of the conditions in which we made our Revolution.

All of the Military Science of the Pentagon is Going to Clash with Reality

In other words, we made a revolution under given conditions and along come the counter-revolutionaries to try to fight under conditions that are the very reverse of the conditions we fought under. In short, whatever had to happen to them, happened. In the Sierra Maestra and those areas where they tried to form counter-revolutionary groups, they were always knocked out of action within forty-sight hours.

They copied one part, but did not copy the other. You can't copy the other. They copied the idea of guerrillas, but got them from among the enemy, among the reactionaries. Now, the Pentagon has followed suit, finally, but on the other side of the coin. We do not have to copy anything. We leave things as they are and see what happens. And we know that all the military science of the Pentagon is going to clash with reality; reality being the conditions under which the peoples of Latin America live.

The Spark That Kindles the Fire

There is only one way to combat the revolutionary guerrilla: with the disappearance of imperialism, its monopolies, and Its exploitation. That is why we don't worry when we hear that General Taylor or some other general who was in Korea or wherever is setting up an anti-guerrilla school in Panama or Argentina. It's a waste of time.

In short, they are afraid; they're showing that they are really afraid. But they imagine they cap escape it, the revolutionary struggle of the peoples. There is no remedy at all for the revolutionary struggle-.of the peoples except the disappearances of those conditions that drive people to revolt. That is why we can't help laughing at those schools of Taylor. We are sure than-any handful of men can launch the struggle wherever the objective conditions that existed in Cuba are present -- and I refer to no country in particular -- that revolutionary movement, that group, following the rules that guerrillas have to follow, we are absolutely sure that is the spark that would start the fire.

We were like a match in a haystack. I won't say in a cane field because a match in a cane field is serious business. A match in a haystack! That was the guerrilla movement, given the conditions that existed in our country. Little by little, the struggle became a struggle of all the people. Naturally, it spread; it was the people, simply all of the people, who were the sole actors in that struggle and it was the masses who decided the issue.

When our tactics began to pay off, the people immediately started to join. All the revolutionaries began to join and were converted to these tactics and to the struggle of the entire Cuban revolutionary movement. And, in the end, to the struggle of all the people.

How was it possible -- though finally by the end of December, the regular forces of tyranny were completely broken -- for the revolutionary movement to avoid what's happening in Santo Domingo today, to avoid what reaction and imperialism have always tried to do everywhere in America? Only by the revolutionary consciousness that has been developed in the people, the active participation of the masses.

What was it that made the maneuvers of the American embassy and of reaction disappear like candy in a school yard? Simply the general strike. It was not necessary to fire one more shot. That was the right moment to give the signal for a general strike.

Sure, we launched it at a very premature moment. But what did is mean? That the subjective criteria predominated, that we didn't understand the objective conditions. Our own Revolution can show ,ampler of everything. We had hoped that the conditions were ripe; and that the tyranny would collapse; that is what we wanted, what we hoped for. It so happened that we converted those desires into reality, but only in our imagination.

And what does a revolutionary have to do? He has to interpret reality. We did not interpret that reality and we made a mistake. The suit was that the strike didn't come off because conditions were .t completely ripe, because of the tactics employed; but mostly cause, fundamentally, conditions were not ripe; the military force of the Revolution amounted to less than 200 men.

The Conquest of Revolutionary Power

When the signal was given the second time, we had already isolated whole provinces, destroyed complete enemy units; the enemy had been really split wide open. On other occasions, the enemy had always been able to cross any territory he wanted to and had always dominated the situation in the country. The signal must be given at the right time and then strategy is easy to carry out: the conquest of revolutionary power by the masses. This is what makes the difference between a true revolutionary movement and a coup d'etat.

What factor mobilized the masses? The guerrilla war was the factor that mobilized the masses, that made the struggle, the repression $cute, intensified the contradictions of the regime; and the people simply seized power; the masses seized power. This was the first basic characteristic.

It's possible to liquidate the force, the military apparatus, the machinery that propped up the regime. In other words, a series of evolutionary laws was passed: first, the seizure of power by the masses; second, the liquidation of the apparatus, of the military machinery that held the regime of privilege together.

What do reaction and imperialism try to do? What do they try to preserve in any crisis? The history of Latin America is full of examples. What they try to preserve at all costs is the military apparatus, the military machine of the system. In the final analysis, neither imperialism nor the ruling classes give a hoot who the president is, who is a representative, who is a senator.

Naturally, reaction and imperialism would like to have for president, if possible, a man who is not a complete crook; it is to their interest, if possible, that he be honest, that he spend money to advance the interests of the ruling classes. It is to their interest to have the public administration function with honesty and, in the end, they prefer a government that steals less to one that steals more.

What is imperialism interested in? It is interested, naturally, in a government that looks after the interests of the monopolies. It is all the same to them whether it be Perez Jimenez or Romulo Betancourt. If you want examples, there's one for you.

What more can a Perez Jimenez give them than a Romulo? Perez Jimenez respected the interests of the oil companies in Venezuela. Romulo more than respects these interests; he worships them. He goes to the extreme of even imposing taxes in order to get himself out of the mess he's in and exempting the military and the United States oil companies, the American interests, from these taxes. He has absolute respect for all the landowners, the big bourgeoisie, the interests of home owners, owners of apartment buildings, big businessmen, owners of large estates -- these he respects. And what's more, he pays all the debts Perez Jimenez incurred, money that the bourgeois financiers lent him. In fact, he paid it back, penny for penny. He couldn't renounce these debts.

Romulo Serves Imperialism

And so, he is wholehearted in serving the interests of imperialism, of the ruling economic classes, the big bourgeoisie of Venezuela and the military caste. Yes, indeed, he finds it necessary to burn one candle for the Department of State and another candle for the military, although the two candles were really serving the same interests. He is trying to please the military and at the same time, see that the American ambassador (that was the role of Mr. Moscoso) (laughter)...the role of Mr. Moscoso in Venezuela was to visit officials, to tell the high officials of Venezuela: "Don't conspire against Betancourt; Betancourt offers a solution; if you stage a coup d'etat, there will be another Cuba."

What does this prove? That it suits the imperialists to dress up their domination of Latin America in a certain civilian garb, the trappings of "representative democracy" which disappear, as they have disappeared in Venezuela, as soon as the contradictions become intensified.

In fact, at this very time, they have just begun the suppression of the Communist Party and the Movement of the Revolutionary Left. They have shut down the newspaper of the Democratic Republican Union; muzzled their newspaper. And who is left there? The COPEY party, the must reactionary party in Venezuela. And with whom are they allied? With the worst elements, those who were left behind with the Betancourt regime when the best people dropped him: the crooks, the gangsters, the Mujalistas, that whole gang working together.

In other words, we have the perfect union of the American embassy, military reaction, a political party which is the most reactionary, representing the interests of the exploiters and the worst elements, crooks and thieves of the Betancourt clique. Yes, it has come to this. There is no more "representative democracy" there; they lack even that!

Well, the same is true of Peru. What more can you expect from an Odria than from a Prado? It's no problem for them.

It is only logical that the national bourgeoisie, the ruling classes, should prefer a type of government -- as I said before, that it' possible, is respectable and, if possible, runs things in a way that will cause the least trouble. They have been partial, frequently, to military regimes; and why? Because they are governments by repression, by force, against the workers' movement, against the peasant movement.

Down with One and Up with Another

But, at any rate, when a revolutionary movement comes to a head, ,.url a popular movement turns into a revolution, they remove this military group and another military man or a junta of military and civilian groups always emerges. They remove a military man here, put him there, appease the people and, in the end, after a while, the Dame military man is doing the same things. Or the same thing happens that happened in Venezuela, for one must take into account the special conditions in every country.

In Venezuela a military figure of prestige arose, one, moreover, the few military figures to act in a democratic, popular way: Wolfgang Larrazabal.

And what happens? There is a great movement of unity, a movement of unity resulting in the overthrow of Perez Jimenez. And what is the first thing that Betancourt did? He divided the nation. He ran for election, destroyed the unity of the people, exactly when the people of Venezuela had a wonderful opportunity to get rid of the military caste.

Imperialism and the Bourgeoisie are Trying to Keep the Military Machine Intact

Well, I want to say simply that the first thing imperialism and the bourgeoisie try to do is to keep the military machine intact. What are they doing in Santo Domingo? In Santo Domingo, they are trying to keep the military machine intact. It's all the same to them whether it's Trujillo or Trujillo's brother or Balaguer or Juan Bosch. It does not matter to them that there is a military machine intact with aircraft, tanks and police skilled in persecution and repression of the people. All the imperialists aim for is to maintain the military machine. All the efforts of the Dominican people are, therefore, to destroy the military machine.

When a moment of crisis arrives, as it arrived in Cuba on the 1st of January or has now arrived in Santo Domingo, the key to this whole situation is whether the people take control of the weapons or whether the military machine remains intact with weapons in hand and the people defenseless. When a crisis of this kind arises in any country, the prime objective of the people's movement is to destroy the military machine and seize its arms. This is an indispensable condition; without it, the revolution can be checked, can be betrayed, and can be crushed.

Imagine what would have happened if the people of Venezuela had, been able to take control of the arms when the regime of Perez Jimenez fell. Goodbye imperialism, goodbye oil companies, goodbye Romulo Betancourt or whatever traitor, to call things by their right name!

Of course, we do not invent this; it is all very clearly stated in a book by Lenin -- I imagine that all of you or most of you are familiar with it -- called "The State and Revolution." It is a

point he stressed very much and it is undeniably a vital, perfectly. comprehensible truth, even to those who have not been through the experience of Cuba.

This is just what we have seen happen throughout Latin America. The revolution must first destroy the military machine of the old system and take over control of the weapons.

Of course, that is not the only condition for a revolution; but It is an indispensable condition for revolution.

In this way, the Cuban revolutionary process carried through a series of laws, laws that are fundamental to any revolutionary process. First, the conquest of power by the masses, that is, the conquest of power by the people; and, second, destruction of the military apparatus of the ruling economic class.

In other words, the military machine was in the pay of imperialism, of the landowners, of the financial, of the commerical and industrial bourgeoisie.

Those people, those people can now talk about democracy when they had renounced even that bourgeois democracy, a democracy that was for them alone.

Everyone remembers perfectly well what happened in Havana the day after the attack on the Palace. There was the most shameful procession of representatives of those economic classes marching to the Palace. Gentlemen, can you imagine anyone with honor marching to the Palace after that slaughter, after that bloodshed, after those acts perpetrated upon wounded men who fell prisoner, murdered students, people who sacrificed themselves in a heroic deed? Can you imagine that bunch of "boot lickers" lining up at the entrance of the Palace the following day to congratulate Mr. Batista?

And who went there? Well, simply the big bourgeoisie and their lumpen, their gangsters, their Mujalistas; the whole gang. Of course, the labor leaders went there right away; or, as they said, the workers. What a farce -- the workers! Instruments of reaction and imperialism in the labor movement, the reactionary clergy, big business, that whole crowd; the landowners, the industrialists, the whole crowd in Indian file to pay their respects. What did they care? I can assure you that none of those gentlemen visited the Presidential Palace after a revolutionary law was passed. None! And as we know, none of those gentlemen has yet marched to the Presidential Palace where so many revolutionary laws have been made.

On the other hand, they went there to congratulate Batista the day after the massacre. Why? Because, those people, those shameless people who now prate of democracy (perhaps many of them get together in Miami on a Sunday to talk about democracy or if not, to hear a sermon of some priest or other. I say some priest or other, not a revolutionary priest). They now talk about democracy.

If someone should ask them, "Good, but what are you fighting for?" "We are fighting for democracy," they say. Actually, they're not even fighting for bourgeois democracy, a regime with a minimum of freedom -- but only what the ruling class permits. With this said, let's go on to something else.

When they owned all the newspapers, all the radio and television stations, and even wrote the history books, it was understandable that we should fall for all those tales. But today it is really absurd to try to fool anyone with them. And they are less likely to succeed with the people learning and understanding more every day.

What these people cared about was the government, however bloody, however large the number of youths assassinated, of bodies piled up early in the morning. They didn't care about that. How many died on April 9? They didn't care. How many died in those torture chambers, assassinated? Why is it that wherever you go, you find a marker and a murdered youth -- on nearly every highway? And they weren't the only ones. If you were to put a marker everywhere a youth had been murdered, the roads would be full of crosses and markers. In the hills, what they did: in the mountains, the murderers. One still learns of a child, every now and then; what can be done with him? He has such problems. He has to be taken to the doctor because he is the only surviving son of a family of six brothers and they killed the father. So the child has psychological problems. One still finds things like that everywhere.

What did these sufferings of our people matter to the bourgeoisie, that whole ruling class? They were indifferent to them. They went to see Batista, because Batista was obviously the one who protected their class interests. And, as you would expect, they were preparing to take immediate advantage of a change, should a change come about.

I will never forget the first days after the triumph, the visitors I received at home.

It turns out that one -- I'm not going to make propaganda now -but I think that I acted quite decently. Anyone who asked for an interview with me I saw right away. I say that this was quite decent. Who showed up at my house? Well, from early in the morning, from the cardinal's nephews to the whole Pepin Rivera family of Diario de la Marina; bankers, businessmen, all the factory managers, the whole pack. What a list it was! During the first days I tried to receive those people. I thought it was one of my obligations to receive people who asked for interviews. I didn't have much to do those days because I had no part in the government either. They filled up my house, not only the first day, but the second day, too, and the third day. And I said to myself, "What do those people want?"

Of course, I knew. But what really disgusted me was to see that procession of all those people of former days. (I asked myself) First, what are they thinking? And I said, well, the conceited ones, the more they think they can come here to see us freely, the better; the more of a surprise they'll get. (le/ngthy applause)

They came to offer their paper, the same paper that had been serving Batista during the tyranny. They came to offer their banks, the same banks that had served Batista to the very last. And then to talk only about the day that the American ambassador, Mr. Bonsal, arrived. Three days before, the entire bourgeois press, radio, and television began to herald the arrival of Mr. Bonsai as a great event. They gave it such publicity that it really began to jar and insult every revolutionary and every man of honor who may not have been revolutionary. Any honorable person holding any position in the country must have felt ashamed of all that publicity surrounding the arrival of a foreign official, as though the great chief executive of the country were arriving -- the great governor of the country. They began to surround it all with an atmosphere as though a proconsul, Bonsai, were coming.

The First Interview I Had with Bonsal

I remember the first meeting with Bonsai. It's a shame I don't have the habit of keeping a diary of my impressions and of events. Well, no matter, I received him there in Cojimar -- the great Bonsal. The American ambassador! From the first moment he began to talk, he spoke about the Electric Power Company, about the Telephone Company, about the problem of the banks, about the problem of the estates of North American companies, the history of what those companies had done for the country.... Good, those were the very first words that gentleman began with. Furthermore, his manner was truly the manner of someone who comes to a country to give instructions. Of course, he didn't have the slightest idea what sort of people he was dealing with. His manner from the outset was something shocking, that of a gentleman...practically, those were the mannerisms of that gentleman. Finally, he left.

I don't think there was a single interview in which that gentleman didn't harp on the same old theme. But at that time there wasn't yet the Agrarian Law or nationalization of...well, I do not quite recall what month it was; I believe Miro Cardona was still Premier.

Well, of course, from the very outset he began to rub us the wrong way, from the very first moment immediately; simply over the. Ah! The American Military Mission and all that, because one of the first things we found when we got to Havana and at Ciudad Libertad -- Ciudad Libertad after the triumph -- were the officers of the American Military Mission delighted with their life there, with their uniforms, with their job. They were still there; Batista's army was there; Batista's army leaves, enters the Rebel Army, and they still went to the office every day "to render their services." They were ready to render their services calmly to the people.

I remember when I met those officers. I arrived there and I said to myself: "And these people, what are they doing here?" And I went there and called over two or three officers -- and I don't remember whether it was in Spanish or English, I don't remember -- and I told them to leave. How could they give us classes, seeing that we had defeated the army they had been teaching. How could they give us classes?

Of course, all that reaction, all that press, was very interested in what the Ambassador would do. They began to deify him, to prepare the ground. All they managed to do, actually, was to make us look forward even less to the arrival of Mister Ambassador. From the very outset, a series of clashes began because of the opinions and points of view, etc., so that those meetings became strained and intolerable until somewhat later, I recall, after he spent three months asking for an interview -- it was three months before we gave him an interview. Finally, I had no alternative, according to the elementary rules of protocol, but to give it to him.

Why? Because we just couldn't stand that gentleman's proposals. Good, that's how it was with us. Imagine how those ambassadors must talk in other places where they find a Romulo Betancourt, a Prado, or that type of individual. We certainly know that the American ambassador must talk to them as one talks to a servant.

Well, we were speaking about the reaction of all that bourgeoisie and big bourgeoisie the day after the Revolution seized power. Those were the conditions. Two requirements had already been fulfilled. And let us now delve a little deeper into the subject. We must look at it all, eh? I assure you. Let's go into the subject.

The Revolution had (accomplished) two things: it had already come into power with the masses; secondly, it had liquidated the military apparatus of the ruling social class. It had an army of the people, that is, it now had the people armed.

Bearded ones, who hadn't gone to military school, were, however, the army of the people. In fact, the Rebel Army was the firmest, the most solid part of the Revolution.

How were the existing classes related one with the other? Well, in the hands of the ruling class at this moment were: all the financial resources, all the economic resources, the entire press, all of radio; that is, to say, all the big radio and television stations, the big printing presses, the publishing houses, all these, were in their hands. Besides this, were the American magazines, all the imperialist literature in our country. They held all these resources in their hands, the economic resources...they were, to put it simply, still the owners of the country. And in the government....Of course, we were the ones to put him there; in other words, it was simply due to the Rebel Army and the fighting of the Rebel Army that a president of the republic was proclaimed.

I am not going to say that we are now revolutionary sages, nor that we were sages then. Far from it. But I will tell the truth, how we always thought, at least how I used to think. One can introduce personalities when one speaks of how we thought then, because the revolutionary forces were still fragmented. I was sure that neither Urrutia nor anyone could prevent the achievement of a revolutionary program. We certainly knew what a revolutionary program was. If we didn't plunge in with a whole set of basic measures, it was because we understood that a series of revolutionary reforms and laws, given the conditions in which the struggle against Batista was developing, would simply weaken the camp of those forces opposed to the Batista tyranny.

We had succeeded, fortunately, in welding together against Batista a large number of political and social forces. We had succeeded in welding together, into a broad front for the struggle, many sectors of the country. Of course, we had to go through certain embarrassing situations. For example, there were the opinions of the Prio-Miro Cardona group, that whole bunch in the Front, who were in Miami, opposed to a broad, complete unity. They all were in favor of excluding the Socialist Party from that unity. We defended the inclusion of the Socialist Party. Carlos Rafael is witness to all the difficulties we were in because we had to prevent a split, we had to keep (the united front) together. They wanted to have a meeting in Miami to discuss who would make up the union of forces against Batista. We knew that if the discussion took place in Miami, those people were going to impose their conditions and, to put it simply, to break the little unity there was.

Then, we argued that the meeting should be held in the Sierra Maestra, that the delegates of the Front should come to the Sierra Maestra to confer with us. We knew that in any discussion held in the Sierra Maestra, we would be able to lay down the conditions, but that, on the other hand, in Miami, they would be the ones who would lay down the conditions. We weren't going to accept that, because we weren't at all disposed to go along with the exclusions they proposed, and that would have created a problem at a most inopportune moment.

But in the long run, with a little cooperation from some quarters, you could say we all agreed on the prime objective: the prime objective of overthrowing the Batista tyranny. Of course, we had already had a previous experience with the Front. It was when some delegates went and said they represented "the 26th of July" and formed a front there. We had been in the mountains a long time already, more than a year, struggling under difficult conditions, under many privations and without help from the outside; and we became boiling mad, all of us, when we found that they had made a pact in our name in Miami. What we did was to send that letter there which those elements called a divisionist letter, and things like that. The only thing we could not accept at all was that pact.

Then, of course, we made a proposition that had a very clear intention, and always formed part of our proposals. It was the following: proposals that made all reconciliation with the army impossible. We always tried to create the worst conditions for a putsch. In other words, we wanted to make a putsch impossible. We were always worried lest, since the revolutionary forces were not yet very developed, a military coup would take place through the maneuvers of imperialism and reaction, like that famous coup of which so much has been said, Barquin's coup. Still, let it be said in passing, that among those officers there were some good ones, honest, who are today with the Revolution. Well, when the historical record eomes to be written, let them clear up what properly needs to be cleared up.

The leader of that coup was a man who had been shaped by the ideology, and by the methods, and by the style of the North American Department of State or of the Pentagon...I believe he was part of that junta, that junta which bred dictators and this, the Inter-American Organization...I believe they threw us out of it, or didn't admit our representative. They do not comply with the laws of the Organization of American States, well, they do not fulfill their international commitments. The question is that we always tried to prevent a military putsch. When the Revolution did not have sufficiently developed forces, the people would have accepted that change and would have been deceived as other peoples at other times have been deceived, because they do not understand that the system itself, and not individuals, must change. We always feared that maneuver. And what did we do? We said that we would never accept a coup, that we reserve the right to clean out, reorganize and rebuild the armed forces of the Republic. Clearly, no military organization is inclined to accept, even remotely, a formula that implies that a civilian movement could come and rebuild it. And our first move then was this: but, I want you to know first that when we sent word (to strike) from the Sierra Maestra, we were just 120 armed men. Of course, to anyone, it must have seemed a colossal and monstrous absurdity that such a small force should give the word. The followers of Prio and all those people then said that what we were doing was contributing to the strengthening of Batista, because we were scaring the military off with our declarations.

We Stood Alone

The military didn't want to know about us then; they changed their minds later on, due to the progress of the war: many of them were taken prisoner and later freed, and they were well treated. The fact is that at that time, first in the campaign that developed around Moncada which was a slaughter of soldiers for all that, and also through our own proposals, because we were interested in seeing that the military did not stage a coup, and we always warned, "If there's a military coup, the war goes on, and on, and on." And we said that from first to last.

The eventuality that worried us was that imperialism might promote a coup before our forces became strong enough to decide events. That was a most correct tactic, and we expounded it in the letter to Miami denouncing the pact, and the pact was broken. We were alone, but it was a time when it was a thousand times better to walk alone than in bad company.

We Reject the Miami Pact

Another thing: Why, at that time when we were just 120 armed men, weren't we interested in a kind of broad unit with all the organizations that were in exile; yet, later on, when there were thousands of us, we certainly were interested in that broad unity? Very simple. Because in any union at a time when there were 120 of us, the conservative and reactionary elements, or representatives of interests, non-revolutionary but against Batista, would have formed a clear majority. In that unity, we would have been a very small force. However, when the struggle was over, all those organizations agreed that the movement should march ahead victoriously and that the tyranny should be overthrown. At that time, they were interested in unity, but we already were the decisive force in that unity.

At a Miami meeting of representatives of those organizations -- there were so many, I can hardly remember them; but there were several--there were Just one or two revolutionary organizations represented: the Directorate and the 26th of July Movement, and that was all. Then -- I'm talking of Miami, don't make such a face, Carlos_ (apparently an aside to someone, Ed). Or were you represented at Miami? Well, in that group of...at-a meeting in Miami, they could have tried to set the conditions. What did we decide to do? Well; we were going to prolong the situation, and not have a meeting until the war ended. It was better to sidestep the position those people took, opposed as it was to the point of view we were going to present . . . and they were interested in excluding the Socialist Party. This was a basic point of theirs. They would never have accepted it. We understood that it was better not to discuss this problem and to end the war.

That unity did mean definitely that the front against Batista would be maintained, and solid. That is, a broad front, with everyone against Batista. Now then, money didn't matter to me, arms didn't matter to me. Actually we were capturing weapons by the hundreds; as for money, we were collecting taxes from the sugar mills, and we already had millions of pesos. It simply represented a broad front, but a front in which we were the main force. Under those conditions, we were more interested in maintaining that front than in any other interest we could have had, inasmuch as, if anyone were left out of that front, the interests of the reactionaries and rightists would have prevailed. These are the conditions under which the overthrow of Batista took place.

The Power of the People

Then there was the phase when we broke the pact that had been made without our agreement, with no representation from us, and without our authorization and, furthermore, that did not represent any revolutionary goals. That was when Urrutia was proclaimed a candidate against one of their candidates. It would have been better if the Revolution had not made any commitment, but we were obliged to name a candidate. Of course, this was not important, nor is it important in any revolution. In a revolution in which the military apparatus does not exist, In a revolution that conquers power with the people, destroys the military apparatus and has a revolutionary army, it does not matter if it'is Tom, Dick, or Harry, who is nominated.

At any rate, we never had the least worry -- I say this with all clarity -- that the Revolution could be distorted, that the reactionary elements could seize the government, because the force of the masses and the armed force were there, were in revolutionary hands.

What were we worried about? I believe, I do not know what historians will say and that's up to them, but we'll give our opinion -I believe that what happened those first months was correct, considering the interrelation of the existing forces, the social, the political order, and the ideological order, it was convenient to have Urriitia and all those people in the Revolutionary Government. Especialiy, the interrelation of the ideological forces still existing in the country. We had the sympathy of the masses and we had the Rebel Army.

How was the revolutionary leadership formed? The revolutionary leadership was mostly a one-man leadership: that is to say, at that time numerous decisions were made pretty nearly by one man. Why were they made by one man? Simply because a well developed revolutionary organization did not exist. There were differences between those who had been in the mountains and those who had been in the plains; between the leadership in the mountains and the leadership in the plains. There were differences that lasted all through the war and some persisted.

I Never Wanted to be a Dictator

It is not always the most pleasant thing to speak about those problems. But even so, one is able to talk about them. Why? Because a part of those comrades with whom we differed at the time, a part, some of those comrades, today take a magnificent revolutionary position and have fully identified themselves with the Revolution. Another part of that leadership is today in Miami, in Puerto Rico, in the American Department of State, or here making counterrevolution. There certainly were differences. Besides, something else took place: the military arm of the Revolution had developed in a really extraordinary way, and this extraordinary development also changed its relation within the 26th of July Movement. The preponderant force at that time was represented by the Rebel Army. And when we arrived in the plains we found within the Rebel Army -- which was a military organization that was led, as armies are led in war, through decisions of a-supreme commander -- almost a kind of one-man leadership, due to the way the Revolution developed and ended.

I remember, and I can speak of those things calmly for a good reason, a little unpleasant though it may be to speak in the first person. I'm going to say the following because, if some people are going to speak of it, it is well for interested parties to speak of it, too. I remember that we felt we had to be on guard against dictatorship. We always said that one of the things we had to fight against was dictatorship, because our country suffered from dictatorship and also suffered the consequences of dictators. From the time of the War of Independence a series of dictators cropped up; among other peoples of Latin America a series of dictators cropped up. Fortunately, I really was not born with any bent to be a dictator, although leading an army at war creates the kind of authority, as armies do, that makes for one-man rule. It can create the habit of dictatorship in men, the habit of being overbearing, the habit that takes pleasure in giving orders. I never really got any special pleasure from giving orders. I remember that, even during the war, I did not issue orders in a military way. I knew that they would be carried out, but I always liked to give my reasons for them: that this ought to be done for such and such a reason. It always seemed much better to me that people should accept orders because they are convinced of the reasons for them.

The First Stage of Revolutionary Government

That's why they talked so much about dictatorship at the time, why they had already begun to talk about it. Who talked about dictatorship? Were they who talked about dictatorship really worried about it? They were worried only by the fact that the Rebel Army was getting the upper hand in the Cuban revolutionary process. The talk of dictatorship was not against a non-existent dictator; the argument against caudillismo was against a growing revolutionary force. And one heard certain remarks about caudillismo and such things, but this what they were really directed against. But the fact is that when the Revolution comes to power, the Revolution, that's the way it we being led.

There is something else. We, the principal leaders of the Revolution, did not even meet to discuss many of the problems. Some of my other comrades were very confident and many of those decisions were taken in the heat of events and were not collective decisions. At tl time, on the other hand, the first Revolutionary Government include( elements representing those classes. I said that it was proper to 1 through that stage. First, we probably had prejudices of our own. I do not know whether it is unfair for us to call it prejudice; but, among other things, it was necessary...we acted, certainly, imbued with the idea that the revolutionary struggle could not be interpreted in terms of personal ambitions, and things of that sort; second the circumstances gave rise to the naming of a president and a count of ministers...

Let us return to the main thread of the theme, which was somehow lost. The main thread was as follows: There was a group that formed part of the government and largely decided who the ministers of the government would be. They put in the government men who, in some cases, were people with anachronistically conservative or more or lo conservative minds; in short, it was a conservative type of government.

Good, I recall that in those early days the responsibility for making revolutionary laws was left in their hands. The policy we adopted was that there was a council of ministers all set up and that V was not a matter of calling the President on the telephone or anything like that. Throughout that whole period, we waited to see what would happen. And what finally happened had to happen. The first went went by and they had not passed a single revolutionary law. We had ' put up with this because some of those gentlemen had a certain following among the people; and if they had no following because of their merits, they had a following because the entire press and radio and television, which were in the hands of the social class whose ideological and economic interests those gentlemen represented, defended them and had taken it upon themselves to wage a big propaganda campaign for them. The interests those gentlemen represented were diametrically opposed to the interests of those peasants whom we met when we arrived in the Sierra Maestra; diametrically opposed to the interests of the farm laborers who worked three months during harvest and then went through the endless "dead season" hungry; diametrically opposed to the interests of the great majority of the country.

What Did Miro Cardona & Company Represent?

And it was simply necessary to pass through that stage, to use it to unmask those gentlemen.

Now, under what conditions does the Revolution come to power? Why do all these things happen? Well, all these things happen as a result of the absence of what we stated before: a single revolutionary movement, organically embodying all revolutionary forces. So, it had to happen. We represented part of those forces; but did not have the organization.

How were the revolutionary forces represented? What were the revolutionary forces, in the first place, the revolutionary social forces? The working class, the peasants, the students, and more or less wide strata of the petite bourgeoisie. Those were what could be called revolutionary forces whose interests were opposed-to the interests of the big bourgeoisie, in the first place, to the interests of imperialism and of the financial, commercial, and industrial bourgeoisie: small property owners, small businessmen, that whole stratum of the petite bourgeoisie; intellectuals, students, peasants, and the working class. They were the forces, the revolutionary classes.

Now, what did Urrutia represent in all that? What did Miro Cardona represent? What did Felipe Pazos represent? What did Justo Carrillo represent? What did those gentlemen represent? I am not going to ask what Manolo Fernandez represented, because, I believe, he represented trash; he was a "mad anarchist."

Reporter: He aspired to be another Peron, from the Ministry...

Dr. Castro: To tell the truth, I do not know that gentleman. I was told later that he was very famous for his conversations in cafes and that he talked for hours and hours and hours; I do not know him. The truth is, I did not know many of those people; they were there in the government...

Then, what organizations represented these forces? The working class, the most advanced, most developed elements of the working class, of the industrial and agricultural workers? What political organization represented that class? Not the entire class, because within those classes there were sectors with a petit bourgeois mind, especially those with higher incomes. Certainly, no one can deny that the petite bourgeoisie was against Batista.

The P.S.P. Represented the Working Class

The Popular Socialist Party represented the most advanced elements of the working class, both in the city and in the country. It also had some followers in the countryside; among the small farmers we found a few militant followers of the Popular Socialist Party in the Sierra Maestra. But, fundamentally, it represented that class.

The 26th of July Movement represented, in the first place, the peasants; that is, the entire peasant movement which was organized around the Rebel Army. It represented...the 26th of July Movement attracted many people, too, from the working class who did not belong to any party, laborers, groups of workers who belonged to some party of the petite bourgeoisie, any political party, decent people, also joined the 26th of July Movement, professional people, intellectuals, youth, students, and elements of the petite bourgeoisie, the most progressive and the most revolutionary elements of the middle class and of the petite bourgeoisie also joined. It can be said that those were the forces that the 26th of July represented.

Similarly, the Revolutionary Directorate represented more or lest the same sectors, but fundamentally the student sector, where Jose Antonio Echeverria, Faure Chomon and their companions came from. The Revolutionary Directorate sprang up from the student groups and in turn also worked to win members from labor sectors, intellectual sectors and peasant sectors.

That is to say, the revolutionary forces of society were represented in three organizations. It is a fact, I believe, that we have all learned to agree in matters of politics and revolutionary theory. Isn't that so?

You, what sector did you belong to, to the intellectuals? (pointing to Soto).

SOTO: To the middle class.

DR. CASTRO: No, you did not belong to the petite bourgeoisie...

Well, you came from the petite bourgeoisie but were a member of the Socialist Party, a vanguard organization... Listen, if you are going to say that to the people, they are not going to understand well the revolutionary instruction you give them in class. You were an intellectual, you were a member of the party of the working class. And that business of being an intellectual is something among us here! Now, no, no! Lionel, now you are an intellectual. It's true that I recognize you sincerely as an intellectual of the working class, so don't let the jokers here misunderstand you and harm the program of revolutionary instruction.

Those are the forces.

They Defended the Bourgeoisie

Whom did Prio Socarras represent? I still believe that one can say he represented the "lumpen bourgeoisie," to coin a phrase. Of course, like the crowd that followed him, his role was to defend the interests of the Yankee monopolies, to defend the interests of the landowners and of the big bourgeoisie. Without any doubt all those groups... Pazos? Pazos was a bourgeois intellectual; Justico was a bourgeois intellectual; Manolo was so much loose garbage. Ray, for all his ideology, his mind, was a perverse defender of bourgeois ideology. The great debates in the Council of Ministers were simply over the question whether works projects were to be carried out by the Administration or by contractors. That was one of the tremendous arguments we had with that gentleman. Our position was that the projects should be carried out and that it was inconceivable that a worker would work better on a job for a contractor than for the state. It was one of the first points we clashed over in the Council.

Let me say that the President signed the Agrarian Law and signed some other legislation, but the situation was becoming more difficult every day.

The other elements who had really played at revolution, who had been in exile, and were portrayed as great men here on the bourgeois radio and television and in the press, they represented simply the interests of the dominant classes.

Well now, the revolutionary sectors, the revolutionary classes, were represented by three separate organizations. Those three separate organizations, of course, maintained contacts. They helped each other during the revolution, during the revolutionary struggle, but organically they were three completely separate organizations each of which had its own leadership, its own tactics, its own sphere of action. It is well known, in fact, that there was friction between our colleagues in the Directorate and us because of the hassle over arms.

REPORTER: All of our comrades in the Directorate and we were closely united in the Revolution.

The Force Lenin Spoke About

DR. CASTRO: How absurd those problems really appear today! How different are the power, security and confidence, the force of the revolution of today from those early days when the Revolution had to face the most trying moments, when it had to face the responsibilities of power, to launch a revolutionary program, and when a large part of the government, all of the press, all of the mass media and, above all, a force -- a force that I believe was the greatest -- the force Lenin had spoken about, that is, the force of custom or of the manner and habits of thinking and looking at things prevalent among a vast segment of the populace.

That is, force of habit, a series of prejudices, instilled, sustained, and spread by the ruling economic classes, by imperialism and by capitalism in our country, constituted, beyond any doubt whatever, one of the most powerful forces that faced the Revolution. And yet, the revolutionary elements of society, the revolutionary social forces, were divided into three organizations, into three separate forces, (taking) three separate paths.

Revolutionary Unity

How much more healthy the situation would have been if, when the Revolution came to power, these forces had been an organic unit as they are today, with a single leadership, with a single program, with one tactical orientation, with one strategic orientation? Now, of course, this is to pose something illusory. Why? Because the conditions that produced this unity are the conditions that were engendered by the revolutionary process itself.

Our force, that of the 26 of July Movement, at that time made up primarily of the elements of the Rebel Army, was a force that comprised many comrades, many of them officers of the Rebel Army, who, in a revolutionary way, from a revolutionary point of view, had been magnificent fighters, valiant in battle. Many of them were of peasant origin and lacked any solid political instruction.

From inclination, from feeling, from a spirit of rebelliousness, they had joined the ranks of the Rebel Army, enemies of abuse, enemies of crime, men who, while lacking opportunity and with no political instruction at all, developed into officers. Many of these comrades were easy prey then to the lies and confusion sowed in our ranks.

Of course, there were some comrades -- there weren't many, fortunately, who attained some prominence in the Rebel Army, elements who, even before they joined our ranks, knowingly defended the interests of the bourgeoisie and the ideology of the bourgeoisie. They had reactionary ideas. Many of the comrades of the Rebel Army, magnificent comrades, today politically conscious militant comrades of the Rebel Army, having acquired unusual training in the course of these three years, were good comrades, but soldiers who, at the time, still lacked any solid ideological training. That was the situation.

In other words, the very force the Revolution counted on was fundamentally of peasant origin, of working-class origin,. including politically, many comrades in the Army who could neither read nor write.

Conditions that made it possible for the revolutionary forces that exist today to take shape were maturing through the revolutionary process. And that organic unity of the revolutionary forces, that is to say, that unity was forged, precisely, and it necessarily had to be forged, through the revolutionary process itself, which is in fact how it was forged.

What is the meaning of the organization of this Party, this organization? What does the unification of all these revolutionary forces mean? What does the unity of these three organizations mean? What, clearly and in all truth, does it mean for the people, and what does it mean for the Revolution? It means that all the revolutionary forces of society, all the revolutionary forces of society, that is, the working class, the peasant class, the students, the revolutionary strata of the petite bourgeoisie, and the intellectuals -- that is to say, the only sectors or classes in society, the only classes in society who, by their very nature and because of the place they occupy in the society, are called upon to be revolutionaries, are today all united within a single revolutionary organization.

The Working Class

In other words, then, all the forces which were previously divided among these separate organizations are now fused in a single organization, under a single revolutionary leadership. What does this mean? It means simply a tremendous strengthening of the Revolution.

From the very first moments, these forces, except for some differences and except for some initial friction, advanced, though separately, of course, by common agreement from the beginning of the Revolution. We went through that first stage of the Revolution with more or less discussion, with more or less exchange of views.

That is, a revolution acquires extraordinary strength when the revolutionary strata of the people, the revolutionary classes, represented in their class organizations, become united in a single organization. And the facts have shown this to be so.

Consider, for example, what forces support the Revolution. They are not the big landowners, they are not the owners of sugar mills, nor big bankers, nor businessmen, nor industrialists, nor any of those people, though there may be an individual here or there who does support the Revolution, for there are always exceptions; there is always the exceptional case of some philanthropist, some honest individual who, besides, becomes enthusiastic over the Revolution and can pass beyond his own class interests.

The working class...Who joined the procession at the funeral of Manuel Ascunce? (16-year old volunteer in the literacy campaign, lynched in the Escambray by counterrevolutionaries in October, 1961 - Ed.) Fundamentally, of course, it was the entire population, but who made up the bulk of that demonstration? Simply the workers. Who make up the bulk of the National Revolutionary Militia? The workers. Who gave their lives in the fighting at Playa Giron, who fell and died fighting the mercenary invaders? It was the force composed of battalions principally from the capital, though units from Matanzas and Cienfuegos also participated, fighting bravely there, too, workers in the overwhelming majority.

In other words, the fundamental strength of the Revolution, the backbone of the Revolution, is made up of the working class.

The Revolution in the Escambray Mountains

Now who, along with the workers, supports the Revolution? Let's not say, rather let us distinguish between agricultural workers -the agricultural workers on the sugar latifundias who today are members of sugar cane cooperatives -- they were a group that before they formed cooperatives, belonged to the working class and should be viewed as such; the peasants, the peasants of the Sierra Maestra, the peasants of the Baracoa area, the peasants of the Escambray, certainly, because the best proof of what we're saying is the following: despite the fact that a group of elements in no way revolutionary developed there, a group of free-loaders, and we are going to distinguish clearly between the role played there by the "Second Front of the Escambray" and the Revolutionary Directorate. But the situation was such that that band of free-loaders practically forced out from the Escambray the more revolutionary elements, for neither Menoyo nor those people started the Second Front. The Second Front was started by comrades of the Directorate, but the group that developed under the leadership of Menoyo and those people ended up by virtually displacing the comrades of the Directorate out of one Zone. Among those gentlemen, the more revolutionary elements were practically pushed aside. That was the situation prevailing in Las Villas when Che Guevara arrived there.

Those people, who had formed a clique there, at a certain point began to act on their own, and followed an outrageous line of action. There are some facts, for example, which are worth recalling. Just one of those gentlemen of Menoyo's "Second Front," himself murdered thirty-three persons. During the entire war, even during the most difficult times among our forces throughout the Sierra Maestra, in a war lasting over two years, we found it necessary to impose the death penalty to hardly more than ten persons. And one single individual, one man alone, had executed thirty-three peasants. And the terrible thing is that this was a group that was up there sponging off the people.

In the Escambray a Revolutionary Tradition Was Not Awakened, as in the Sierra Maestra

A revolutionary tradition was not awakened there, as it was in the Sierra Maestra. The whole way in which the nucleus of the so-called "Second Front" was developed had a negative influence on that entire Escambray area. When the war ended, all of the jobs, from the mayoralty of Cienfuegos, Trinidad, and Topes de Collantes, to the director of public works of Hanabanilla and other places were distributed. They later went there to go politicking as much as they could. That contributed to the development in the Escambray region of a counterrevolutionary movement they organized.

However, even though that counterrevolutionary nucleus developed there, when they had 200 or 300 or 400 and even 500 men -- not all from the Escambray, because there were a lot of worthless people who went up there to the Escambray. That's not all. The people in the Escambray were a small minority -- the forces that hunted down the counterrevolutionaries there had 3,000 men from the Escambray. In other words, the Revolutionary Militia from the Escambray numbered 3,000 when they had hardly 100, which definitely shows that the small farmers benefited from agrarian reform, rescued by the Revolution from taxes, given teachers, doctors, and credits, even when on some occasions, the revolutionary policy came to peasants more slowly than in other places. Despite that, that is despite the fact that they actually carried on counterrevolutionary work there, negative work, the number of people they managed to get from the Escambray was very, very small. And the Revolution had thousands of militiamen and still has thousands of militiamen there.

Since the Escambray was cleaned up, after the revolutionary work was done there, there are innumerable Revolutionary Defense Committees and militiamen in the Escambray. The anti-illiteracy campaign in the Escambray culminates on the 9th; more than 20,000 people have learned how to read and write in the Escambray. The Escambray is today a revolutionary reserve. And it is undeniable that the small peasant, the poor peasant, the small farmer, that numerous sector of the population, is decidedly with the Revolution, in spite of the fact that culturally it had the highest rate of illiteracy in the country, where they lacked the experience that the organized labor movement had, and the degree of political awareness of the labor movement, the proletariat. That sector is with the Revolution.

Now, the students are with the Revolution. What better proof is there that the students are with the Revolution than the 100,000 volunteers who are teaching people how to read and write? In other words, while the students, in Venezuela, in Caracas, for example, are in the streets protesting against repression, struggling against imperialism, fighting the fascist measures of Mr. Romulo Betancourt and while throughout Latin America there is a vigorous student movement struggling against imperialism, in our country 100,000 students have gone into the countryside to teach people how to read and write. An overwhelming majority of the intellectuals are with the Revolution; honest professional men are with the Revolution, and a wide and numerous stratum of the petite bourgeoisie is with the Revolution. That cannot be denied.

That social stratum, the upper bourgeoisie, the counterrevolution; is trying to drag them back, while the Revolution is trying and is succeeding in keeping the best elements with the Revolution. As you can see, Lionel, it is not bad to come from the petite bourgeoisie. Those are truths.

The Working Class Is With The Revolution.

I believe that our people can perfectly understand these things because they see them. When it sees a congress of 10,000 labor delegates, when they see huge gatherings, when they see hundreds of thousands of militiamen, they realize that the working class is with the Revolution. When they see 100,000 volunteer teachers, they realize that the students are with the Revolution. When they see peasant meetings, tens of thousands of peasant militiamen, they realize that the peasants are with the Revolution, and they realize that the intellectuals are with the Revolution, the more honest professional men. The facts prove it,

And, this precisely has been the significance of the unity, the efforts of all the revolutionary sectors of society united in a single revolutionary organization.

Because now another question comes up: How many revolutions could three separate organizations have made? That is, those organizations that represented the revolutionary sectors of society, could they have made three separate revolutions? Or did they have to make one revolution?

I believe this is an important point. In discussing the question of the United Party of the Revolution,-it is, above all, desirable for the people to understand the historical roots of the revolutionary process and of the unity of the organizations, so that everyone can realize that there are certain positions or certain attitudes that are purely utopian, illusory, idealistic, false.

We recall that during the interrogation [of the prisoners from Playa Giron - Ed.] one fellow spoke up about a third position and a string of idiocies along the same lines.

First, I must say one thing. In the first place, we are gaining a lot of experiences with the Revolution itself. The Revolution itself is revolutionizing us. The Revolution itself is making us more and more revolutionary everyday. There was a time when we were not revolutionaries. Yes, there was a time when there was nothing revolutionary about me. Ah, was it because I was reactionary, thieving and corrupt? No, nothing of the sort. There was a time when -politically I could be considered a complete illiterate as a result of my class origins.

And, did I know more about revolution twenty years ago than Marinello, Carlos Rafael, Anibal, Blas? No, sir. Twenty years ago, many of us knew not one word about revolution, among other things, because twenty years ago many of us...I believe that twenty years ago Raul was just learning to read and write; we were just boys.

But even though many of us were not just boys, we came from social classes other than the working class, and I am very much aware of that; very much aware, furthermore, of the influence that class origin must have had. on our thinking. But by the same token I am very much aware of this too, very much aware of instilling in myself revolutionary thought, clear, straight, and cleansed of everything that could have remained in me by reasons that have nothing to do with the consciousness and will of men. But many of us, even when we were students at college, were still political illiterates. I was a political illiterate when I finished, even when I received my bachelor's degree.

Should I be ashamed to admit it? No, quite the contrary. I am very proud to know that I was a B.A. and knew nothing about politics or revolution, and yet today I do know something. Because that proves that I have made some progress.

Don't think I am talking about my own case just because it is my own. I believe I am talking about a case I know better than others and which can serve...As we have had here today the pleasant surprise of seeing the students of the National School of Revolutionary Instruction present, I have taken advantage of the opportunity to expound some ideas that might be useful. It must be an example similar to many others.

What is the most revolutionary class? The working class, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Why? Because its social position makes it •evolutionary. Which are the reactionary classes, by definition? The wealthy classes. Their social position as the exploiting class makes their minds and their thinking reactionary.

But in the Revolution there are many cases of revolutionary comrades coming from strata other than the working classes. What has happened in some countries with the presence of numerous people from the middle class in the labor movement? Well, they have instilled the thinking of the petite bourgeoisie and of the middle class in the labor movement. That has happened and we have to struggle se that it does not happen here. We therefore have a tremendous struggle in revolutionary education. Why? So that the presence of so many of them shall not inculcate the ideas of a vascillating social class that does not understand discipline, that is given to despairing, that has a whole string of vices, which I am not now inventing, but have been known throughout the history of the revolutionary movement from the middle of the past century until today.

Now, does that mean that a good revolutionary cannot come from that stratum? No A magnificent revolutionary can come from it; in fact, the great theoreticians of revolutionary thought came from those strata. But why did they come from those strata? Because they were the ones who went to school and to the universities.

I have not come here to present an autobiography, far from it; nor an analysis of how I came to be revolutionary. If I ever have the time, and right now I don't see where I will find the time, I may write about it. But I can say this. Whenever I discovered something, I always held firmly to it, as many other people do.

My first contacts at the University -- even with bourgeois political economy -- for I remember that I began to see contradictions and began to have a few revolutionary ideas while taking a course on bourgeois political economy.

Later on, naturally, at the University, we began making our first contacts with the Communist Manifesto, with the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all that. This marked (the beginning of) a process. I can certainly say, admitting it honestly, many of the things which we have done in the Revolution are not things we invented -- far from it.

When we left the University, especially in my own particular case, I had already been greatly influenced -- I wouldn't say that I was a Marxist-Leninist, far from it. It is possible that I had two million petit bourgeois prejudices and a string of ideas that I'm glad not to have anymore, but fundamentally -- if I did not have all those prejudices, I would not have been in the position to make a contribution to the Revolution, as I did.

Anyway, let's put things as they are.

I meant to say that had I been in the position of Carlos Rafael (Rodriguez), we would have faced a much more difficult situation when we went up into the mountains. Definitely, certain circumstances were really quite favorable. Our revolutionary thinking was already strongly influenced precisely by contact, and that is how arose.... I remember that when we were reading the history of Latin American independence, even in the classical history books, of course, books written by bourgeois authors explain that the influence of the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution was a factor that greatly influenced the thought of Latin American liberators. Ideas naturally always spread and win adherents.

One thing is indisputable -- I'll come back to this point later on -- these ideas already formed much of our revolutionary thinking, although we could hardly say that we were polished revolutionaries. We still cannot honestly claim to be polished revolutionaries. Why not? Because we ourselves realize full well that our love for the accomplishments of the Revolution, our passion for the Revolution, is something that we felt growing from day to day, our attitude in the race of all the problems.; at most, today we believe that we are thorough-going revolutionaries and five years from now we may find out that we were really still ignoramuses.

We All Have Much To Learn.

I believe that we all have a great deal of studying to do. Am I a convinced revolutionary? Yes, I am a convinced revolutionary, that Is so. To some of those who have at times asked me, some people have asked me if I used to think at the time of Moncada as I do today, I say, "I thought very much like I do today." That is the truth. Anyone who reads what we said on that occasion will see that many fundamental things about the Revolution are expressed in that document, and that it is, moreover, a carefully written document. It was writ= ten with sufficient care to expound some basic points without at the same time raising problems that could limit our scope of action within the Revolution, so as to prevent the movement which we believed could lead to the overthrow of Batista from being very much reduced and limited. In other words, it was necessary to try to broaden that movement as much as possible.

If we had not written that document carefully, if it had been a more radical program -- although it is true that many people were somewhat skeptical about programs and often paid them scant attention -- of course, the revolutionary movement of struggle against Batista would certainly not have gained the scope it did and which made victory possible. Anyone who reads the manifesto, the speech on that occasion, will realize what the basic ideas were.

There are some things, like certain suggestions we made on that occasion, such as increasing the cane workers' share of the sugar, which were brought up to me later on at meetings with the cane workers. They would say to me: "Good, but didn't you mention an increase?" And I told them: "Yes, but at that time we could not say what we can say today and that is that we have made those cane workers owners of the land which is much more than having granted them an increase in the share of sugar."

Certain suggestions were made at that time simply through care not to damage the scope of the revolutionary movement. I remember that on that occasion among the books the police caught us with was a text of Lenin. And then one of the lawyers asked at the Moncada trial: "And that book? Whose is it?" "That book was ours." And, of course, as I was somewhat irritated, I added: "Yes, that book was ours and anybody who does not read those books is an ignoramus." And that shut him up!

By that time, our revolutionary thinking had, in general, already taken shape. We were not, however, complete revolutionaries; we were far more revolutionary when we attained power. We are convinced revolutionaries. I say so with all due sincerity, because I believe that these appearances should not become a matter of theoretical explanation of things and... There is something that can help more to shape the political thinking of the people, and that is to speak this way, with complete frankness and clarity and honesty.

I consider myself more revolutionary today than I was even on t first of January. Was I a revolutionary on the first of January? Yes, I believe I was a revolutionary on the first of January. That all of the ideas I have today I had on the first of January.

Now then, am I at this moment a man who has studied thoroughly all of the political philosophy of the Revolution, the entire history? No, I have not studied it thoroughly. Of course, I am absolutely convinced and have the intention -- an intention we all ought to have -- to study. Recently, while looking through some books up there in the capital, I found that when I was a student I had read up to page 370 of Capital. That's as far as I got. When I have the time, I plan to continue studying Karl Marx's Capital.

I Believe Absolutely in Marxism!

In my student years I had studied the Communist Manifesto and selected works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Of course, it is very interesting to reread now the things I read at that time. Well, now, do I believe in Marxism? I believe absolutely in Marxism! Did I believe on the first of January? I believed on the first of January Did I believe on the 26th of July? I believed on the 26th of July! Did I understand it as I do today, after almost ten years of struggle? No, I did not understand it as I do today. Comparing what I understood then with what I understand today, there is a great difference. Did I have prejudices? Yes, I had prejudices on the 26th of July, yes. Could I have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary on the 26th of July? No, I could not have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary. Could I have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary on the first of January? No, I could have been called almost a thoroughgoing revolutionary. Could I be called a thoroughgoing revolutionary today? That would mean that I feel sati fled with what I know and, of course, I am not satisfied. Do I have any doubt about Marxism and do I feel that certain interpretations were wrong and have to be revised? No, I do not have the slightest doubt!

What occurs to me is precisely the opposite: the more experience we gain from life, the more we learn what imperialism is -- and not by word, but in the flesh and blood of our people -- the more we have to face up to that imperialism; the more we learn about imperialist policies throughout the world, in South Vietnam, in the Congo, in Algeria, in Korea, everywhere in the world; the more we dig deeper and uncover the bloody claws of imperialism, the miserable exploitation, the abuse they commit in the world, the crimes they commit against humanity, the more, in the first place, we feel sentimentally Marxist, emotionally Marxist, and the more we see and discover all the truths contained in the doctrine of Marxism. The more we have to race the reality of a revolution and the class struggle, and we see what the class struggle really is, in the setting of a revolution, the more convinced we become of all of the truths Marx and Engels Wrote and the truly ingenious interpretations of scientific socialism Lenin made.

The more we read today, with the experience, the load of experience we have, in those books, the more convinced we become of their inspired vision, of the foresight they had.

But there is something more than what anyone, any revolutionary leader can say to explain why Marxism made its way in history. It is enough to read the history of Marx, the biography of Marx, which is a book I believe everyone should read when the Government Printing Office publishes it, which is the biography of Marx by Mehring.

But who was Marx, his life, his work, his sacrifices? How did he study? And it will be seen that Marx was a man little known in his time, even hated by many intellectuals, by many pseudo-revolutionaries. His work was known only in small circles. In his time, many other socialist writers had far more renown and prestige than Marx and were better known than Marx. A whole series of writers on socialism who wrote that they were socialists, but who were socialists as a Cuban in 1917 might have been, who had conceived of an ideal world, a more just world, without slaves and without exploiters; they were idealistic socialists, utopian socialists. Then, many of these people devoted themselves to working out a program, writing about a utopia, expressing a revolutionary sentiment on an idealistic basis, not on a scientific basis. But many of those writers had the opportunity to make themselves known; many of those thinkers, many of those thoughts penetrated broad segments of the proletariat in Europe, in France, in Italy, in Germany, in Belgium, in England. Marx writes his scientific, eminently scientific work, not writing things as he wished them to be, but writing things as he saw them, as they would have to be as a result of the very development of human society. From his study of history, from his study of economics, he drew a series of conclusions. It is a fact that the work of Marx has made a way for itself. Indeed, the work itself, the truths it contained were so superior and so solid and had such a firm basis, compared to anything of all other socialist writers, that the workers he wrote for -- because he wrote for the workers and knew that one day, the workers would understand his work. He had a blind faith that the workers would understand his revolutionary work, his ought end, as they interpreted the truth, it would become the dominant thought among workers throughout the world.

Engels Carries on The Work of Marx

And Marx's work by itself -- and this is the fullest proof of the scientific value, of the theoretical value, of the real value of a revolutionary doctrine -- the fact that it showed the way by itself, for when all the most advanced workers, the most progressive intellectuals, began to search through everything that had been written on socialism, they rejected all other socialist theories as lacking a sound basis, as lacking a scientific character, and adopted the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. After the death of Marx, Engels undertook to steer the thought... One must keep in mind that Engels was a great thinker, too, but that Engels sacrificed his own intellectual work, because Marx was so poor and lived in such misery and hunger and under such terrible conditions that he saw his children die of hunger, that Engels who knew Marx's genius better than anyone else stuck to working as a merchant simply so that Marx could write Capital, on which he had been working for twenty years. It was one of the most noble, most self-denying and most beautiful lives; and one of the most altruistic sacrifices ever made was the sacrifice Engels made for Marx.

This, aside from Marx's own life, his conduct, his spirit as a self-denying and exemplary father, the sacrifices he made, are sufficient in themselves to destroy one of the greatest hoaxes that the bourgeoisie, capitalism and imperialism have spread about. Marxism: that it is an enemy of the family, children, women. One has only to read the life of Marx to begin to realize the number of infamous and stupid lies they have written about him. The moment Marx discovered a great truth and that truth in turn began to influence events, all the writers of reaction and exploitation naturally began to write against Marx. Nevertheless, in spite of that, scientific socialism, Marxism, made headway and was to become the revolutionary theory of the labor movement.

To begin with, there was a labor movement and the labor movement was revolutionary and Marx clearly saw and understood that and, since he had uncovered the truth, the first to become Marxists, the first to adopt his theory were the workers, the labor movement throughout Europe, the most advanced groups, the most intelligent, until it really became the theory of the working class.

The Value of Lenin

But it wasn't enough that the European labor movement had a revolutionary theory; this theory needed interpretation and so there came a period when the influence of non-revolutionary thought, of bourgeois thinking and bourgeois ideology tried to distort Marx's thought. What is Lenin's great merit? Well, simply that he takes Marx's thought, defends it against all mystification, against all forms of revisionism, against all of the revisions and changes they wanted to make in the thinking of Marx. Armed only with theory, he forms a party, struggles within that party against all petit bourgeois currents, against all non-revolutionary currents, triumphs over these currents in the party and, with a revolutionary theory, seizes power. That is to say, he wins revolutionary power. What is Lenin's great merit? Lenin has the extraordinary merit of having made a thoroughgoing interpretation of Marx's thought, of having carried it into practice and having developed it under new circumstances, as is the case of a revolutionary party in power. That he developed an entire theory, thought of extraordinary depth, there is not the slightest doubt. That is Lenin's great historical merit as theoretician and leader.

The Building of Communism

Marxism is continuing to develop. Now, one has only to read Khrushchev's report to the 22nd Congress, which is a wholly political treatise, one that begins to confront an entirely new task, the building of communism. Marx did not say how to set up a socialist regime or society. Marx did not say how to build a socialist society. Marx interpreted the laws of history, made a correct interpretation, studied the nature of class society, developed a whole revolutionary theory by virtue of which he explained history through the development of means of production. He studied history through the systems of production which in turn develop relationships of production. These little words, I warn you, are quite hard to understand when one begins to study Marxism -- means of production, system of production, relationships of production -- but they can be explained perfectly through practical examples. He interprets history, for until then, history was a mass of interpretations.

Some gave a divine interpretation to history. They said: history develops in accordance with supernatural designs, in accord with the designs of God. Others said that men make history and that men who made history were individuals like Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon. There were racial theories of history, claiming that race was the determining factor of history. A series of anti-scientific theories. A series of absurd theories. Then Marx says: no, history is not made by the divinity, not made by races. History is a process of development, determined by the material conditions of production. In other words, man first hags to live, I'll explain this in simpler terms.

Man has to live. In order to live, he begins to struggle with nature. First stage of man: man the gatherer; the Stage of primitive communism. In the stage of primitive communism, land is common, property is common, means of production are absolutely rudimentary, corresponding to the stage in which man's means of production are most elemental; that is, in techniques for producing goods to satisfy his needs, man is really very poor. I am not going to give you a better lesson than Lionel, but I am going to explain things, not to you; I am going to explain things to the people.

Primitive Communism and Its Mode of Production

In the stage of primitive communism, there are neither exploiters nor exploited; property is held in common; and some social groups still live under primitive communism in some parts of the world. I have to laugh, because at times some comrades want to make such a great leap ahead as to land in primitive communism. Yet, it is fitting that we learn to appreciate this difference in order to distinguish between primitive communism and the communism the Soviet Union is planning for. What is the difference? Simply this, the fundamental, the big and outstanding difference is that the former was a communism of poverty, an elemental life of poverty and scarcity among men which corresponded to their means of production. The means of production, techniques of production, of cultivation, the first accumulations of capital develop. This further develops, as a consequence, the private appropriation of the means of production and of land, (domestic) animals, of farming tools. A new mode of production, new relations of production consequently arise as the means of production develop.

Private owners appear on the scene: private owners of livestock and farming. implements, of land, and also, as a means of production, of men themselves.

Slavery

The second social system (in the history) of man was the system of slavery, of slave labor; very simple, very rudimentary; more advanced, much more advanced, of course, than the techniques of labors in the stage of primitive communism. So, the system of slavery spread. This is the system that characterizes that whole epoch of mankind, of the history of Greece especially, of Rome. The whole Roman Empire developed with that social system as a base. Men were then divided into slaveowners, the masters... There were classes that had no political rights, but had certain civil rights; for example, in Rome, the plebians, as well as the slaves.

Everyone knows the history of the struggles of those classes to free themselves -- the history of the slaves and their uprisings so shake off the yoke of slavery. The slaves managed to rise up, and developed a great movement all over Italy, opposed to Roman power. They placed the power of Rome in jeopardy, founded cities, even organized a nation of slaves. In the long run, their revolution was smashed.

(We have) the movements of the plebians with the Gracchi, demanding their rights from the Roman patricians who had economic rights and political rights. Eventually, the system of slavery is superceded, replaced by a system which was a little more benign, but nonetheless still cruel and still a system of exploitation, coming into being as the Roman Empire fell apart: the system of feudalism..

Under feudalism individuals were not slaves, but were semi-slaves, dependent on the feudal lords, who owned the land. They worked part of the time on their own land, part on the lands of their masters, a situation that does not really differ much from that of some peasants today, who work on the land of their landlords and have to turn over half the crop to him, and, in addition, have to supply their own tools and seed.

And that medieval system corresponded to the Middle Ages, was based on the system of serfdom. Men were dependent on a few lords, on the land; when those holdings passed to the hands of other lords of the nobility or of the feudal aristocracy, the peasants changed hands with them. Again, this is not much different from what happens in some countries, like Peru, where latifundias are still sold with the Indians on them.

The Bourgeoisie

Now a new class emerges, but who? The manufacturers, the traders, the merchants make their appearance. Where do the traders and merchants set up shop? In the towns, in the villages. As a result, they begin to develop industry, trade. But this trade finds itself bound in shackles. What shackles? I don't see any shackles... What shackles do they find? They find all the shackles of feudalism. What were these, shackles? A whole array of taxes, complete insecurity. When merchandise leaves a town, goes from one village to another, from one medieval burg to another, they have to pay a whole series of tolls. You can imagine what happened with goods from the Near East, from those countries to Italy: spices, perfumes, gold, and things like that, that had to reach France and pass through a hundred feudal lords, a hundred practically different states that did have, it is true, some fealty, some weak bonds, in the first stage of feudalism, to the power of a king, of an absolute monarch.

This new social class coming to the fore, that is, the class of traders and merchants, very rudimentary, to be sure, begins to build up the economy, to accumulate wealth, and begins to clash with the existing relations of production. That is, the existing social relations, the superstructure -- so they call it technically in Lionel's classes -- the economic structure begins to conflict with the social superstructure. The economic structure of the emerging class comes up against all that framework that was a real hindrance to its growth. That social class then begins to fight for a whole series of rights. It undertakes a long struggle. The new class kept winning such rights in the various countries of Europe. In some cases, the movement culminated in a bloody revolution, in others in less bloody revolution, in still others in a transformation, but the indisputable fact is that the problem was the same in all countries. That is, this rising social class, the bourgeoisie -- and that is where the word "bourgeoisie" stems from -- appeared everywhere, in France, in Germany, in England, in Italy. It had no political rights, it represented different interests from the interests of the nobles and the aristocracy that ruled those countries. It began the struggle against the aristocracy, and then two social classes became locked in struggle: the nobility versus the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie came out on top, as it inevitably had to.

How did it triumph? In France, through a bloody and violent struggle. First, national states were set up, developing in a way parallel with the absolute monarchy, an absolute monarchy resting on a feudal basis, as in France. The bourgeoisie had to break with the existing social system, had to destroy all those feudal shackles. It is then that the French Revolution occurred, in the course of which, this social class, having burst through all the bonds of feudalism, developed, and a new social system was established. Under new conditions, that new system began to develop all the forces it was capable of developing: an extraordinary development of technique, of production, a significant step forward from the previous system.

The Proletariat

It triumphed in other countries as well, without overthrowing the monarchy; instead, converting the absolute monarchies into monarchies resting on a bourgeois base. In other words, it was all the same to the bourgeois whether there was a republic or a monarchy. What really mattered was to eliminate the existing feudal obstacles to the development of the new system, of the new social class, of the new productive forces. Then national states were set up, the ideal of that class, a vast market it could sell to.

I have been explaining all this pretty much in my own way, without the elegance of the teachers of the School of Instruction. These were the things that Marx discovered. He discovered that a new social class arises at the same time: the proletariat.

Where does the proletariat arise from? Precisely, from the development of all the means of production. Factories arise. Textile weavers gradually disappear from the scene (cotton industry) and are now concentrated in the workshops; new techniques of production lead to a steadily increasing concentration of the means of production into few hands. The workers begin to form associations and the new class begins to take form, centered, where? Around the factory. Marx discovers that all these factories would keep on developing, and that the process of concentration of property was going to continue, , that the small proprietors or small industrialists were going to be ruined, and that an increasingly powerful working class would develop.

But at the same time that this capitalist system has given rise to the bourgeoisie, it becomes transformed -- as happened to feudalism in its time. Feudalism became an obstacle to the development of society in its opposition to the emergent class. So capitalism, in turn, becomes an obstacle. What, then, are the characteristics of the capitalist mode of production? Waste in production, lack of planning, competition, squandering, failure to utilize all the technical resources mankind has developed to produce the goods that men need.

By that time in history there were already a number of socialist thinkers who were writing that "We must have socialism." But why should there be socialism? "Because I like it and it seems good to me, and all the workers would want it." Others gave different reasons and advanced a series of hypotheses.

Scientific Socialism

What is the historical merit of Marx? Marx writes something, a correct interpretation of what was going to happen, not simply because people wanted it, but because the very laws of historical evolution predetermined it. This is the great merit of Marx, the founder of scientific socialism which gives the working class a theory.

They interpreted the laws, studied the conditions at a given moment. Marx did not claim to be a fortune-teller. Once they asked him what it would be like once communism was established. He said that he had no crystal ball. He interpreted the laws, gave the labor movement a scientific theory. The theory was developed. The first revolutionary workers' movement came to power in the Soviet Union armed with that theory, the theory continued to develop, and the Soviet Union develops a long experience. What experience?

The experience of building the world's first socialist state.
One should bear in mind that this experience is of incalculable value for humanity. When they developed, initiated and carried out the building of the first socialist state, they were taking a path entirely new to humanity, just as they are today advancing along another entirely new road: the building of communist society.

This tells us one thing: simply, that Marxism is a living science, a developing science. We have to study everything that Marx taught, but at the same time we have to study everything that Lenin taught, we have to study the entire experience derived from the building of the first communist society.

There is a question: when the Bolshevik party of the Soviet Union started out to build the first socialist state, what was involved was simply giving reality to a political theory, a revolutionary theory. Humanity stands today before the reality that this theory has been put into practice. What are the results of the application of that theory? What is it that no one can argue against today? Only the imperialists still argue against the facts and I don't think they themselves are sure of their ground.

Socialism is no longer something new to mankind. Socialism is a reality for mankind. But this reality is contained in numbers, in the statistics of the Soviet Union, in the figures comparing the difference between the old Russia of 1913 and the Soviet Union of today. The development and growth of production, the radical change in all aspects of the life of the Soviet people, and what they are today, and the foundations for further development which the Soviet Union has available today. Even during the first five-year plans of the Soviet Union, they were experimenting, just starting to learn something about planning and acquiring experience. Today, they're working at the same program, but from the perspective of 20 years, with a great deal of experience and certainty. No one can doubt that they'll carry out the program they've outlined because the men carrying the job forward have an apprenticeship of forty years in managing the economy, in planning the economy, in building socialist society. And the figures already demonstrate unequivocally the victory of socialism over capitalism and over imperialism.

This means it takes much less merit to be a socialist today, to build a socialist society, than to have been a socialist when there was no socialist state anywhere in the world yet, and the experience of life and reality had not yet taught and had not submitted the implementation of that theory to proof.

The building of socialism follows a well-beaten path by now. This doesn't mean that conditions are exactly the same in all countries, that socialism has to be built in exactly the same way in every country or that we have to copy rigidly the way it was done. Certainly not! Every country has its own peculiarities, and each country has to tailor its program, and its methods, and tactics to its own peculiar features. That is what we have to do.

But there do exist some common experiences of immense value, just as in medicine, in astronomy, in physics, there are truths already proved by historical fact, and we have the advantage of being able to rely on all this experience and all these acquired techniques as we build a socialist society.

This is, of course, easy enough to say. In practice, however, the job is somewhat difficult.

Sacrifices by the USSR

There is an enormous gap between theory and practice. It is easy to say that the Soviets built a socialist society. Well, they had to build that socialist society, to build their society at the cost of immense and titanic sacrifices. They even made mistakes, they made many mistakes, at first. Lenin himself undertook to expose some of these basic errors.

Among other things, the workers' movement, the triumphant revolution in the Soviet Union, had to face a long series of interventions. Well, one of Lenin's great merits was to see clearly the moment when it was possible for the revolutionary movement to seize power. Many felt that this movement would not be able to stay in power. He thought it could, if it took advantage of the correlation of international forces brought about by the imperialist war, and made the demand of the people for peace, bread and land its foremost demand. And he thought that while the imperialist powers were still fighting, he would set up Soviet power and consolidate it. In effect, he was-banking on the supposition that he had a certain amount of time before the imperialist war came to a close.

The imperialist war ended and all the countries agreed to intervene in the Soviet Unions Consequently, the Soviets were confronted by unbelievable hardships. First, they had to face foreign intervention. They had to deal with a powerful bourgeoisie. They had to confront the whole aristocracy and the remnants of tsarist; they even had to face petit bourgeois movement at home. But finally they won their victory, naturally under the most difficult conditions. At last, they had in their hands power over an immense country, divided, thoroughly devastated, and worse yet, a backward country; a country left with such devastation after the civil war that discontent broke out one occasion among the peasants and among the workers of Moscow and Leningrad.

Lenin himself acknowledged that one of the most trying moments for Soviet power was when the peasants and workers themselves gave vent to their discontent stemming from the extremely precarious economic situation and devastation in the Soviet Union. This was the time of the New Economic Policy: a series of measures temporarily installed to save the situation.

For a long time, the Soviet Union had to go through a period of starvation, of privation, of sacrifice. And when, after twenty years !of building socialism, the Second World War broke out, the country was invaded and lost twenty million lives. One must remember that among those twenty million lives were the finest youth of the Soviet Union, the most self-sacrificing, the bravest -- who lost their lives in the underground or at the front lines. And imperialism again, with its factories intact, its economy intact, threatens with war. Moreover, all the capitalist countries, with their arms, their atomic weapons, faced a war-ravaged Soviet Union which, in addition, had to help rebuild countries that had also suffered under the Nazi boot. To do this, it had to invest its meager resources in the reconstruction of other countries in the socialist camp.

Advantages Over Capitalism

And, surmounting all those conditions, it reached the present stage. Nobody will dare challenge the extraordinary technical, cultural and scientific progress made by the Soviet Union. I feel that it would be an absurdity and folly only of the blind, not to see that in the scientific field, the Soviet Union has completely surpassed all capitalist countries. In the technical and educational sphere, it suffices to say, for example, that three times as many engineers are studying in the Soviet Union than in the United States. In housing, the Soviet Union is at present the world leader. It has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world. And the average life span is increasing at the fastest rate in the Soviet Union. All this holds true now at this stage and in the wake of all these vicissitudes.

In other words, one thing has been definitely proved: the reality of history has fully demonstrated, has confirmed the doctrine of Marxism and Leninism. Socialist construction promotes an incomparably greater progress in society than does capitalism. The United States is growing at an annual rate of 2.3 or 2.5 percent; the Soviet Union, at an annual rate of 10 or 11 percent. So that in twenty years' time the Soviet Union will have surpassed with something to spare, total United States production, and in per capita production, will have surpassed the United States at an even earlier date.

Can the United States win in that competition? Can they compete with the socialist countries? Not at all! They would have to give up capitalism to do it. They would have to give up private ownership of the means of production, private control of the circulation of finance capital, private ownership of land, and transportation. They would simply have to set up a socialist system. They would have to tell the American millionaires: "There'll be no more throwing money around." They would have to tell all the American millionaires: "No more underutilization of capital, no more unemployment; we'll use all the means of production achieved by technology here, all the factories that have been built, and we'll manage the economy of the country, we'll plan it, and plan its development, and we'll build the plants we don't have.!' The only way they will be able to compete with the Soviet Union is with a planned economy, with rational invest ment of the entire national income -- there is no other way.

In other words, the only way out for the United States is to cease being imperialist and capitalist and become socialist. This is the truth. To understand this now, at a time when we have the opportunity to read, to study and to appreciate all these facts is of no particular merit. The absurd thing about it is that people should be so fenced in by a curtain of lies and prejudices that they are unaware of things that are basic historical truths.

It is fairly easy and quite simple for our people to understand these things today. All the more so, since the capitalist system of production has reached its highest stage, the phase of imperialism, of colonialism, of exploitation of all peoples, creating starvation and misery. Where do colonial wars take place today? In the Portuguese and French colonies. Where do we see discrimination, persecution, hunger, poverty, cultural backwardness, all this? In the colonies, in colonized countries, in countries exploited by imperialism.

Revolution at the Crossroads

Imperialism today is also the cause of starvation, of poverty, of underdevelopment of all the people. Imperialism makes it necessary to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on armaments every year.

Who alone is not interested in disarmament? Imperialism. If the manufacture of armaments were to be stopped in the United States, the immediate result would be that instead of four million unemployed, there would be perhaps ten or fifteen million unemployed.

They have been trying to resolve their problems through wars and arms races because, on the one hand, they can maintain a certain level of employment that way; on the other hand, they can keep the people in a state of hysteria -- more readily manipulated in the direction they want to take them.

Anyone who honestly analyzes the state of affairs in the world will find that it is the imperialists, the capitalists, who subject the world to the worst poverty, the worst backwardness, and they they are simply the scourge of mankind. It is enough for our people to study what is happening around the world to become even more an enemy of imperialism, an enemy of capitalism, simply because of its world policy of exploitation and extortion, its policy of war.

We didn't have to look around the world to find out what was going on, it was enough to see what was happening right here, in a nutshell. I have dwelt at some length on this topic to draw the following-conclusions. When the Revolution came to power, there were two roads for it to follow: to stay within the framework of the existing social order or to go forward; to remain within the capitalist system, within the imperialist orbit, within the criminal policy of imperialism in the Western Hemisphere, in Asia, in Africa, within the same policy which embraces a Franco in Spain, an Adenauer, a Chiang Kai-Shek, which embraces all the military dictatorships, all the French colonialists in Algeria; or to place our country where it rightfully belongs, that is, on the side of, the exploited peoples, on the side of the oppressed peoples, on the side of the colonized peoples.

Our nation, seeing things clearly, could never have accepted a place alongside France against the Algerians, at the side of Franco against the Spanish people, at the side of Chiang Kai-Shek against the great Chinese people, at the side of the imperialists against the South Vietnamese who are fighting there for their independence, at the side of Portugal against the Angolans, at the side of Romulo Betancourt against the Communist Party and against the MIR Movement of Venezuela (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, or Movement of the Revolutionary Left), an independent revolutionary leftist mass movement in Venezuela ), at the side of the Somozas, at the side of any of those regimes. For despite the fact that the propaganda of _imperialism pretends there are differences, the great truth is that the policy of imperialism was exactly the same in Spain and in Nicaragua as in Cuba -- in Cuba under Frio; in Venezuela, the same as under Perez Jimenez as under Betancourt; in Peru, the same under Odria as under Prado..

Viewing the march of world history, viewing the great efforts all people are making to free themselves from starvation, poverty, exploitation, colonialism, discrimination, such as the struggle the peoples of Asia, of Africa, of Latin America are waging, we could never in all conscience be on the side of imperialism. It is possible that some people stuffed with the. Reader's Digest, Yankee films, Life magazine, the UPI and AP news services which have told so many lies, may be led to believe that the policy of the United States was a correct, noble, and humanitarian policy, as they try to make out.

What thinking person today, what reasonable person today, what person who sees what is going on all over the world today, can honestly be on the side of the imperialist policies?

It was logical that our nation, not just from the point of view of national values and national feelings, but from the point of view of the universal interests of mankind as well, could never be on the side of those policies, but instead on the side of the policy it supports today, defending the rights of all peoples everywhere. It is possible that some people see this more clearly than they see their own economic problems.

There Are No Middle Roads

For anyone who does not see that our country had to choose between two policies: either the policy of capitalism, the policy of imperialism, or the anti-imperialist policy, the policy of socialism, we must point out that there are no middle roads between capitalism and socialism. Those who persist in thinking they can find some third positions have fallen into a really false and really utopian position. This would be equivalent to blindfolding oneself, it would mean becoming an accomplice of imperialism. It is perfectly understandable that anyone who remains indifferent to the struggle of the Algerians is an accomplice of French imperialism. Whoever remains indifferent to Yankee intervention in Santo Domingo is an accomplice of that Yankee intervention in Santo Domingo. Whoever remains aloof from the persecution unleashed by the traitor Romulo Betancourt against the workers and students of Venezuela, those same workers and students of Venezuela who are defending us, is an accomplice of that oppression. Whoever remains indifferent to Franco in Spain, to German rearmament, to the German warmongers, the Nazi officers who are today rearmed and even demanding thermonuclear weapons; whoever remains indifferent to what is happening in South Vietnam, to what is happening in the Congo, to what is happening in Angola, whoever remains indifferent and seeks to adopt some third position in the face of those facts, is not really adopting a third position, but is adopting a position of virtual complicity with imperialism.

There are some who believe, who presume themselves to be sharp thinkers, when they insist that what the Cuban Revolution should have done was to take money from the Americans and to take money from the Russians as well.

That is to say, there is no lack of people who preach such a repulsive, such a cowardly, such a cheap and vile political line. What they're saying is: sell yourself, sell the country as if it were just any piece of merchandise to the imperialists. Take handouts from imperialism while scaring them with the threat of friendship with the Soviet Union; in other words, be a blackmailer. There were those here who peddled the line of blackmail.

Ah, but how to blackmail? How would they carry out that line of blackmail? There was no room for such blackmail. To have done this would have meant to remain in the status quo prevailing in the country, to respect all the interests of imperialism here: all their thousands of acres, all their sugar mills, their electrical monopoly, their telephone company, their control of our foreign and domestic trade, of our banks. On the other hand, any country that decided to free itself from the monopoly grip of North American business, that decided to carry out agrarian reform, that decided to run its own industries, to carry on an independent policy, would have to take an anti-imperialist position.

Treason or Revolution

In other words, either the Revolution was not revolution or there had to be a betrayal. The Revolution had to choose between both these terms: betrayal or revolution.

And we who remember the men who have died for this Revolution, who remember our fallen comrades, as any revolutionary remembers those who fell, from Guiteras, from Martinez Villena -- although Martinez Villena actually did not die murdered, but died as a result of the disaster of that fight -- of Melia, all those revolutionaries. They who thought not of the revolutionaries of today, they who thought of Marti, Marti who also had a brilliant vision.

What is the merit of Marti, what makes us admire Marti? Was Marti a Marxist-Leninist? No, Marti was not a Marxist-Leninist. Marti said of Marx that since he placed himself on the side 01 the poor, he had all his sympathies.

Because the Revolution of Cuba was a revolution of national liberation against Spanish colonial power; it was not a revolution that was a social struggle; it was a struggle for national independence first. And even at that time, at that time Marti said of Marx: "Since he placed himself on the side of the poor, he deserves my respect."

And what other vision did Marti have? An equally brilliant vision in the year 1895. He had the vision of North American imperialism when North American imperialism had not yet begun to be imperialism. That's what you call having long-range political vision.

North American imperialism began to develop vigorously from the time of the intervention in Cuba, during which it practically seized the wealth of the country, seized Puerto Rico, seized the Philippines and launched the imperialist stage of North American capitalism. Marti foresaw in 1895 the development of the United States as an imperialist power. And he wrote and alerted the people against it; and spoke out against it. See how brilliant a revolutionary Marti really was to grasp the development of imperialism in 1895, when it had not yet begun to manifest itself as a world force.

And then one must think of all those who fell, all who died, all who fought. What did they fight for? So that the Electric Power Company would keep on being a Yankee company? So that the 18,000 caballerias (600,000 acres) of Atlantic Gulf would keep on being 18,000 foreign-owned cabalieries?,So that our peasants would keep on being landless, in hunger and misery? So that the banks would continue being foreign properties? So that our country would again be drained of hundreds of millions of dollars every year? So that there would continue to be a million illiterates in our country? So that the peasants would remain without schools, without hospitals, without homes, living in shacks and in slums? So that our people, fifty years after it had supposedly won independence, would continue under those conditions?

No Sacrifice in Vain

Of course, I am not talking here to the revolutionaries, and it is possible that it is unnecessary to talk to the revolutionaries about this. It is the insensitive, the indifferent, the confused who have to be spoken to, those who do not understand why this and why that.

Did all those people die so that the big landowners could continue to be the masters of thousands of caballerias of land? No. Anybody understands that this could not be; that the leaders of the Revolution would have been traitors, had they made a Revolution, led so many young men into combat and into war, sacrificed so many lives for that. So little glory would not have been worth the life of a single Cuban! For so little glory it would not have been worthwhile to raise one weapon. To raise a weapon, to fight, to struggle, to suffer what our country suffered, had to be for something much more than all that.

And some people tried to say that all were dying just so that this system of exploitation could go on, so that a thousand families could go on living like princes in our capitals and in our cities, so that this system of exploitation, of starvation, of poverty, of discrimination, of social abuses, could continue. Some tried to say that. They seemed to believe that the Revolution would do nothing to change that. There were some who, at the last minute, even bought up some bonds and did a few little things, with that in mind. How mistaken they were: How mistaken they were who thought that certain achievements our country had made and had aimed at from as far back as the war of 1895 were going to remain unfulfilled and that things would continue in the same old way.

It is obvious that this honest line, this revolutionary line, this line which marches in step with history, in harmony with the feelings and interests of underdeveloped and exploited peoples everywhere in accord with national interests and national honor, is not an easy policy to pursue. It necessarily had to be a policy of sacrifices, since, if we wanted to redeem our people from illiteracy and a low cultural level, from unemployment, from hunger and poverty, if we really wanted to develop our economy, to manage our own economy, an independent economy, and along with an independent economy, an independent policy that would wipe out unemployment and illiteracy, poverty and backwardness, misery and ignorance, sickness, and the unhappy situation in which most of our people were living, we had no other choice than to pursue a consistently revolutionary line. Had we not done so, we would not have been able to do what we have done. To do it meant that we had to brave imperialism with all its power. That is what we have done.

The Anti-Imperialist Struggle

Of course, we, leaders of the Revolution, are revolutionaries; were we not revolutionists, we would not be here making a revolution. What I mean by this is simply that the revolutionists and the people together with the revolutionists, in other words, the great exploited mass of the people, is ready to make the necessary sacrifices and pay the necessary price for all this.

A "pancista" (person concerned only with his "panza" or potbelly), one who is indifferent, one who is insensitive, one who is corrupt, would say: "It's best not to look for trouble; it's best to leave all those foreign interests alone." They could have said this, and they did.

We had to choose between remaining under the domination, under the exploitation and, furthermore, the insolence of imperialism, to go on putting up with Yankee ambassadors giving the orders here, keeping our country in the state of poverty it was in, or making an anti-imperialist revolution, making a socialist revolution.

There was no alternative. We chose the only honorable road, the only loyal road that we could follow for our country, and in keeping with the tradition of our revolutionary forefathers, in keeping with the tradition of all those who fought for the good of our country. That is the path we have followed: the path of anti-imperialist struggle, the path of the socialist Revolution. Moreover, there was no room for any other position. Any other position would have been a false position, an absurd position. We will never adopt such a position, nor will we ever waver. Never!

Imperialism should know well that, for all time, we will never have anything to do with it. And imperialism must know that however great our difficulties, however hard our struggle to build our country, to build the future of our country, to write a history worthy of our country, imperialism must not harbor the slightest hope so' far as we are concerned.

Many who did not understand these things before understand them today. And they will understand them more and more. For all of us, these things become ever clearer, more evident, and more Indisputable.

There Is Only One Revolution

This is the path that the Revolution had to follow: the path of anti-imperialism and the path of socialism, that is, the path of nationalization of all the big industries, nationalization of big business, nationalization and social ownership of the basic means of production; a path of planned development of our economy at a pace that our resources permit, and that the aid we are receiving from abroad permits. Another truly favorable thing for our Revolution has been the fact that we have been able to count on the aid and solidarity which have enabled us to carry our Revolution forward without the enormous sacrifices that other peoples have had to make.

The Revolution had to be anti-imperialist and socialist. Good. There could have been only one anti-imperialist and socialist Revolution, because there is but one revolution. And that is the great dialectical truth of mankind: imperialism, and imperialism versus socialism. The result of this: the victory of socialism, the triumph of the epoch of socialism, the overcoming of the stage of capitalism and imperialism, the establishment of the era of social ism, and later on the era of communism.

No one need be scared by that; here won't be any communism -- I'm saying this for any anti-communists left out there -- there won't be any communism for at least thirty years.

Just so even our enemies will get to understand what Marxism is. In a nutshell, simply, remember that you just cannot skip over an entire historical stage. Perhaps, today, some underdeveloped countries can skip over the stage of building capitalism, that is, they can start developing the economy of a country through planning and along the path of socialism, but they cannot skip over the stage of socialism. The Soviet Union, itself, after forty years, is just beginning to build communism and hopes to have made considerable progress in this area at the end of twenty years. Thus, we are in a stage of the building of socialism.

I Am a Marxist-Leninist

What is the socialism we have to apply here? Utopian socialism? We simply have to apply scientific socialism. That is why I began by saying with complete frankness that we believe in Marxism, that we believe it is the most correct, the most scientific theory, the only truly revolutionary theory. I say that here with complete satisfaction (applaud) and with complete confidence: I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I shall be a Marxist-Leninist to the end of my life. (prolonged applause).

And what kind of a Marxist-Leninist am I? Am I a halfway one? We revolutionaries don't know how to be anything halfway. We only know how to be 100 percent something. And to that we shall dedicate our efforts, our energies, our entire selves. Moreover, it is a great satisfaction to have been illiterate at the age of eighteen and to feel revolutionary as I do now at thirty odd years -- I think the "odd years" run to thirty-six (laughter and applause). I've learned a thing or two in eighteen years, and still have a lot to learn! And that is what we are telling the people, with complete candor, with complete loyalty, with all clarity, as I have always spoken to the people, always with complete frankness.

Did I have prejudices? I believe it is good to talk about that. Did I have prejudices about the communists? Yes. Was I ever influenced by imperialist and reactionary propaganda against the communists? Yes. What did I think about the communists? Did I think they were thieves? No, never; I always regarded the communists -at the university and elsewhere -- as honorable and honest people and all that... But, well, that is no special merit, because almost everyone recognizes these qualities in them. Did I have the idea they were sectarian? Yes. Why did I have such opinions about the communists? Simply, I am absolutely convinced that the ideas I had about the communists -- not about Marxism, nor about the Communist Party -- like the ideas many people have .were the product of the propaganda and prejudices instilled in us since childhood, practically from school age, in the university, in the movies anal everywhere else. I should say so. Do I believe they could make mistakes? Yes, I believe they can make mistakes. Marx, Engels and Lenin could make mistakes, and they themselves were the first to admit that they could be wrong, that they could err, because they did not think themselves infallible.

The Merit in Being Communist

My opinion of the members of the Communist Party, the opinion they really deserve? I believe that as they were unknown for a long time and were excluded and attacked and kept on the sidelines and, whenever a committee was formed, they were left out and were left out because they were regarded as "pests" and none of their statements were printed in the newspapers, we must also recognize that it was a great merit, a very great merit to be a communist. Not today... No, today we are going to see to it that is is a merit. Of course, we are going to see that it is a merits!

It had to be a great merit to have been a communist in those days when, as Felix Torres told me, he was taken out of Santa Clara jail and was forced to walk to Yaguajay. On foot to Yaguajay And so on, along those lines, they made innumerable sacrifices and (suffered) tribulations. It is a merit to have been a communist when they were persecuted, when all doors were shut to them, all printing presses, all newspapers, all opportunities. This we have to say.

Far more merit, of course, than being one today. Today, conditions are different. I have, therefore, said that we have to strive so that socialists, Marxists, are really Marxists, in the true sense of the word, ready for all contingencies.

But, in short, I meant this: that I had prejudices against the Socialist Party, prejudices stemming fundamentally from the campaigns. I admit it with the honesty one ought to have when admitting such things. I am not going to ask anything at all of the socialists. I say this now that we are perfectly integrated -- comrades all, socialists all.

On certain occasions, on certain occasions early in the revolutionary process, there was some friction between us, probably due to different conceptions of certain things, but, basically, because we did not discuss matters.

I must also say that there were people here who fell victim to the intrigue of the early days, when, every time something happened, it was said that there were a group of communists stirring up trouble, provoking a riot. I must say that at one time I even believed that it was the communists who had provoked a riot at a certain place, when a group of people with sticks attacked a citizen there. I was led to believe it, I must admit it here. And later I discovered that it wasn't the communists who had staged the riot, but divislonist elements who had armed that whole mob with sticks to beat up some citizens.

Unity Follows Discussion

In any case, in the first stages, there was a clash between two things, in reality between prejudices and a series of things: There was a "communist" behind everything. The employment of a communist had to be almost a secret. Right off the bat, the UPI, the AP and all the North American newspapermen would be on the spot digging up ten, a dozen, fifteen or so "communists." It was strange, back in those days, they were already starting to call all the comrades communists, and there was a group of comrades who were not members of the Communist Party, but members of the July 26th Movement. Then they were pointing the finger at them, dragging some story of previous communist activities before the public. They started with that campaign, a campaign which even found an echo in some, more or less numerous, in all areas influenced by anti-communist and imperialist propaganda. Fortunately, due to the efforts of everyone, we got through those stages.

I believe that one of the errors of those first days was the lack of any major exchange of views between the different organizations. Each of us was acting more or less on our own account. It was the revolutionary struggle itself which brought us more and more into contact, more and more into common discussion, more and more into an exchange of views, and steadily promoted our unification.

I must tell you about a terrible experience we had. Some day when the history of this stage is written down and something is said of merit of this Revolution, they might well say that we were making a socialist Revolution without socialists, because at that time anticommunist prejudice was so strong that whenever a communist functionary was appointed to a job no matter how modest, there'd be a wave of protest, followed by a squabble and a train of intrigues. Our measures were socialist measures: a people's farm, a cooperative, an industry nationalized, all these are socialist institutions. We had good comrades, honored comrades of the July 26th Revolutionary Movement; but there weren't enough of them for those tasks. Certainly, there aren't enough men now! How were we going to manage with the jobs and tasks piling up on us at the time? Carrying out a socialist revolution without socialists was one of the most difficult jobs. When the process of uniting the revolutionary forces and the revolutionary organizations began, when anti-communism began to be routed and destroyed, we reached the stage in which it was easier for a number of members of the Socialist Party to fulfill various functions without all that intrigue and all that divisiveness.

A Marxist-Leninist Program

Now, what does this union mean? What is the significance of the moment when all revolutionary organizations unite? What it means, among other things, is hundreds, thousands of cadres, thousands of cadres! of tested people, of people who had gone through sacrifices, through hard trials, through difficult trials, who had a political education. And this reminds me of the times people came and said: "When are we going to carry our the July 2bth program?" And I said: "What 26th of July program are we going to carry out unless it is a Marxist-Leninist program? Why should we carry out two Marxist-Leninist programs?" This is the reality. Anything else would mean building castles in the skies.

So then, unification meant the participation of thousands of cadres, all indispensable, basic and essential to the building of socialism. It meant the participation of all the cadres of the Revolutionary Directorate. The Revolutionary Directorate didn't have as many experienced cadres as had the Socialist Party. Yet there were people who said: No, they want to seize this, they want to seize that!" One must be completely ignorant of what a revolutionary really is, to think that a revolutionary just wants to grab a position. What we know about all revolutionaries is that they all share in the work now, and that there is so much work that there are not enough people to handle it all. So much work that some comrades, if they are in the army, would rather go to military school, and if they are civil servants, they prefer to go to a School of Revolutionary Instruction, as a vacation. In other words, some revolutionaries find studying easier than the work they have to do.

All of the Members of the Revolutionary Organizations

Today the Revolution can count on all the cadres of all the revolutionary organizations. A very important contribution of the Socialist Party has been the cadres of old members, educated in Socialism, educated by the Socialist Party; the contribution of the Directorate is its youthful cadres; the contribution the 26th of July Movement could not consist of politically educated members with long years of experience, but of many young and enthusiastic people, revolutionary by choice, with all of the experience they acquired in the struggle to attain power. In other words, we have all made our contribution in one way or another and have represented the basic forces.

Formation of the ORI

These forces were called upon to unite in a single organization, and we organized the CORI. It was not easy, it was also a lengthy process; but, in the end, we organized the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations.

Sectarian attitudes are gradually disappearing; so are the attitudes of exclusivism. In the same way, people are no longer being excluded because they are socialists, and, consequently, sectarianism and similar attitudes are disappearing. Some attitudes of extremism are also disappearing. Extremism, which is often called "the measles," should, of course, not be confused with revolutionary firmness. Extremism is another manifestation of the petit bourgeois spirit in the revolutionary movement which we must fight against just as we have to fight against sectarianism.

There are many things our people have already had time to learn. They have had time to get rid of some of the prejudices that many people had who depicted socialism as something terrible something inhuman, something harsh, something enslaving, which is exactly all that imperialism is and which it accuses socialism of being.

Well, we are in a socialist regime. How different is this socialist regime from everything that had been said about socialism So much so that even those who have had problems, like the reactionary clergy, who have had problems with the Revolution, can't blame the socialists for them, can't say the socialists tried to close the churches, prohibit and persecute religious ideas. On the contrary, Aware that religious sentiment is a part of the feelings of some people, revolutionary power must respect the religious sentiment of that part of the people. It does respect it, and gives it every facility. It was those who waged war on the revolutionary regime who said that they would be deprived of parental authority over their children. And the people have learned the truth. Who were they who took away parental rights? Saboteurs who murdered young men and women, counter-revolutionary criminals who murdered a 16-year-old teacher and deprive his mother forever of parental rights, of affection, of warmth and the hope of having her son at home again.

Not only did they murder him; they tortured him. Why did they torture him? Did they torture him, as the Batista secret police used to do, to force a secret from a revolutionary? No, they did not torture him to get any secrets out of him. They tortured him because they were sadists, because of their love of torture, because that boy was there teaching. What secret could he have had? Thus, it was not to squeeze out any. secrets. They stabbed him fourteen times. They stabbed him simply to torture him, to fill him with anguish, to make him suffer, to sow terror in the hearts of all mothers. We found out that what robbed people of their parental rights was exploitative - capitalism, which dragged peasant girls away from the countryside to put them to work as servants, to force them into a life of prostitution. We found out that it was capitalism that condemned the daughters of workers and the daughters of peasants to that fate. And it turns out to be precisely socialism that wipes out illiteracy, that educates a million Cubans, that makes plans to rehabilitate prostitutes, to teach typing and shorthand to domestics, to wipe out unemployment , to bring teachers to the remotest corner of the country, to fight and die defending the country from the claws of imperialism, to bring hospitals, to bring roads, to organize social activities, to organize children's activities, to organize youth activities, to develop culture and to struggle for the happiness of the people. That is what we have given our people.

Socialism behaves very generously toward its enemies -- too generously. The social system which captured over a thousand mercenary traitors -- paid by and serving the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, and who came here escorted by foreign ships -- the system that captured 500 counter-revolutionaries -- among whom were many murderers who had already committed blatant crimes against the peasants -- without even applying the maximum penalty on them, the social system that sees with anguish its calm and generous attitude repaid by the cowardly and vile murder of a 16-year-old youth -- that is socialism.

In other words, with all its power, socialism does not abuse it. It is calm. It is conscientious. It struggles to overcome all its defects. It struggles to overcome-extremism, sectarianism, abuses, injustices, simply because it is socialism, simply because it is what Marx and Engels conceived of, what Lenin and all the revolutionaries fought for -- a better life for man, a happier life for the people, a freer life for the people, that replaces the regime of class oppression, the regime of an exploiting class over the workers, with a workers' democracy. In Marxist terms, this is known as the "dictatorship of the proletariat". (applause).

But though it is called "dictatorship of the proletariat," it does not mean torture, murder, crime. Certainly not! Those are characteristics of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie -- which, indeed, means torture, murder, dipping into the public till, injustice and arbitrariness. Proletarian government means simply that the working class seizes power to develop a historic cycle, and that it exercises this power over other classes, against which it has to struggle during the entire stage of the building of socialism. What better proof of the hatred of a class displaced from power than the murder of a boy in Trinidad. Could hatred and sadism be expressed any clearer? That is, simply, a manifestation of the class struggle, the struggle of the classes thrown out of power to regain their class control. That's why they develop such hatred, a hatred which, as Marti put it, is born "drooling from the entrails of the man." That description fits this case better than any other because only a mouth-frothing hatred born from the entrails of the exploiting classes could engender a crime like the crime they perpetrated against that boy.

This rule by the working class, the dictatorship of the working class, does not mean torture, or social crimes, or arbitrariness because socialism is opposed to all that. None of those things has anything to do wit -socialism. Socialism struggles against all injustice and rectifies all injustice. It struggles against all arbitrariness and rectifies all arbitrariness. It struggles against crime and-will never tolerate crime, never tolerate torture, never tolerate cowardice, never tolerate any baseness. Of course, it's no bed of roses. The enemies of the working class, the enemies of the peasantry, the enemies of the students, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of national independence won't find the struggle a bed of roses either. These enemies will get a reply from the strong hand of the Revolution, the strong hand of the proletariat, the strong hand of the people.

This means they are not going to waltz through here; for the things that were the cause of the law which the Revolution approved -- and which it had to approve because of their behavior, for despite all the care the Revolution takes and all the effort it makes not to commit excesses, to use its power with discretion, to be generous and to keep on stressing generosity, it has been rewarded with crimes and acts as cowardly and barbarous as this (murder of a teacher) -- have taught the people to be harsh toward the enemy. We are not inhumane, and none of us can ever take pleasure in anything that involves bloodshed, that involves shooting. No, none of us likes that. None of us are cruel, but we are aware, however, we are very much aware that the enemies of the Revolution should be treated with the harshness they deserve. That in this struggle they are not going to find a proletariat that murders, tortures; but they are going to find a proletariat that is firm, hard, and will give them the punishment they deserve. This law was not made just to be proclaimed but to be carried out.

The Revolution Has Cadres

The very intensity of the struggle between the interests of the exploited classes and those of the exploiting classes compelled us to take this decision and to adopt these measures, all absolutely necessary. The Revolution has strength enough for this -- strength that comes from the union of all revolutionary social forces, from the integration of all those forces, from the union of all the revolutionary cadres, from the formation of a powerful revolutionary armed force. From all the apparatuses of the masses which the Revolution has created -- like the unions, youth organizations, peasant organizations, student organizations, Committees for the Defense-of the Revolution and women's organizations -- from these organizations the Revolution gets its cadres, gets its mass support, gets strength and the power to apply the necessary measures against its enemies. And let us repeat: We take no pleasure in being harsh out of pure fancy, in being harsh for pleasure, but we revolutionaries know how to be harsh when we have to, and we will be as harsh as necessary with the enemies of the Revolution.

I believe that this background explains the reason for the integration of the revolutionary forces and the creation of the ORI, the reason for the socialist course of the Revolution. But they are going to throw the blame for the socialist Revolution on Carlos Rafael. A Marxist would never blame Carlos Rafael for the socialist-revolution. Of course, it is logical that the non-Marxists, the utopians, the lunatics - because they are lunatics - should throw the blame on the Popular Socialist Party, on the socialist leaders. That is simply the result of their lack of political education, of revolutionary instruction. Rather, we have all contributed to this unity We feel satisfied to have contributed to this unity and we are striving to organize and create a strong, disciplined and firm vanguard political organization of the working class and of the Cuban Revolution.

A Party of Selected Members

How are we trying to do this? Do we do it like the traditional parties, by inviting everyone, opening the doors equally to everyone to join the party? No.

What did the bourgeois parties do when they were in power? They opened the doors wide, invited everyone in and suddenly, any party that came to power immediately had a million followers.

When we were novices and knew nothing about politics, the newspapers we read used to say: "As proof of what the Soviet Union is, the Communist Party has no more than five million members out of a population of two hundred million. To capitalism and imperialism this proved that it was a tiny minority! Of course, they wanted to make us look at a revolutionary Marxist party through the same prism they use on a bourgeois party. With a bourgeois party, the more people, the bigger the show. The bourgeois party has no ideology. It defends the class interests of a bunch of politicians, a conglomeration of individuals. The more people it has, well, the more the patronage, the bigger the shows. They are not at all concerned about what their party members think. So they try very carefully to hide the fact that a revolutionary Marxist party is a vanguard party, a party of leadership and a party of selected people, that if the Soviet Union had opened up recruiting centers, well, there would have been tens of millions of members; that a party of leadership directs and works through mass organizations; that mass organizations are the instruments of leadership and revolutionary work and form the basis of revolutionary work. A revolutionary party is a selective party which leads. It leads and works basically through its mass organizations, through labor unions, youth organizations, women's federations, defense committees (which, in this case, is an invention of the Cuban Revolution and is also a fantastic mass organization) peasant associations, cooperatives and the farms which are now in the unions. In other words, it leads and guides through all of these mass organizations.

Therefore, the standard that the political organization of the Cuban Revolution will have to follow will be, above all, the standard of selection and quality. It will not be a quantitative organization; it will be a qualitative organization.

It Is Better to be Selective

We must say that as this is a product of the union of different revolutionary organizations, it is logical that in this initial stage the standard shouldn't be applied too rigidly, since one of the steps, in the plan to organize this force -- the integration of this revolutionary force -- is to train revolutionary cadres. That is, in this initial stage of unification, we cannot logically set as strict requirements as they will have to be in the future, because all the comrades and cadres of the separate organizations have to be integrated into one organization and many of them are engaged in study and training.

This organization will be restricted in membership. It will not be small in number; it will be large, but not too large numerically, because we are going to be very demanding in our requirements for membership in the political organization of the Revolution. Furthermore, as we face greater demands, more conditions and more requirements will be laid down for membership in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution. We will establish a strict standard of selec for it is better to be selective before admitting, than to expel after admitting.

Because, moreover, the enthusiasm of the masses, the revolution spirit of the masses is so great, we know that a party which Lakes shape, develops, and grows strong under these conditions has he advantage of being able to recruit the best elements, the most 'positive elements from among the masses, and make them members of .hat organization. It is fundamental that precisely the best of the people, the best of the mass organizations should get the honor and it the same time, fulfill the honored role of membership in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

And the more this is so, the more every worker, every peasant, every intellectual, every citizen will appreciate it. It is necessary to point out that any citizen can become a member of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution, whether he is a worker or not. In other words, the doors are open to any true revolutionary who identifies with the Revolution and is willing to follow the standards set and to accept fully and with conviction the program of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Good. In the first place, the standard of selection will become stricter and stricter, precisely because we want the best people represented in that apparatus, which is a vanguard organization, the leadership of the Revolution.

Naturally, other comrades will talk here about certain organizational problems. We want to say a few important things: All members of the separate revolutionary organizations will have equal rights and privileges in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution. This means that there will be no special privilege for having been a member of the Socialist Party for twenty years and it means no discrimination for having been a member of the 26th of July Movement or of the Revolutionary Directorate. Everyone comes in with Absolutely equal rights! We especially have to avoid extremes and mistakes. On the one hand, we must prevent those who say "I have thirty years", or "I have twenty years", from resting on their laurels of these twenty years and believing that their revolutionary background is sufficient. On the other hand, being a new member doesn't give one the right to believe that he doesn't have to know everything he should know about the questions of socialism and the questions of revolutionary theory nor to feel that he is not obliged to follow all our standards with discipline.

The Merit of the Future

That is, we must now have...make an effort to create a fuller and deeper unity on the basis of one thing alone which is what we should all take as a basis. In the early days, there were people who used to say: "I was in the Sierra." And they drove people crazy with this "I was in the Sierra." And there were also people who had been nothing in the Sierra. There are also people now who say: "I have been a communist for fifteen years" when there has been nothing communist about them in all their lives. We definitely have to eradicate from the vocabulary and the attitudes of a true revolutionary such things as: "I have been a communist for fifteen years."

Neither the "I was a communist" nor the "I threw bombs" nor the "I was in the Sierra" has any, reason to show off.

Whatever the merits each of us may have, comrades, there is still a greater merit and that is the merit in what lies ahead. It would have been correct to say to a militiaman: "You are a boaster." What rumor, what line did the reaction try to put across? To divide the militiaman from the rebel soldier, to create animosity between them?" Some people even let themselves be carried away by that false sentiment and some let themselves be carried away by the opinion of a militiaman who had done nothing. On that basis, what should we think about the hundred militiamen who fell alongside the soldiers and the revolutionary police! What should we think when we see today the photograph of a young worker who died fighting at Giron Beach, who gave his life, who left his wife a widow, who left his children orphans! Wouldn't everyone really feel ashamed to have thrown up in someone's face that, at one time, he was a militiaman, that he was not in the Sierra? Wasn't Giron Beach a historical battle too, as glorious as any other battle, a battle that will go down in history as the great victory of the revolutionary Cuban people against Yankee imperialism? Who fell and died there? Don't we have to take off our hats today in respect for the heroes who fell there, though they may not have been in the Sierra, though they may not have been communists for fifteen years, though they may not have thrown a single bomb? So, what is the greatest merit?

In the long run, everything that has been done is done and over with. All those who have died and all those who have fallen would have done so in vain, if we don't learn how to carry the work of the Revolution forward. And so the merit is in what is not yet, in what is to come. Who knows what struggles lie ahead of us? Who could have told that sixteen-year-old boy, whose picture we saw recently as an eleven-year-old among children seated at desks, that today he was going to be a great hero of our fatherland, a symbol of the nation, a symbol of the culture of Cuba and America? Who would have had a right to look scornfully at that sixteen-year-old boy who was teaching people how to read and write, and not have to bow their heads in respect to his name and his memory?

Who knows what battles we'll have to fight, what struggles lie ahead? Why should we believe that there is merit only in what is behind us? Why don't we believe that there is some merit in what we will have to do together from now on. I wish we had been able to do it together from the very beginning. I wish we could always have done it together, like the Bolsheviks who carried out the revolution in 1917.

There Will Be No Special Privileges

Let us be enthusiastic about the tasks before us. Let us approach them with honor, starting with the honor we have spoken about here today, with what I have said here with all honor and with all candor, because the first thing a revolutionary must be is honorable and frank -- in the history we must all write together, in the history the OBI must write, and in the history the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba must write.

In that history, and that struggle, and in the task before us, we must be enthusiastic. Who belongs in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution? Everybody. Every honorable Cuban, every revolutionary Cuban does. Does anyone have special privileges? No, no one. Is there any favoritism here? No, none. For the first time in our fatherland there exists a revolutionary power in which neither influence, nor patronage, nor nepotism, nor favoritism count, but in which merit alone is indispensable. And what a beautiful thing it is that today our country has such an opportunity.

What, before anything else, will the United Party of the Socialist Revolution be? It will be a school for revolutionaries. It will be a party where one learns to be revolutionary. That is why such special emphasis has been put on the school. The party, as such, is still not officially established. It has not had its first congress yet; but it will have one. When? There's no rush, but it'll have it. But the important thing is that extraordinary progress at the base has been made in integration and unity, and that in fact a revolutionary vanguard organization exists and that hundreds of schools are functioning, and that more than 10,000 citizens are taking courses of revolutionary instruction; they are training and developing their capacities.

And I tell you sincerely that one thing that makes each of us more and more revolutionary every day is to see a comrade who knows practically nothing of revolution, nothing of economics, nothing of Marxism. There were even anti-communists among-them, poor people, who had been instilled with anti-communist ideas, though they owned nothing: no capital, no wealth, no property of any kind. That's the limit. There's an explanation for the anti-communism of the owner of the sugar mill, or of a bank, but it is inconceivable that a man who has absolutely nothing should not be in accord with us when we tell him that we are going to socialize big business and the big banks.

Study is Necessary

And to see comrades devote themselves to the study of economics but in such a way that, to speak the truth, if we revolutionary leaders don't study, we'll soon have people from the ranks knowing more about economics and political economy, Marxism-Leninism, and a whole lot of revolutionary things than we do. I tell you this seriously, whether you want to take it seriously or not, but we shall see. I believe, I believe that, meanwhile, we the leaders are obliged to study more than any one else.

I have seen how those comrades have changed. Why have they changed? They see themselves as comrades who have discovered something, who have found a truth, an indescribable enthusiasm, not usually found in their first studies. We have something to give the masses. We'll be lacking many material things, but there is something more, there is a whole revolutionary doctrine, scientific, profound, full of interest, which we can give to the masses. We can educate them politically, teach them, give them a revolutionary theory. We have schools, we have a press to teach the people.

There is one thing that no one should doubt, and that is that our people will become more revolutionary by the day, and as they become more revolutionary, they'll become better workers, better students, better administrators, we'll have higher production, better fighting units. The Revolution will be better defended, and the Revolution will have more prestige as the people assimilate revolutionary instruction.

Teaching, Not Indoctrination

It is not a matter of indoctrination -- we should drop that term. Why? Because the word "indoctrinate" implies instilling something in someone, filling someone's head with something. It isn't a matter of indoctrinating or instilling the people with something, but teaching them to analyze, teaching them to think. No one could have instilled Marxism-Leninism in me, and the best proof is that they tried to inculcate the very opposite of this in me, and they failed completely. They might have planted a few prejudices in me, some things, but really, no one could have instilled the reactionary, fascist, counter-revolutionary, selfish, exploitative spirit in me. And you must remember that for twelve years I was a pupil in parochial schools. And in those twelve years, they couldn't really instill the counter-revolutionary spirit in me, the conservative spirit, the spirit of the exploiter, but on my own I was reading, analyzing and thinking with honesty.

I believe that we ought to teach the citizen to think, to analyze; to search among the sources of history where there are so many lessons; to search among the sources of the universal revolutionary movement where there are so many lessons; to search among the sources of the universal workers' movement; to search among

the sources of theory and explain them. Do not say that a person can believe something he doesn't understand. You create fantasies that way. You develop mystic, dogmatic, fanatic minds that way.

And when someone doesn't understand something, don't stop discussing with him until he understands; and if he does not understand today, he'll understand tomorrow or the day after, because the truths of historic reality are so clear, so evident, and so obvious that sooner or later, every honest mind understands them. So, it isn't a matter of indoctrination.

No one goes to any revolutionary school to be indoctrinated. No one lets himself be indoctrinated, no one accepts absolutely something he doesn't understand. He goes to be educated, to learn to think, to learn to analyze, to be given the elements of wisdom so that he may understand and discuss the ideas of the bourgeoisie, the lies of the bourgeoisie, the lies of imperialism, the lies of capitalism; so that he can learn to dissect, analyze and understand and with patience get to understand Marxism-Leninism, assured that it will cost nothing to teach the people the truth.

Revolution as a Career

No one should fear he'll be indoctrinated. He who believes that he's going to be indoctrinated will not find anyone interested in giving him a "shock treatment" or a hole in the head or anything of the sort. Besides, there are people who, because of their nature, their temperament, can never be revolutionaries. They couldn't be because, above everything, a revolutionary is also a generous person, a disinterested person, a person ready to sacrifice himself.

A revolutionary is not an opportunist or a faker. He is a man who is ready to give up many comforts, and who likes it and wants it that way.

Not everyone is a revolutionary just as not everyone is a musician, or a painter just because he has to have a career. Now, we must teach the worker above all, the peasant, the student, the great masses of the exploited of yesterday. And we must do this more every month because just as it is certain that there are people who could never be revolutionaries, so are there more and more people who understand the truths of the Revolution. This is what we have to do, and this is the aim of the School of Revolutionary Instruction: to teach our people to analyze, to teach them to think.

And a revolutionary has to be, above all, a man who knows how to analyze situations objectively, not subjectively. Learning to think is learning to seek the right solutions. That is one of the important questions I wanted to bring out.

Furthermore, regarding questions of organization, any day now I imagine Anibal will also be invited to join in this program, so that he can speak of everything relating to the organizational aspect of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Program? It will be a Marxist-Leninist program conforming to the specific objective conditions of our country. That is to say, we shall adapt in our program the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism to our conditions. So, that is not nor is it going to be a secret, not at all. And our people, our working class agrees with that, our peasantry agrees, all honest intellectuals agree, the youth, all honest citizens of our country agree.

So, those were the fundamental questions. Other questions relate to discipline and a whole series of standards, but it seems to me that my duty here today is to talk about the United Party of the Socialist Revolution -- and I wish to point out that you were the ones who decided when and how the United Party of the Socialist Revolution should be discussed -- the fundamental thing, the "why" of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution, the roots of the process and the functions of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Fundamental Task of the Party: to Lead and to Organize

It is known how fundamental is its task: to organize and to lead, through mass organizations, through its cells; and, at the same time, to organize the people in accordance with Marxist-Leninist standards of collective responsibility and leadership.

I am now going to say something about collective leadership which is possibly the only thing left for me to discuss). For a good part of the time revolutionary leadership was a one-man leadership. That is to say, it was not bossist, not whimsical, nothing like that, but for a good part of the time the decisions were decisions that were made in practice by virtue of the confidence bestowed in the Premier of the Revolutionary Government; and as such, the basic-decisions were so made.

I said and I say and repeat: I firmly believe this is wrong. I do not have to reproach myself for this though; it was simply the result of the revolutionary process. Well, what did we think about that? We simply thought that was wrong; in fact, for a long time there was concern here about the problems of leaders and "what would happen if we should lose a leader?" and "if the Revolution is deprived of a head?" Why? We just had to get out of that situation as soon as possible; above all, we had to create a revolutionary party leadership.

That instrument is the best guarantee and the only sound guarantee of the continuity of power and of the revolutionary line. I sincerely believe that of the many political systems man has devised throughout his history, throughout his wanderings through history, it is simply the system of government based on administration of the state by a revolutionary and democratic party with collective leadership.

Why? Since individuals play a role, there is no doubt that individuals play a role in revolutions and an important role, but individuals are, after all, just individuals. And there is nothing more fragile than the life of an individual; even the conscience of individuals is fragile. But we have absolute faith in the firmness of our consciences; however, we know that an individual is the most fragile thing there is. He dies from a bullet, an accident, a stroke, a sickness, anything.

The Idiot Kings
Monarchies, which represented the social system of the empires of the feudal era and of the first national states, are characterized by the fact that a country can be ruled by an idiot. A son of a king is an idiot and the country is condemned to having an idiot rule for forty years because unless he dies before, he can live for forty years and even more. And there are many cases in history of nations ruled by idiots.

Representative bourgeois democracy is characterized by politicking, bribery and corruption and it is a system in which only the ruling classes and the wealthy classes have access to power, aside from the accompanying anarchy of that system of government, as demonstrated by recent history, for example, in France, a country where the government changes ten times a year.

Besides the risks arising from the system -- a system of one class ruling another -- it also often happens that one man alone can deceive the masses, one man can confuse the masses. A big demagogue, a theatrical person, can under certain circumstances rise to a position of leadership in the state, far beyond his capacities and his merits.

The system of one-man government, the consequence of dictatorship, has two important drawbacks. First, if the dictator is bad, the people suffer the consequences. And secondly, there is the lack of continuity and security in the continuity of power and of revolutionary direction and program. Moreover, some individuals are weak and feeble when exposed to all kinds of risks; and this is in absolute contradiction to the sentiments of the revolutionaries, in absolute contradiction to the sentiments of men.

The Ideal System of Government is the Party System

I, therefore, believe that the ideal system, the most perfect ever devised by men to govern a country, a system moreover that does not aspire to be eternal, but transitory, as temporary as are the stages in the history of a country, is the system of government based on a revolutionary party democratically organized through collective leadership. This meant the party must exercise the functions of a leader.

Why is it the best system? (It is the best) if democratic rules work, if the rules of collective leadership work. If democratic rules do not work, if the rules of collective leadership do not work, the system can be as bad as any other system. But if the fundamental principles of internal democracy and collective leadership are maintained, it is without any doubt the most perfect method of government and, above all, of government of a country in a stage of revolutionary transitions.

What does this mean? In the first place, if that party is not a mass party, but a selective party, it will get the best citizens of the country, because of their character and their merits, to join revolutionary cells. For long years, they undergo a process of apprenticeship, of direct experience, of performance of duty.

Little by little, through merit, such a citizen can take on ever greater responsibilities. That citizen can become a member of the Regional or Central or National Leadership; he can become a leader through merit. This is not the case with the king who leaves the idiot son in power; it is not the case with the lucky military caudillo, the great soldier, because there are men with great talents as fighters and they acquire great fame and great prestige as warriors, but are perfectly stupid as rulers.

It is not a question of being a demagogue or faker or a theatrical man. In a party where discipline, principles, selectivity, internal democracy and collective leadership predominate, the fool cannot rise nor can the idiot become chief of state nor can the lucky adventurer. That school will be a school where men will be tested by learning and training.

And so the most important posts in the state will be filled by men who have ability and have risen through merit.

What citizen can get to be a leader of his country in this way, a member of the leadership of his country? Simply, all citizens through merit, all citizens through their own worth. Only those who have true political bent, who have a true spirit of sacrifice, will get ahead.

It is not the other kind of politics where positions depend upon money, upon connections, upon favoritism. Let's rid ourselves of connections, of favoritism; let's rid ourselves of all that, and we shall without a doubt have a system that guarantees that the people will be governed by the most competent, best equipped men. Put simply, collective leadership.

How can the most fundamental decisions of the country, all of the decisions vital to the life of a country be made by one man, by a single official? That is simply absurd. We have seen, as one can see every day, that in some issues he can be wrong.

Suppose the views of some leaders were not checked with those of other leaders, if one leader's evaluation of the facts were not checked with another leader's, were not discussed and that decisions were simply adopted unilaterally and without discussion.

What does this expose the people to? It exposes them to being victimized by all the whims, all the mistakes and all the errors. It is far less likely that solutions which are discussed can be wrong, than solutions that are adopted without guidance and without discussion. I believe that very strongly, I believe in collective leadership, I believe in leadership by a vanguard political party.,

And that is simply what we think and that is what every revolutionary has to think. The words of the Internationale are appropriate: "neither Caesar nor bourgeois nor God." As for the believer, well, he can leave out the other two and remain with God. But neither Caesar nor bourgeois nor, above all, Caesar. And to be truthful,. we have had no ambitions to be Caesar.

If the people are interested in our personal experience, we can say that nothing really gives more satisfaction than discussion, than looking for the best solutions through discussion. Nor is there, greater satisfaction than when everyone shares responsibility, when the Party shares it, when the people share it. I strongly believe this, I have the right to speak from having gone through this revolutionary period, from having assumed grave responsibilities in the Revolution, from never having become vain because of it, never having felt I was infallible and admitting that I can make mistakes.

People Write History

I believe that one of the most honest things any citizen, any revolutionary can do is to recognize not by words alone but sincerely that one can make mistakes; to say there are no Caesars; to say that no one is appointed by Providence; to say that one believes, strongly that it's the people who write history, and who make history.

What often happens is that they don't mention the people They refer to the people by the name of a leader, and millions of men die anonymously, and all the glory, all the prestige often falls on one man, on one individual, on one leader so that one attributes the merits of the people to the leader. This is wrong because a revolution is not made with the intelligence nor through the efforts of one man alone; it is made with the intelligence of many people, with the blood and sacrifice of many, with the blood and sacrifice of thousands of comrades who won the fight against the tyranny, with the blood and sacrifice of hundreds of comrades who won the fight against counter-revolution; who defeated imperialism; with the unselfish efforts and the self-sacrifice of those who go to the mountains for training, who shut themselves up in schools separated from their families for long months, of workers who cultivate the fields for hours in the sun; of workers who cut cane, of fisherman who fish, of conductors who drive trains, trucks; of workers who manage factories; of workers who get up early in the morning to milk cows, to do some chore, or perform some service. These are the ones who make history, the fighters.

Who can credit himself with all the merit of millions of men who make up a society, who make up a people? Who can think that personal vanity and pride -- however legitimate, it's still his pride only -are worth the effort and the sacrifice of millions? Whoever believes himself superior and so infallible as to feel this way is simply wrong.

There Are Many Camilos

I came here to tell the people what I believe, and I have defended it and contributed to removing all obstacles to it. Very seldom have we felt as we feel on this occasion that we have contributed something to the history of our country, to the progress of our country, and if all of us, if all the comrades with more responsibility in leadership; if we all respect these rules, if we all live by these principles, our country will enjoy a great future, our country will be spared the problems of provincialism, will be spared a thousand other problems. For one thing that nobody doubts is what was said about comrade Camilo at his death, that among the people "there are many Camilos." And nobody doubts it because Camilo worked for a tailor shop and left. Camilo would not have been Camilo without the Revolution, without a chance to fight. Give this young man the chance to fight and you will see that he is a Camilo, that he wins battles and displays courage.

The Party Must Be the Great Instrument of Merit

"There are many like Camilo among the people," we said that time. But what is valid for a military leader is also valid for everything else; it is also valid for all other responsibilities. There are thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of worthy men, of competent men among the people. Give them the chance to educate themselves, to train themselves, to learn, to lead, to work! Give them the chance and just as you'll see magnificent athletes, magnificent military leaders, magnificent students coming from the people, so will magnificent leaders, magnificent cadres, magnificent administrators, magnificent orators, magnificent writers magnificent ministers, magnificent political leaders also arise:

Let us accustom ourselves, in accordance with the times and in accordance with our Revolution, to seeing in the people the great virtues, the great minds, the great merits, knowing that there are great reserves among them and that, therefore, they cannot fail! A man can fail, because a man is one. A people cannot fail, because there are thousands, because there are hundreds of thousands of minds, hundreds of thousands of potential leaders.

Then, what must the Party of that revolutionary people do? That Party must be the great instrument of merit, the great instrument of revolutionary vocation, the great instrument of revolutionary intelligence; that Party must always be above individuals because the Party is going to embody, not the value of one mind, but the value of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of minds; not the value of one heroism, but the value of the heroism of all; not the value of one spirit of sacrifice, but the value of the spirit of sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of citizens, of the fighting spirit, of love for the Revolution.

This is what the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution must be!

[[Category:Library works by Fidel Castro]]

Library:Fidel Castro on the 50th Anniversary of the Chinese Revolution

2023-10-03T00:57:36Z

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{{Library work|title=Fidel Castro on the 50th Anniversary of the Chinese Revolution|author=Fidel Castro|published_date=1999|source=[https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialist-viewpoint-us/mayjun_07/0507002.html Marxists Internet Archive]}}

As you can see, they were closing the curtains [laughter], but I looked at my watch and noticed we had a little time left. That's why I thought it would be worthwhile to use these minutes to add a few brief thoughts about what was said here.

A few days ago we were busy with a great number of activities but we often thought that it would now be 50 years since the Chinese Revolution, not only the revolution, but also the independence of China. And that was of really great historical importance.

Similar words are often used, but now we are faced with a real event, a date of real historical importance. And I asked myself: How are we going to commemorate it, what relevance are we going to give it? That's why I asked about the program they were going to have. I asked the Ambassador and first he told me there would be a reception in the Embassy on the evening of the 30th and warmly invited me.

I answered, "Ambassador, the evening of the 30th is not the anniversary of the triumph of the Chinese Revolution!"

And he said, "Yes, because at that hour on the 30th in China it's already the 1st of October."

And, actually, the reception was not being organized for the 2nd, which would have been the result of organizing it, as is traditionally done, on the first. By doing it tomorrow night, on the 30th, it would coincide perfectly with the day of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Also, I know that they have set up television screens so that the guests can view the parade and the commemoration in Tiananmen Square.

I was very pleased that the Ambassador remembered that Cuba was the first Latin American country to recognize the People's Republic of China and to establish relations with it, because there was a very strong blockade, an effort of total isolation. In fact, there was total obedience to the United States in our hemisphere, where there were even many countries, like the Caribbean sister islands of Anglophone extraction still not independent. The independence of those islands increased the strength and spirit of independence in this hemisphere, but no one here in Latin America then had relations with the People's Republic of China, and that was the case in many parts of the world.

Since we also became independent on January 1, 1959, it did not take long to establish relations with the People's Republic of China.

But he remembered something more, and that is that when the Cuban Revolution triumphed, China was represented in the Security Council and the United Nations by Taiwan. At the time, only the Soviet Union, one of the permanent members of the Security Council, was not an ally of the United States. And as an example of imperialist imposition, the most populous country in the world was ignored completely. The oldest country in the world, we could say, of the modern ones, the most ancient civilization in the world was not represented in the Security Council, as was its right according to all the agreements made during the Second World War.

They kept Taiwan there, the defeated puppet government, which continued to be an ally of the United States. We had to fight hard, every year, many countries, mostly of the Third World, including Cuba, just as today, we fight the blockade. We fought for the recognition of the People's Republic of China and for it to occupy its rightful seat on the Security Council as one of its permanent members.

This was achieved in 1971 when it was no longer possible to resist world public opinion and the growing membership of the United Nations. At that time, many African countries and other areas of the world won their political independence-countries of great weight. After the Second World War, India, another of the most populous countries in the world besides China, achieved independence. Indonesia, also a heavily populated Asian country, achieved its independence. Japan was occupied for many years and gradually achieved the rights of a sovereign nation. Many others in the Middle East received independence, as did many in the South Pacific. I have already mentioned the Caribbean. Consequently many countries were added, and it was the determination and tenacity of this struggle that finally won China its basic rights.

Today, 26 years later, I would say that event achieved its full significance within the present world situation due to China's importance and weight. Today China is incomparably greater than it was when its status as a member of the Security Council was finally accepted.

China has been the country that has least used its veto power in the Security Council. China has used it only on exceptional occasions-perhaps Alarcon knows how many. On the other hand, the "master of the world," because it does not own the world but almost all the world, has used this right an infinite number of times.

Today, the Third World has a country that is a friend, that Third World, which supported China so often, has a friend among the Security Council's permanent members.

I remembered something that was not mentioned here: the suffering of the Chinese people, the enormous sacrifices of that people after the triumph of their revolution and their independence. I have to say it that way, because the country was not fully independent, just as Cuba was not, until the day of the Revolution's triumph. For example, they were economically blockaded for a long time, almost totally isolated.

During the earlier years it had the collaboration of the Soviet Union-to some extent, because the Soviet Union had just come out of a terrible war where its industry, its agriculture, its infrastructure were practically destroyed-a support the U.S.SR offered, a determined support that I know the Chinese appreciated very much, until differences and difficulties arose between them.

I do not want to dwell on these subjects but I recall the years of the economic blockade of China. And I also remember the U.S. troops under the command of MacArthur, their intervention in the Korean conflict, a country that they divided and that is still divided; and they reached the Chinese border. Very soon after their war of liberation, no less than one million Chinese volunteers took up arms and participated in that conflict together with the Korean people. They inflicted a severe and terrible blow to the interventionist troops of the United States and its allies until reestablishing the situation that existed before that war, that is, the present border between the two parts of Korea. This event cannot be forgotten nor can the thousands of lives Chinese troops lost.

I have talked to some who participated in that counter-attack. It was during a severe cold, crossing mountains, without mechanical means, with total air control by the United States and its allies and even threatening to use nuclear weapons. In the desperation of their defeat, there were many in the United States who favored attacking beyond the Chinese border. The advance of the Chinese troops was uncontainable in spite of the enormous differences in military power, until they reached the point that is still today that line-a tremendous battle.

Later the economic blockade continued. The Yankee imperialists also intervened in Viet Nam and unleashed a genocidal war. There, the Chinese expressed solidarity with the Vietnamese people. At the time, there were two countries, China and the Soviet Union, who supplied weapons and gave political support to the Vietnamese who fought heroically and were victorious. This victory was obtained during the 1970s. Cuba also made its modest contribution of a free annual supply of sugar for the Vietnamese during the war years. It's worth mentioning, but only as an expression of the good will and the spirit of solidarity of our people who also offered total political support. There was also an enormous feeling of solidarity with Viet Nam by our people.

The Chinese had to endure so many hardships after the war, and for how long! But imperialism was repeatedly defeated. The lesson of Viet Nam marked important turning points. I would say that Cuba's resistance to the blockades, the mercenary invasions, the threats of nuclear war and all that, marked other little points that were also important in that struggle. They demonstrated to the world that it was possible to fight and win against imperialism. They suffered a harsh economic blockade for many years, a little less than us, but at the time it was a record. They were blockaded for 28 years, and we are now going on 40 years.

The events mentioned are irrefutable proof that this lunacy, these criminal policies, cannot last forever.

After all the blows it has received from many parts, the United States began to understand that its position on China was unsustainable from the point of view of rights, of political principles, of the United Nations Charter and everything else. But it was also unsustainable according to its own economic interests. China was an enormous potential market. In fact, they have advantages in many things. In one sense in particular they have an enormous advantage compared to Cuba, and that is the fact that their population-they are have a little more-their population was about one hundred and twenty times more than that of Cuba, and a territory, as mentioned here, of 9.6 million square kilometers, almost one hundred times ours and, undoubtedly a country of great natural resources.

I could add other advantages: They did not live in the West as we do. We are bearing, to a large extent, the culture inherited from the West. China had a millennia-long culture. The Chinese people's great advantage is its language, its own very complex writing. It is not an easy language, not precisely of Latin origin nor, we must say, of Western origin. They had a millennial language. I have no way of knowing how much it evolved since the period before our times. These cultural features are a very important force with which to defend the identity, the integrity, and independence of a great country and are less susceptible to penetration by the western culture that surrounds us.

You can see what the Ambassador explained: after 25 years of conflicts, wars, and blockades, they had recovered important rights such as that seat in the Security Council, a growing respect in the world, and in spite of errors, as the Ambassador pointed out, of various kinds of difficulties that occurred in its own internal policy at a time when the West had no other choice but to acknowledge the rights of China. And when all the blockades ended, you can see the extraordinary rhythm of progress in the country.

What he read here-I was just looking over a copy of the speech and had already heard about some appearances of the Ambassador-a sustained average growth of 9.8 percent for 21 years has no precedent in the history of any human society.

I did some calculations of how many times it doubled its economic production during that period. By then, they had already achieved important advances. I remember that after the revolutionary triumph, the Chinese built great seawalls rock by rock to prevent flooding and promote irrigation. Many social programs were begun from the very triumph of the Revolution. But undoubtedly the economic advances were slowed down considerably by the economic blockade to which subjective factors were added as well.

When, as I said, they had to recognize the rights of China and all the blockades disappeared and they rectified some errors-I don't call them errors but rather their points of view, we would have no right to judge each internal event in China-but, as the Ambassador explained, they had made certain corrections, had overcome certain errors and everyone commits errors and that cannot be denied. After this, they achieved this impressive record because, as he pointed out, and above all, they grew since 1978, for 21 years. There is no precedent; there has never existed anything like this figure.

It is truly very satisfying to listen to the Ambassador reaffirm that these successes were possible due to the political ideology, to a political science, to Marxism-Leninism, to which they added important theoretical contributions of Mao Zedong, theoretical contributions to the revolutionary struggle, theoretical contributions to Marxism to which they later added theoretical and practical contributions of Deng Xiaoping. Added to this is the undeniably hard-working characteristic of the Chinese people. They are a people, really very hardworking. That is recognized everywhere in the world and, in Cuba, it is acknowledged because, dedicated to agriculture, specifically vegetable production, they greatly contribute to the supply of fresh produce in the city.

So, this spirit of labor is an important factor that, in my opinion, also contributed to the advances of the Chinese people, along with a theory and through a revolution that won, together with deep social changes, the independence of that great nation; a true and exemplary revolution when you analyze its roots, from the beginning when it organized its first nucleus of the Chinese Communist Party during the twenties, its rich history and, among the outstanding events, the long march, a military achievement that is unparalleled in history-and history has many military achievements.

We have read some books on what constituted that advance, day by day, surrounded by large enemy units of the puppet government that was supplied with all the weapons it needed, with hundreds of divisions. And that great military achievement occurred in very difficult conditions, always surrounded by large forces, constantly outmaneuvering the enemy, overcoming natural barriers. At times these included snow-capped mountains, and other times, wide and rushing rivers, until they reached the base that would be their permanent site during the war of liberation.

There was a time that the others, the so-called nationalists, the Puppets and reactionaries were fighting a foreign invasion, a war against the Japanese militarists and, to some extent, joined forces with the revolutionary Chinese. However, they were not serving the people nor the true independence of the country and they made all kinds of errors and had all kinds of weaknesses. Many times the Communists had to fight against the nationalists of Chiang Kai-Shek and against Japanese troops. In spite of this, they made a decisive contribution to the defeat of the Japanese militarists. These events are also in the pages of modern Chinese history.

And those who served reaction and Yankee imperialism at the end of the Second World War, who were crushingly and irreversibly defeated, took refuge on the little island of Taiwan, which is an integral part of Chinese territory because it was a part of China for an infinite length of time, like the keys to the north of Cuba, more so than the Isle of Youth is ours. Those who live there are of Chinese nationality, speak the Chinese language and have Chinese culture in spite of the western penetration they have received. This possession is an unquestionable right of the Chinese nation. It absolutely cannot be denied that it is an internal problem of China. No one has the right to interfere, and that is what they demand: respect for the sovereignty of their country, the universal recognition of this right. They are not demanding the union of two different nations, of different ethnicities, and different cultures.

Even the Taiwanese, until recently, and especially in the Security Council, spoke for 22 years of only one China completely integrated. Until recently they have been speaking in this language.

Ah! What was the first military intervention by the United States to secure Taiwan? I remember. During the days of the Korean War, the U.S. fleet took up a position between the continent and the island of Taiwan. This cannot be forgotten. That position was maintained by force. The country did not have conditions for that battle, nor did the country want to wage this battle. The country demanded its rights, demanded recognition, and wanted to solve the problem peacefully. What it determined with all its rights was that it would not admit the loss of part of its territory, the tearing up of its country through the declaration and recognition of an independent republic of Taiwan. They have said it categorically, that they will not permit it, and I am sure that they will not, as I have the hope that this problem and the recognition of the theory and the practice of the inalienable rights of China occur without any form of war or loss of blood.

What is really happening today is that the United States and other western countries, while they talk of only one China, supply the separatist government of the island with the most modern and sophisticated weapons and nourish the movement against the integrity of China.

The Ambassador recalled and Machadito also mentioned the problem of Hong Kong. They knew how to have the necessary patience until the day came when the West and the world had no other choice but to acknowledge the right of the People's Republic of China to the reintegration of this piece of its territory seized by colonial wars, disgraceful colonial wars.

Today much is said against drug trafficking. Then, the British Empire took over that territory and the West unleashed a war and sent troops who reached Beijing to impose the rights of the Western powers over the opium trade with China. That is a historical truth.

They recalled that this same year Macao would be returned, the little piece that was in the hands of a European country and it would be done peacefully through an agreement made thanks to Chinese patience, a patience we should all learn from and that, partially, we have. And if we have not learned from it we have figured out on our own because the duty of all revolutionaries it to also act with the necessary wisdom.

They waited and that year took possession of the territory. To make things easier, they thought of a country with two systems. They promised those who stayed in Hong Kong the existing economic and social systems, the existing institutions but under Chinese sovereignty. They have also made this offer to Taiwan, with an even broader scope. The proof of the peaceful spirit of China is the fact that, even though the Portuguese enclave of Macao had no form of defense, they did not take advantage of the circumstance or any situation to take over the enclave.

India, a neighboring country, also very populated, did not have so much patience and, at a certain time, took over a Portuguese enclave that was on Indian territory. It is a good example of the peaceful spirit of the People's Republic of China. They did not use force to recover that territory and with the help of time and international support they are recovering all the rights they were stripped of.

The Ambassador mentioned how they had broken up the country. He could mention many other things. I mentioned the history of opium. How many crimes were committed against that great nation until mid-century, and how many rights were denied and ignored until they were reestablished in the course of the final two-thirds of this century!

Respect the people! Respect territorial integrity! This is not the time to break up nations. At a time when many peoples, separated by borders, by flags and hymns fight for integration, join together, and peacefully wipe out borders, the countries of the Caribbean fight for integration. The countries of Central America fight for integration. The countries of South America fight for integration. Latin America fights for it. In the future, no small nation can exist isolated in practice.

I will say more: Switzerland a country traditionally very protective of its sovereignty that, due to its excellent geographic position in the heart of the Alps, could maintain neutrality during the First and Second World Wars. And Switzerland, I know because I went there and spoke with leaders who were, along with 49 percent of the people, in favor of integration into the European Economic Community, only a small fraction is lacking to make a majority-could not live alone in the Alps, isolated from the rest of the European community. The move is inexorably toward integration in that community.

Who has the right to support the disintegration of China? Who has the right to deny China's demand for acknowledgment of its sovereignty over Taiwan? It is absurd that when the entire world is integrating that someone should call for the disintegration of a piece of China.

You can see the disaster of disintegration of the Soviet Union countries; a disintegration that became a race of all to run, primarily the United States, to invest and establish its hegemony, its domination and its possession of the fundamental resources of the former republics, mainly gas and oil, products of which they are very rich, as well as other minerals.

The world doesn't move towards disintegration, it moves towards integration. It is not only a historical fact but also a principle of the modern world, a necessity of modern life. That is what the People's Republic of China demands. And now, the People's Republic of China of today, of this millennium, or of this century about to begin, is very different from that republic that arose 50 years ago in a country devastated by many years of war, against foreign invasion.

Added to this was the revolutionary war. More than 20 years of fierce battles against the internal and external enemies of the Chinese people. The country destroyed, a country that was poor, a country that had been exploited by external and internal exploiters. Everything needed to be built. I already mentioned under what conditions.

It is a country whose economy strongly moves forward. It's curious; Machadito mentioned their contribution during the Asian crisis. There is something more: the People's Republic of China gave an extraordinary service to the world in recent months, especially since 1998 in that crisis that began in Southeast Asia and that lead the second world power in the field of economy, Japan, into a deep crisis, that later spread to Russia and was seriously affecting the stocks and shares of the United States exchanges and which threatened to wipe out the economy of Latin America.

You can see how great the danger was that Latin America as a whole grew, if it grew at all, by 0.5 percent in 1999; and if it grew 0.5 percent it is because the countries with an important weight in the region produced greater growth. Mexico was between 4 percent and 5 percent. There are countries with growth below zero, negative in several countries, several important countries. It was a very serious world economic threat that has not yet been overcome, and it is not known with certainty if it will soon be overcome and there is the certainty-at least I have it-that when it recovers it will not be for long.

China had made an enormous economic sacrifice without which the crisis would not have been stopped. It was in a complicated situation because its exports grew year by year, but when the Asian crisis devaluated the currencies in many countries with a certain level of development-the so-called Asian tigers, pride of the neoliberal economy, pride of imperialism as an example of what can be achieved through their adverse formulas-and when they fell in a matter of days, since one after the other economy of those countries collapsed with terrible consequences, both for the economy of the world, especially for the countries of the Third World that are totally unprotected in this crisis, the Chinese found themselves at a disadvantage because the prices of the merchandize of all these countries cheapened amazingly because with the devaluation of their currency they could export whatever they wanted at low prices.

China could have devaluated the yuan to protect itself against that competition, to maintain the rhythm of increase in its exports and with this maintain an uninterrupted rise in growth. The world was shaking-the world! Not just the Third World but also the industrialized world was shaking thinking of the idea that China, with its rights, and to protect its exports and economic growth could devaluate the yuan. It did not and still there has been no acknowledgement that the People's Republic of China deserves for this service it gave to the world and at the cost of its own economy.

In other words, it acted with a great sense of responsibility; the prestige of the country grew last year more than the 7.8 percent that Machadito mentioned referring to the growth of the Chinese economy. The prestige of China must have grown, for this reason alone, at least by 20 percent or 30 percent. But I think its prestige deserved a growth of 200 percent because no one can imagine the consequences of a measure of this kind by China. However, they are haggling over its membership in the World Trade Organization and we are all fighting for the membership of China to the WTO.

Europe and the United States assume the right to decide who becomes a member and who does not. The battle in the United Nations repeats itself. And the WTO is frightful because it can be a terrible instrument against the interests of the Third World.

The Third World is interested to have China in the World Trade Organization, which is responsible for regulating this activity; an instrument created, undoubtedly-the same as other instruments that already exist such as the IMF and similar institutions that have imposed the famous neoliberalism whose consequences our compatriots know about through the thousands of visitors who come from all over the world and the press releases regarding this ever increasing loss of prestige and more damaging-like an instrument of domination. All that imperialism has created since the fall of the socialist camp have been instruments to strengthen its domination in all fields. In the economic sphere it enjoys some incredible privileges that cannot continue to survive. They are the ones who print the money reserves of the world, investing only in the paper. The Europeans are trying to create another to protect itself from these super-privileges that exists at the cost of the interests of the rest of the world and benefit, to a certain extent, by sharing them.

All these subjects are part of the issues that must be discussed to change the existing world order that has been established for that reason.

The club of the rich, a group of rich countries-there are around twenty something, I think it is 29 now-invented a multilateral agreement project of investments to make it an international treaty. Today there are bilateral agreements, but the member countries of this club known as the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) invented a project that was shrouded in silence. They discussed it behind closed doors and were getting ready to release it when some people-I think it was in France-discovered the text that, although it was known and being discussed the contents were unknown. They mounted a great scandal and the authors had to put a stop to it.

Where this had to be discussed was in the WTO because over a hundred countries were there and not the 30 richest countries. They did not want to discuss it in the WTO although the WTO was set up as an instrument to strengthen the economic, political and all other forms of United States hegemony. They imposed the conditions of that organization as an instrument of imperialism. That's why it was created although it could be sidetracked to become an instrument of the peoples where we of the Third World are a wide majority. But the peoples of the Third World are very divided because of their poverty they depend heavily on the United States and the trade institutions and financial organizations it created and that, often, breaks the unity.

Acting in unity, the Third World with China in the WTO could become an instrument of justice, an instrument of resistance to the hegemony of the United States, for a new economic order, against the current economic order they have imposed which is the important reason to reform the United Nations. All this is linked. The WTO could be an instrument of justice. We are a majority. We are the majority in the United Nations as you can see from some of the votes in the UN General Assembly, for example, those against the blockade.

One day the General Assembly managed to impose the recognition of China's rights-the real China, the only China that exists-in the Security Council. Ah, that is why we also call for more powers for the UN General Assembly. That institution must change.

The Chinese ambassador clearly explained and mentioned all the concepts of limited sovereignty, global threats, right to intervention like the one in Yugoslavia, to which is added the new strategic concept of NATO, approved days before that genocidal war, a right that NATO assigns itself of intervening whenever it wants in any country.

As I said, all these problems are linked; the intention of ignoring the United Nations, that is all we have; a world organization that exists, that was founded after the Second World War. It no longer corresponds to the present situation in the world, having almost 200 independent states. It began with around thirty or forty something states controlled by the victorious powers after the Second World War. It definitely needs to be restructured and democratized, but this requires tactics and strategies. At least it is very clear for me the importance of the ties of the Third World with China and the need for the support of China in that restructuring that can no longer be delayed because China is a permanent member with the right to veto.

Under certain limits the United States can try to prevent it and will do so for a long time. But it will have to discuss it, as it has had to discuss other things. It refused to discuss it for many years and will be unable, also, to prevent the democratization of the United Nations, as a result of the mobilization of world public opinion, through the unity of the nations.

He mentioned those principles that imperialism wants to wipe out. It is very important to listen here to the Chinese Ambassador asserting that these principles must be defended and that is a fundamental factor of Chinese foreign policy.

Fortunately, yesterday, we had the opportunity to listen to the Russian Chancellor-because Russia exists. It is not a superpower but still is a great power.

What is my opinion about the difference between a superpower and a great power? That the former has the power to destroy the latter fifteen times over and the latter has the power to destroy the other three or four times, but one is enough, and hopefully that will never happen!

Russia is a great power. China is a great power in a different way, and in some ways a much greater power than Russia; but Russia is a great nuclear power. It has a nuclear military power that China does not. China does not yet have it and hopefully it will not need it.

What forces China to maintain a technical development in the military field is simply the aggressive policy against it, the interference in its internal affairs, the denial of its fundamental rights, and strategic concepts that amount to threats. At any time, NATO could intervene because it decides that China posed a global threat due to some internal problem-any kind of problem that might arise. It is inconceivable that they assume that right. That is why I say I hope they never have to become a great nuclear power!

But what do the others do? Invest increasingly in weapons, in the development of military technology. Recently, we read the declaration of one of the nominees to the presidency of the United States who promised to invest enormous sums in military research to improve conventional weapons, among other things. What is the purpose of all this improvement? Why all that technological development when the Cold War has been long dead? What is the justification for all this weaponry but the clear intention of dominating the world, not only through political and economic measures but also military ones, to maintain discipline in this chaotic world? I am not going to try to explain why, but we know very well all the details and the hundreds of arguments for why the world is chaotic. And those cannot be solved with nuclear or conventional weapons. It is their desperation that makes them take this course, to hold everything in their hands: military, political, and economic.

Even Europe was humiliated by its ridiculous role in the war against Yugoslavia since 100 percent of the bombs were made in the United States and 90 percent of the operations were made by U.S. aviation and missiles. Europe felt so humiliated that the ambition to have its own European forces has taken wing because of the crushing superiority created by its ally. What a difficult ally Europe has and what a dangerous one in every way.

I already told you how pleased I was to listen to the Russian Chancellor-I didn't say Soviet, right? I said Russian because sometimes we make mistakes out of an old habit. Now it is not Soviet, it is not a socialist country. Today The International would not be sung in an event to commemorate something related to Russia. But Russia is a country threatened by NATO, which is moving towards its borders. Russia is a threatened country that U.S. imperialism wants to see weakened and even torn apart, to take over its enormous natural resources. The great capital of the United States is not satisfied with the investments it has made in all parts of the defunct U.S.S.R, above all in the area of the Caspian Sea where there are said to be enormous oil and gas reserves, and in other republics in the region. They are not satisfied with their ambitious program of taking over and controlling all that wealth. They also want to take over and control all the wealth of Russia, apply conditions, even upbraiding it a few days ago when they scolded the country in a meeting of the G-7 regarding the financial scandal.

That is not a socialist nation. It has common interests, many common interests with other countries. It has them with Europe, and Europe is neither calm nor happy. Above all, Europe does not like adventures imposed from the other side of the ocean, like the Yugoslav adventure and any others the United States might think up.

Since that last experience of the genocidal war, more proclamations are made of the new strategic-military doctrines and enthusiastic political theories intended to ravage the United Nations Charter and establish the rights of the powerful to intervene in any part of the world. The world feels threatened and we know that well.

It's very good, we have read, that relations between Russia and China are improving. That's very good. We have read that they have adopted similar positions concerning the barbarous war against Yugoslavia. That's good. We know that they have taken common positions against the alleged right to dismantle whatever it wants to, like they dismantled Yugoslavia and succeeded in dismantling the U.S.S.R.

All these are issues that worry many nations in the world.

And in Europe there wasn't only the disintegration of the U.S.S.R but U.S. capital, which as I said, is taking over the economies of the old socialist countries. They want to take over everything there. Ah, but we are living in new times, a new century that will begin in something over a year-because 2000 is the last year of this century, lets not forget this-there are great challenges and tasks for the nations of the Third World, for countries like China, for countries like Russia.

We know that Russia tries to develop relations not only with Europe but also with the Third World. And we heard from the Russian Chancellor words similar to those said today by the Chinese Ambassador referring to the principles that I mentioned previously, intending to sweep away the rights of the peoples who form part of the United Nations and the principles that provided some measure of relative protection for their sovereignty independence. I say relative because we know that, in spite of these rights, the United States has intervened in a group of countries during these last decades without anyone's permission-we know that-but always clashing with international law and now they want to do as they please without troubling with any international law or any established principles.

A hard battle must be waged in the United Nations, like the one our delegation waged. There is much to do battle about and there are many common interests among some of the nations that are members of the Security Council and the rest of the world.

For various reasons, the world is becoming aware of these problems and it is visible. There is sufficient strength to resist, to move forward, more so backed by the laws of history and the reality of a system and world economic order that is unsustainable; that is collapsing and that is capable of collapsing by itself, although this collapse must be helped along. And more than aiding in the collapse, the world must be made aware of these realities so that the peoples can resist this order with more strength and contribute to its progressive disappearance. Although one is sure that the disappearance will not be very progressive, because when a catastrophic economic crisis occurs, like the one that almost occurred, and being greater, because the more the delay the stronger the crisis will be, the spirit of struggle of the peoples must be lifted, their will to resist. We must make them aware that they must prepare for new concepts, a new concept of the world, a new world economic order, truly fair, that must come about as the result of the struggle of the peoples.

The peoples must struggle not only to protect their economy and Rights, but also must struggle to defend their own survival. They wipe out the environment; they destroy it. Scarcely a year ago Mitch hit Central America with devastating damage and now we see images of colossal floods, a visible climactic change and that no one denies. Who does it hit first? The poor countries; the nations of the Third World.

That is why I thought it was necessary to express these thoughts because I feel they are very important questions, worthy to be taken into consideration on a day such as today. But, I also wanted to say that, during these difficult years, when we suddenly lost our markets, we had the Chinese market. When it was difficult to acquire some supplies, we acquired some of them in the Chinese People's Republic. Our ships come and go, they take and bring products. They have a very developed pharmaceutical industry, many raw materials for our drug industry, many raw materials for our pharmaceutical industry; some that are very difficult to acquire we find in China and at good prices. They have cooperated with our country. They have developed exchanges and economic relations with Cuba. They have also developed political relations with Cuba during the special period. Most of its leaders have visited our country.

We had the honor of receiving President Jiang Zemin and, in our fist contact, we were not wrong in appraising his intelligence, his political and human conditions, his capacity as a responsible leader and statesman with solid principles.

We also see in China, because we read the news cables every day, the other country where western propaganda is furious. A day doesn't pass where international cables do not appear about internal questions and affairs in China. If China arrests someone for breaking the law, the outcry follows immediately. If China forbids a small splinter group because they are endangering the stability and union of the country or because of a policy that is treasonable to the interests of this great people, the outcry follows. Today the propaganda concentrates mostly against Cuba, but there is also strong propaganda against China, a diversionist propaganda using all the mass media possible creating new stations transmitting western ideas, western consumer habits or U.S. madness to the 1.25 billion Chinese people-against a country with which it is waging, as much as possible, an ideological battle.

That is why, today, aware of our forces, the potential forces of the world, the potential allies of the Third World, the possibility of our peoples, thinking about this, listening to the words of the Ambassador, I felt a deep satisfaction and was very pleased to attend this event although I had not thought of speaking. I've extended myself a little more than what I had promised-and to listen to the Ambassador here speak the phrase that received so much applause and in Spanish because he spoke with precision in Spanish. He knows Cuba. He lived and worked in Cuba several years ago. That is why he speaks Spanish so clearly, like any one of us, when he said: "Socialismo o muerte" and when he added "Venceremos" he said something that we are absolutely convinced about.

Also, that is why I was so deeply moved to hear The International in this event endorsed by what was said here, expressed with exact data that was outlined here to demonstrate that only socialism can solve the problems of the world. Only socialism can feed 1.25 billion Chinese, give them a home, a television for each Chinese family, and many other household articles, and especially the essential resources for life. That is to say, that country feeds approximately 22 percent of the world's population with 7 percent of the world's agricultural lands.

Another great example: The country went through periods of starvation under the domination of the feudal lords and capitalism, always allied with colonial and dominating powers when the population was only 400 million or 500 million. Today the population has tripled and hunger has been eradicated forever. And here the Ambassador explained that they have been capable of producing 40 percent of the eggs produced in the world, 490 million tons of cereals, and other similar statistics.

And we could say that China is just beginning, that 7.8 percent growth was by brute force. How could they manage that if the rhythm of exports fell considerably? Ah! Because of the resources they have been accumulating. High reserves of convertible currencies allowed them not only to make the contribution I spoke of about the yuan but of maintaining a rhythm of growth that, if it was not going to depend so much on exports, would depend on the increase of internal consumption and maintain the rhythm of development for employment, because in all these tasks of restructuring, logically there is an important need to create jobs. They must also confront the movement from the countryside to the city as the former increases productivity and produces a surplus of hand labor.

They were able to maintain the yuan. It would have been easier to devaluate the yuan but they did not do it. Instead, they maintained their reserves, managed their economy with wisdom and managed a 7.8 percent growth under these conditions. They not only endured the Southeastern Asian crisis in those countries where the owners of capital took their money, where the owners of world finances plundered the last dollar of their reserves creating the ideal conditions for the large U.S. transnationals to acquire companies and factories in any of those countries at a low cost. They not only endured the crisis and without devaluating the yuan but also performed an incredible service to the world. And in spite of that, they grew by 7.8 percent. They are able to continue the battle, in spite of the difficulties that oppress the world today.

All that has been said today of this story is the fruit of something that is called socialism. It is the fruit of a doctrine that arose to shake the world, a Marxist doctrine, of scientific socialism, a revolution of the poor, by the poor, and for the poor, that has, also made possible this incredible heroic exploit of resisting 40 years of blockade and almost 10 years of special period.

That is why I repeat the slogan with which the Ambassador ended his speech:

¡Socialismo o Muerte!

¡Venceremos!

[[Category:Library works by Fidel Castro]]

Library:Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism

2023-10-02T23:35:43Z

TDM:

{{Library work|title=Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism (or "I Shall Be a Marxist-Leninist to the End of My Life")|author=Fidel Castro|published_date=1961|source=http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-12-02-1961.html}}

Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism
December 2, 1961.

FOREWORD

No statement by a world leader has ever been so willfully distorted as Fidel Castro's historic speech of December 2nd, 1961. Made in a Havana television studio during the early hours of the morning and broadcast live over television and radio, the speech is a lengthy and complex analysis of the development of the Cuban Revolution, so frank .that it bars comparison. It was not a formal diplomatic utterance of a statesman, but an incredibly sincere and searching account by a tested revolutionary leader of the evolution of his own political thinking. Officially, the speech opened a series of talks to the Cuban people by revolutionary leaders on the organization of the new United Party of the Socialist Revolution. And Fidel takes great pains to outline the political and ideological reasons behind the formation of this new integrated revolutionary party.

The speech was monitored in the Miami bureau of United Press International by a Cuban exile, and at 3:36 a.m., UPI transmitted this dispatch:'

"MIAMI, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Cuban Premier Fidel Castro said today he really has been a dedicated Communist since his college days but he concealed his views so it would be easier to seize power."

The Associated Press sent the following', more truthful version from its Havana bureau:

"HAVANA, Dec. 2 (AP) -- Declaring he is a Marxist-Leninist opposed to the personality cult, Fidel Castro said today 'the world is on the road toward communism' and he is taking Cuba down that path... Castro said that as a student at Havana University he was not a Marxist because he was 'influenced by imperialist and reactionary propaganda against the Communists. "

But, as James Wechsler has pointed out in the New York Post of December 14th, the U.S. mass media almost unanimously used the UPI version. Anti-Castro columns and editorials mushroomed across the country. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who should have known better because a hastily prepared U.S. Government translation of the entire speech was available, gleefully declared that Castro had branded himself a Communist, making the task of the U.S. easier at the forthcoming Punta del Este conference. In other words, Rusk hoped to use the speech as part of U.S. propaganda against the Cuban Revolution. As Wechsler commented: "The hard fact is that much of the country has been duped by a misleading report which reflected a sad lack of sophistication in dealing with the intricacies of Communist world politics."

The following translation is offered by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to the American public, in keeping with FPPC's policy of presenting factual and first-hand information about Cuba and the Cuban Revolution.

Why is the United Party of the Socialist Revolution a necessity?
I would certainly have liked a little more time to make a serious study of this topic, since the subject of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution is a matter of extraordinary importance to the Revolution. I, therefore, told some of my comrades that I was going to give a sort of provisional talk now, since I expect to return to this question in the future when I have more time to develop it thoroughly.

I am, therefore, simply going to express at this time a series of fundamental ideas with which the United Party of the Revolution is concerned.

In the first place, what is the United Party of the Revolution and why is it being organized? Of course, on previous occasions, in different public ceremonies, we have already referred to thlo4ues.- tion and have expressed certain ideas about it.

The United Party of tile Revolution was, in the first place, a necessity. Why was it a necessity? To begin with, you cannot make a revolution, and above all, you cannot carry a revolution forward without a strong and disciplined organization.

This necessity is becoming more and more evident as the revolutionary process advances and deepens and faces even more difficult tasks.

It has always been said, and rightly so, that it is easier to win power than to hold it; it is easier to win power than to govern.

And that is a great truth. The tasks a revolutionary movement faces in the struggle for power become enormous and multiply the minute that revolutionary movement seizes power. It has also been said in various books, (and we are really reviewing all of the boors we have read and studied, seeing that we all studied in places where we often had to learn a lot of foolishness, things of no great importance); it has been said that the harder it is to win power, that is, consolidate it, the easier it is to keep it; that the easier it is to win power, the harder it is to hold on to it.

The only truth there can be in that assertion is basically the following: that it is in the struggle for power that the cadres who will later govern the country are trained. The longer and more protracted the struggle, the greater the number of men it trains capable of later discharging other duties.

To recall briefly the experience, our experience, an experience that was relatively short when compared with much longer struggles which other countries had to wage, armed struggles, as for example in China where the guerillas fought for more than 20 years before they seized power. Of course, the struggle for power does not begin only at the moment of armed conflict.

I remember when we gave the word to strike, prematurely, when the revolutionary movement made what you could call an error in evaluating the objective conditions, already trying to seize power in April, 1958.

At that time, we still had very few men. If I am not mistaken, the total of our guerilla forces numbered about 180 combatants. When we decided to open the Second Front, we did it with 50 men; we opened the front around Santiago de Cuba with 35 men; and this left other forces that numbered no more than 130 men, all told, perhaps less; there were fewer than 100 men left in the Sierra Maestra at the time.

Resisting with Limited Resources
Well, if, at that time, we had succeeded in overthrowing the tyranny from the military point of view, our military leaders would not have been able to get the experience they got later. Up to that time, our guerilla forces had never launched a serious frontal attack from prepared positions against the enemy forces. It had been, indeed, a guerilla war.

However, it was during the last stage of the struggle, right after the failure of that attempt to seize power, when the guerilla forces faced the most complex and crucial military problems. Once, we had to defend some national territory that we could not abandon because we had set up workshops, the Rebel Radio Station, and a whole lot of fighting equipment there which we would lose if the enemy took over.

We had to make a stand there with the limited resources at our disposal.

Among other things, we had to regroup all our forces, excepting those at the Second Front in Oriente, to resist the enemy offensive and we8

However, that new situation brought about a serious battle in defense of that territory, which was getting smaller and smaller, to the point where we could not, allow it to get any smaller. We fought some important battles. Once, the enemy surrounded us and we surrounded them, in turn. An enemy battalion surrounded us and other enemy forces surrounded our other forces. But we had our first successes here in that sector, we became stronger and were able to counterattack. But one thing is certain: A complex battle developed and we acquired a lot of experience from it. And the experience,'and arms, and men strengthened by that struggle made it possible for us to start more important operations, for example, the invasion of Las Villas.

The Fight Against the Army

It goes without saying that without the men forged by those 71 days of fighting, it would have been difficult to undertake the invasion of Las Villas from Oriente.

The more we analyse the conditions under which we began that operation, the number of men who carried it out, facing an enemy militarily much stronger, the more extraordinary a feat it seems. crossing all Camaguey from Oriente without cover, without anything in our favor, and arriving in Las Villas was a truly :great feat.

One often wonders how this was possible. The answer is simply that the men who made the crossing were comrades who already had an extraordinary confidence in themselves, had developed a great composure, a great skill and were men who were fully tested. These are the things that made it possible to undertake that operation, and those operations in the lowlands that at first seemed incredible.

In other words, the continuation of the struggle kept developing a set of human values, and the ability to carry out more and more difficult tasks, and we kept on acquiring more experience.

So that by the war not ending in April but at the end of the year, the Revolution, at the moment of triumph, could count on a large group of comrades tested in battle and quite experienced.

Can anyone deny that all the experience acquired in those months has become of the greatest importance to the Revolution now? If we have a large number of comrades competent in defending the Revolution against imperialist attacks; if the Armed Forces of the Revolution can face up to the enemy planes, to oppose his aggression, then that is due, in great part, to the fact that the prolongation of the struggle developed a group of leaders. Of course, not in what they

understood when the war ended; but still they at least were tested men, known men, who in time, after the triumph of the conquest of power were able to develop even more.

And so, we have many comrades who took part in all those military actions who today have been trained in our military academies and who have devoted themselves fervently to study. Of course, all this involved a little work. The guerilla war from which most of our leaders sprang up -- although at a given moment it was no longer a guerilla war, but a war of major proportions, of maneuvers, and of positions -- made those who came out of it feel a certain scorn for military academies, a certain disdain for military theories and military manuals. That is an attitude we must overcome, though it will be hard at first. But this training has already brought about a change in the thinking of our war companions, a change in their attitude. And in fact today there is not a single revolutionary leader who is not interested in attending the academies.

Well, then, our military schools are training comrades of high rank, and it is not rare to find a major going to a school for sergeants and taking a course for privates, for one of the things we are doing is to see that, they learn about the problems of the people whom they are going to lead. And they are doing so with extraordinary enthusiasm.

But the continuation of the struggle resulted in all those men ending up the war with much, and enough experience of a military nature, experience that was to develop still further in the months ahead.

This is an example from the military field which is exactly the same as other fields, when it comes to organization, when it comes to the solution of administrative and political problems. During the struggle, of course, we didn't have vast areas to administer. In China, for example, they had a lot of problems, indeed, to resolve, even before they seized power. There were certain problems that we discussed after seizing power, such as the problems relating to art, which the revolutionary movement in China discussed before they seized power.

The Political Struggle Developed Revolutionary Values
It can't be said that there weren't experienced men among us. No one can deny that the political struggle in our country has developed a series of values in the public life of our country, revolutionary values and well-trained men. In the end, however, the Revolution came to power. Under what conditions does a revolution come to power? Does it come with an organized and disciplined movement perfectly prepared for the c' 'pies of government? No. Do all of the revolutionary forces organic, embodied in that revolutionary movement come to power? No.

There is only one revolutionary movement, not two or three or four revolutionary movements. There is really one revolutionary movement and, in the long run, revolution or counter-revolution. A revolutionary movement can be more or less limited; with a revolution, it is possible to reach the objectives the revolution has set (and it cannot be denied that they may be revolutionary as far as they go) and from that moment, either the revolution ceases to be truly revolutionary or it goes forward. In other words, one movement can be more or less radical, which cannot be the case with two, three or four revolutionary movements. That's absurd. Furthermore, those other movements are really counter-revolutionary.

The Various Revolutionary Forces

The truth is that a revolution does not come to power with an organization that embodies all of the revolutionary forces. There were different revolutionary organizations, and these different revolutionary organizations represented different revolutionary forces. In the common goal that united all revolutionary and nonrevolutionary organizations -- because there were forces against Batista's tyranny which you could not call revolutionary -- there were politicians who were simply against Batista because he had kept them out of his government; there were politicians of the ruling classes, those very ruling classes that Batista's government represented, who were really angling for a change of power. The politicians ousted from power, for example, on March 10th, that whole political group headed by the celebrated Sr. Carlos Prio Socar•as, was a group that in the long run represented the same interests as Batista. They, as agents of imperialism dressed in mufti, and Batista, as an agent of imperialism with a milit ary apparatus, an apparatus of force and oppression.

All those people...What did those people intend to do when they got into the government? Did they intend to do anything different from what they did? Let us imagine for just a second that the group of Prio, Tony Varona and their ilk had come to power. Of course, that was-vi•tually impossible. Here you had Prio, Tony Varona and that whole crowd after maybe ten or twelve years in exile alone and they've entered into an election, in a deal with Batista, content just to serve as senators or mayors or provincial governors. That's the way everything ended up. But let us imagine hypothetically that those people had regained power, were once again ruling our country.

What would they have done? What would they have done that was different from what they did in the years when they were in power? They were definitely going to do exactly the same thing, that is, serve the interests of imperialism and serve the interests of the upper middle classes here, insofar as those interests did not conflict with the interests of imperialism, because the interests of imperialism -- that is, the foreign monopolies -- had a privileged position here in our country, even at the expense of the native middle classes.

They Were Going to Squeeze You Dry
Those people in power would have simply limited themselves to doing the same as they had done. They would not have passed a single revolutionary law; they would not even have reduced rents, as the Revolution did, let alone instituted an Agrarian Reform or Educational Reform, or reform of any kind. Everybody knows what those people would have done. What would they have done? Don't you know? I am talking to the people. What would they have done, had they attained power? Listen to me, Lionel, it seems that this subject was not explained to your students at the School of Revolutionary Instruction. Man, everybody knows that!

What they did was to rob; what the government and that whole crowd would simply have done was to rob. That is, they were going to squeeze you dry for their services to the ruling economic interests. They would have maintained a professional army, instruments of repression; they would have maintained all the organs of persecution; they would have maintained the existing social system -- that's all. In other words, there was a group representing the dominant economic interests and imperialists which was against Batista simply because they wanted to be the ones in the government; they did not at all like having Batista and Batista's clique instead of them doing the robbing. Of course, they would be against Batista.

What did they do against Batista? Not a thing, absolutely nothing! They devoted themselves to the purchase of arms, to bringing arms here. Often they were successful in bringing them into the country, although they never had the least success in using them; they never even used them.

Everyone remembers the great supply of arms which they smuggled. into the country and which the police seized. At the time when we were beginning to set up a revolutionary movement, to train some young people; at a time when we were expecting to see those bigwigs of public life, men with money and property, do something effective against the Batista dictatorship. They had arms, they had money, they had everything; in fact, all they lacked was the will to fight. They were merely playing at revolution. It is true that they brought arms into the country, were looking for people, instructed them in the use of the arms. There were a number of cliques. They acted exactly as they did in the ward politics. Some of them had one or two machine guns hidden and they were looking for people in the wards to fight Batista. How did they win them over? They taught them how to use a machine gun. But, it was the same old, classical politics carried over into the insurrection. Well, these characters were politicking with machine guns; for, indeed, they were all of them thinking of when Batista would fall, one way or the other, and they would bring back the same old thing.

Playing Politics with Arms

We, for our part, went about recruiting young people, picking from the youthful elements we moved around in those who were more serious, more willing, more involved and had a more sincere revolutionary inclination. And what sometimes happened? Where we had organized a cell, they would come -- the genuine articles, Autenticos, the Prio, the Aureliano crowd, all of them, with a machine gun.

In the first place, we didn't have machine guns; and in the second place, even if we had had them, we would not have been able to teach anyone to use them. You cannot imagine what these people did. For example, they had a room full of arms and when they wanted to win over someone, they would tell him: "How can you join that bunch if they have no arms, haven't got a thing?" And they would take him to the house where there were thirty M-1's, forty machine guns. I remember that some people left us that way.

There were a lot of people, serious and willing to fight who, in despair of fighting Batista, in view of his abuses, crimes and villainies, joined the organization which taught them how to use machine guns. There were a lot of people like that who were ready to fight, and proved it later on. But the greatest majority, the leadership of that whole movement, was a group of people who did nothing but play politics with arms.

This was a stage we passed through. They took some people away from us. We trained them, spoke to them, explained to them what a revolution was, what we proposed to do, but the months passed and as there was no....they became discouraged and joined any group which offered them arms. It was a most interesting experience. Some day when we are discussing the insurrection, I'll have a lot to say about the experiences in those days when we were organizing....

Our attitude at first was one of willingness to collaborate with any movement prepared to fight for the downfall of Batista, for this Was essential to us. We spent months, too, waiting for all those people.

Fooling the People

Don't forget that there were a number of political leaders who had prestige among the people, with wealth; some had wealth, but no prestige; others had prestige, but no wealth. During one stage, we were simply taking stock of what was happening, ready to collaborate with any movement; above all, when you consider that the university had become a focus of rebellion. We thought that we could organize the movement around the university forces.

When We Decided to Start Organizing a Revolutionary Movement

We did not decide to organize a revolutionary movement until we became convinced that the people were really being deceived and that it was all madness, all that madness; people were desperate and were joining just any organization. There were twenty organizations at that "Montreal meeting"; there came a whole series of....I do not even wish to recall all that, but many of those important bigwigs -the Pardo Lladas and that whole crowd -- were terribly divided. We decided then to start organizing a revolutionary movement with ideas that we would eventually carry out. We were convinced that absolutely nothing was going to come out of all that, about which part of the people had conceived certain illusions; and we were convinced, moreover, that the tactics were wrong.

The whole plan of organizing an army and taking barracks and overthrowing Batista in twenty-four hours seemed absurd to us and we fully realized that civilians -- because in our country there was no background nor tradition of military instruction -- those men called upon to fight in the streets against a professional army with discipline and technical training that had at its disposal tanks, aircraft, fighter planes, weapons of all types and, moreover, organization and experience; experience....I do not mean military experience, but experience in killing people in the streets and splitting up groups and breaking up demonstrations and all that -- we realized that in those circumstances an organization of civilians, armed but without training, could be completely defeated in a putsch-type movement like the one we were planning.

It was not a type of insurrection that is accompanied by a condition indispensable for overthrowing a government, such as a strong and powerful mass movement, that is, a general strike. Neither the objective nor subjective conditions existed for organizing a general strike and it was simply a completely adventurous type of operation. We became convinced that it was all absurd and that was when we conceived the idea of launching another type of struggle, like the one we finally carried out, seizing an army barracks.

I remember that I always had a plan. I do not know whether I managed to convince many people, but when they told me that they had brought in 50 Garand M-1's in a ship, I said to them: "But there are places where you can get more than 50 M-1's; there are places where there are a thousand rifles, greased and well cared for. You don't have to buy them, you don't have to grease them, you don't have to bring them in, you don't have to do anything; all you have to do is take them." I always really believed that there are far more weapons in a barracks than you can import in tons of oil and grease and so on.

I do not know whether I convinced them of that. In the end, we set about getting the first weapons in order to see how we could get the second weapons and how we could launch the revolutionary struggle with the second weapons.

What we always had in mind was, first, to attempt an uprising in one region and try to keep it going and, if that failed, then to go into the mountains with all those weapons and begin a struggle in the mountains.

It seemed to us that revolutionary conditions had to be created by fighting. We were smart enough to realize that we could wage that type of struggle and, under existing conditions, carry it forward to success. From that point of view, we made only one mistake. Do you know what it was? We believed that to begin that type of struggle, we needed more resources than was actually the case. Reality later taught us the following: that while we thought we needed several hundred armed men, (and we were unable to gather those forces and

had to start with fewer than one hundred men) experience later demonstrated that it was possible to begin the struggle with far fewer than one hundred -- with ten or twelve men. Had we known that, possibly we would not have planned to take Moncada Barracks. We would have planned to take Bayamo Barracks, close as it was to the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. And with the forces we used to attack Moncada Barracks, we would have been able to take Bayamo Barracks and would have certainly succeeded in taking it. And we wouldn't have had to work as hard as we did to get weapons for 82 men; so much fuss was not needed and the fuss was created in order to get money; no one believes that the fuss was....The fuss had two objectives: agitation regarding the revolutionary struggle. No, it had three objectives: one, to paralyze the politicking elements that were making a tremendous effort to bring the country into a truce and an electoral solution, that is, a nonrevolutionary solution; second, to uplift the revolutionary spirit of the people; and third, to gather the minimum resources necessary for us to carry on the revolutionary movement.

We were correct in opposing the elections of those days as a political sell-out, and in .doing everything to encourage the revolutionary mood of the people. But the fact was that to start some action, we needed a great deal less than we had imagined.

Now, why did we follow those tactics? Can anyone imagine that you can win revolutionary power with a handful of men? We never imagined such a thing. Our entire revolutionary strategy was geared to our revolutionary understanding. We knew that you can win power only with the support of the people, by mobilizing the masses. We never thought we could win power with ten, twelve or a hundred men. We intended to lay the groundwork for revolutionary struggle through a guerilla action and to develop the struggle until it becomes a mass struggle, and to win power simply with the backing of the masses, as we eventually did. There is no question that the conquest of revolutionary power was due fundamentally to the support of the masses.

Our People Were Eager For a Revolutionary Change

We simply thought out how to take advantage of existing objective conditions, the objective conditions existing in our country and, above all, the system of exploitation prevailing in our country. The situation of the peasants. It wouldn't have occurred to anyone, at least not to me -- although there are counterrevolutionaries who think that way, who try to bring off a revolution the way we did. But it would never have occurred to us to start a revolutionary struggle in a country where there are no owners of vast estates; a revolutionary struggle with guerillas in the countryside where there are no estate owners, where the peasants are owners of the land, where there are cooperatives and people's farms, where there is full employment for the entire population. That would not have occurred to us.

Everyone in our country was aware of conditions in the rural areas. Peasants who were not squatters were tenants. Squatters on public lands were the victims of constant evictions and abuse. Cane workers toiled three of four months during the harvest, and two or three months during "the dead season."

Unemployment in the countryside was high. The rural population had migrated to the city where in turn there was already much unemployment. Those who were not squatters were tenants. A tenant on the coffee plantation had to pay one-third or one-quarter of his crops. The tobacco tenant farmer or sharecropper also had to pay 25 or 30 per cent of his crop. The cane planter had to pay a lower percentage, but still it was high, considering the value of raw cane. He had to pay at least 5 per cent of the value of the raw cane. As for prices, the peasants were victims of all kinds of levies and speculating. Their crops were bought cheap and speculators took advantage of their condition to exploit them miserably. In the countryside, commodities were very dear; the peasants had to sell their produce cheap. That was the situation in the countryside. The coffee planters were in the mountains. Who picked the coffee? Well, tens of thousands of men and women from the cane fields, from the sugar plantations, who had no work during "the dead season" went into the mountains to pick coffee. Coffee was grown in the mountains, because the peasants, evicted by the sugar and cattle barons, had taken refuge in the mountains and planted coffee there. It is not because coffee grows exclusively in the mountains, but because that was the only place where they could go to survive.

When we reached the Sierra Maestra, however, it was evident that we had not organized certain aspects of the struggle we were undertaking. For example, we hadn't even made a geographical survey of the Sierra Maestra. We hadn't even set up a preliminary organization in the Sierra Maestra; in short, we could not have started the struggle under worse conditions. It may be good to point up these things so that they can serve as examples to other exploited peoples. We have to say that we did not know a single peasant in the Sierra Maestra and, furthermore, the only ideas we had of the Sierra Maestra were those we had acquired in geography books, and I am sure that if you were to ask anyone here what they learned in their geography books about the Sierra Maestra, they would not know the name of a single river in the Sierra Maestra. They might know that the sources of the Cauto is there, in the Sierra Maestra, and the Contramaestre and the Yara. And what we knew of the Yara was the song about the Rio Yara -- that's all.

In other words, conditions were very difficult, but it's true that where the objective conditions are favorable, the Revolution can develop, that it's only on the basis of objective conditions that you can, at a given historical moment, make a revolution. This was fully demonstrated, because the other circumstances, the subjective ones, did not exist. We began that struggle on the basis of certain premises, correct premises, the premise of an exploitative social system in our country and the conviction that our people wanted a revolutionary change. Though they may not have been very aware of it, nevertheless, that's what they wanted. It showed in their general discontent, in the fact that a rebel band immediately found support among wide sectors of the public, in the rebellious spirit of the people and in the degree of political maturity of our people; in spite of all the confusion sown, in spite of all of the propaganda and of all of the lies of imperialism and reaction.

We started with that assumption. That assumption was correct and since it was correct, the hopes and possibilities we had envisaged were fulfilled. So, this teaches the first lesson: that there can be no revolution, in the first place, unless there are objective circumstances at a given historical moment to facilitate and make the revolution. In other words, a revolution cannot be created out of the minds of men. We can give one very clear and evident example. Let us suppose that Marti had been born not in the middle of the past century, the 19th century, but had been born in the middle of the 18th century. With all his extraordinary intelligence, Marti would not have played the role he actually played in the era when he lived and carried on his revolutionary action, under really objective conditions, to start a struggle, a struggle that could not have been launched one century earlier.

Lenin. Let us suppose that Lenin had been born at the end of the 18th century. Well, he could not have developed the theories he developed as leader of the Russian proletariat, as interpreter of Marxism, since if Marx, in turn, had been born in the 18th century, in the middle of the 18th century, he would possibly have done only what Voltaire, Diderot and all those intellectuals did. One could not have been the intellectual of a class that did not exist; the other, creator of the doctrine of a revolution that could not be realized.

In other words, revolutions do not spring from the minds of men. People can interpret an historical law, a certain moment of historical development. To make a correct interpretation is to propel the revolutionary movement. In Cuba, our role has been that of propellers of that movement, through evaluating a series of objective conditions. Of course, the analysis is not as simple as this, inasmuch as there was another series of circumstances that favored the revolutionary movement we started -- certain circumstances which, in the first place, were not taken into account. In the second place, many people thought we were romantics, that we were going to die right there. In the third place, many thought we were ambitious. In the fourth place, many thought that the group of revolutionary leaders was a group of leaders of conservative or non-radical ideas. There is no doubt that had we, when we were getting strength, been known as people with very radical ideas, the social class which is fighting us today would have fought us right then and not only since we took power.

There was a series of circumstances which favored the role of we who initiated, on an objective basis, the guerilla movement in the mountains.

And what did we find in the Sierra Maestra? Well, we met with the first peasants who wanted to join us, peasants who were in a bad way; first, we had met setbacks and were scattered. Some peasants helped to bring the remnants of our forces together. This group of peasants, a very small group, helped us to go deeper into the Sierra Maestra. Some peasants began to join our ranks.

Terror of the Army

But to the majority of peasants what were the hard facts at that time? First of all, there was great fear of the Army. This was the important fact. In the second place, it was difficult for them to realize how such a small group of starving people, ragged, with only a few arms, could destroy all those forces moving about in trucks, trains, airplanes -- with so many resources. That is why at first we were, indeed, in a very precarious and difficult position. Indeed, many times we had to move around without the people seeing us. Why? Because in a village or group of 100 persons, there was always a Batista supporter, a grafter, a political sergeant, a something. Well, although he did not see us, he was able to find out where we were from rumors that an armed group had passed through. And he would then go and inform the army.

Nevertheless, we succeeded fairly well in passing through unnoticed until we reached one area, the area of La Plata. And what did we find there? The Army had taken advantage of the existence of our expedition, which it had already assumed to be entirely liquidated, to carry out a series of evictions and terrible abuses.

At the time, there was a certain amount of resistance among the farmers there to a company -- La Viti, who owned an estate and the Media Luna sugar mill -- I believe it is one of the sugar mills with thousands of acres of land in the area of Niquero. They owned large tracts of land in that area. They even owned Pico Turquino Mountain!

There was a private road going through there. You know that the history of peasants' evictions had always been intimately connected with the problems of roads. A private road is a boundary which the company sets, saying: "To enter, you must go this way; no one can get in." There was one of these roads there and the peasants had been fighting against them. There was a peasants' movement there, very embryonic, it is true. They received us well. Well, then, in those days we planned our first operation. All right, I wish to establish the following: that the day on which we took the first district, that of La Plata on January 17, we-launched a surprise attack at dawn on a mixed patrol of soldiers and marines consisting of twelve men -- we were about sixteen. We took them by surprise and overcame them. We took all their arms. Our forces came out of the operation that day with twenty-nine men. Then we turned inland towards the Palma Mocha River to the east, on the coast, facing Pico Turquino.

They Wanted to Evict the Peasants

When we arrived in the morning, a large caravan of peasants were coming down the hillside. These peasants who were about ten kilometers from the scene of action had heard nothing about what had happened. We asked them what had happened to them, but we already knew, for we had captured a harbor pilot who was part of the patrol before we attacked their post and we questioned him thoroughly and found out that a certain Corporal Baso had been around Palma Mocha River telling the peasants to leave the area, that it was going to be bombarded the following day. The patrol was staying at the house of the Viti Company's foreman. They had taken advantage of the presence of our expedition which they had already said was liquidated. No one knew we were there. However, they took advantage of this circumstance to evict the peasants. No airplane had bombed or was going to bomb. It was absurd to think of bombing these hillocks. Nevertheless, this corporal had told all the peasants living along the Palma Mocha River and on the slopes of Pico Turquino that they were going to bomb the next day, so that the peasants would abandon their houses. Then the patrol went around burning all the houses and simply evicting the peasants.

Just imagine, when we were going up along the Palma Mocha River early that morning, we saw a stream of peasants, some with seven children, ten children, four children, coming down and when we met up with them and asked them, "Why are you coming down?" they replied, "Because they are going to bomb." And I told them: "That's a lie. How can you believe that? No one knew yesterday that we were around here, no one knew that we were going to attack that post which we did early in the morning. They have done this to make you all abandon the area. Go on back." And the peasants, just imagine, when they saw us there in the flesh, after having attacked a post, thought it the more true that the place was going to be bombed. Very few went back. For -- just think of it -- a marine corporal had been there the day before, saying to them: "Clear out, they are going to bomb here." And the following day, early in the morning, while they are going down, they meet up with a patrol of revolutionaries who had just captured a post and was going to set up camp right there. What doubt could these peasants have had that they were really going to bomb the place? There was no bombing because it was absurd to bomb woods many square kilometers in area with no idea of where the devil a patrol might be. But we saw no bombing. So they had taken advantage of our expedition to force them off the land.

A Heroic Worker

There, when we crossed over into the area of San Lorenzo, what did we find? The peasants there were scared, too. It was reported that some people from Maffo with money, who owned a coffee warehouse, were going to evict them because they had title to all the land around. Wherever we went, we found peasants who were faced with lawsuits. All the peasants were faced with the problem of eviction. Even those who were not being evicted lived in fear of being evicted.

Naturally, we began to do some political work among the peasants, explaining to them the aims of the Revolution. But the problem of the peasants was not only that the landowners wanted to deprive them of their lands and were actually taking their land away, and in a number of cases, had already done so, but that in addition, it took a thousand labors to cultivate the land on the slopes of these hills. There were places in the mountains that even goats could hardly climb. Still, the peasants had cultivated the slopes with sweet potatoes and coffee.

Here, we thought, was the truly heroic type of worker. And how did he work? He worked in the lowlands for a fortnight, saved up fifteen or twenty pesos, bought a little salt, a little lard, and would go back into the hills. And for years while he went on like this, harvesting a few coffee beans; nobody helped him. But not only that. When this peasant cleared a patch of hill, a couple of rural police would show up and if it wasn't the rural police, it was a man sent by the chief of the nearest post to collect a fee for the clearing.

The unfortunate guajiro would come down into the lowlands to work for a fortnight under extreme hardships for a peso because they paid him a peso in the valley to keep a tiny coffee plantation going, and a corporal of the rural police or a sergeant from a distant post had some character in charge of collecting money every time there was a clearing. This made the peasants extremely annoyed.

These peasants had another problem: when they sold their coffee, they were paid thirteen pesos, fourteen pesos for it. They lent them money and charged them high interest. BANFAIC was already in operation, of course, but to whom did the BANFAIC lend money? They lent money to the peasant who already had a crop, to the person who already held cash, who was almost a capitalist, or to the one who with a lot of hard labor had been able to plant half a caballeria and was harvesting 100 quintals. They were willing to finance the man who collected 100 quintals, but those who didn't have a single quintal to harvest, in other words, the vast majority of the campesinos in the Sierra, would get no money because they didn't have title to the land. The BANFAIC demanded title to land. They also demanded that the peasant must already have a crop, that he harvest beans. If he didn't,. no loan. This was the situation of the peasants.

Besides, whenever a rural guard came, he was sure to carry off at least a fine rooster, if not a little pig and things of that sort.

Misery and Illiteracy

The merchandise they sold to the peasants was sold at an extremely high price. There was not one school there; not one teacher. If these peasants had realized much sooner what they could have done, it is possible that with only half a dozen rifles they could at least have made themselves independent in the mountains! For the conditions were very favorable. It was a better fate for the peasant to grab a rifle and rise up than to be thrown off his land and endure the hardship and misery he suffered.

These were the conditions, the objective conditions, that we found in the Sierra Maestra. Everything else, organization of the military apparatus, organization of the political apparatus, was still to be done! These things we had already done in the valley. In the valley we formed the suitable organization, but it was very embryonic. It was very new and, therefore, it did not have the discipline of a revolutionary organization tempered by many years of battle.

It is beyond question that in the valley, many young people struggled, made sacrifices, staked their lives, and fought heroically. Of course, it was a heroic type of fight, but it was not able to get the results that we were beginning to-get in the mountains.

The arena of the struggle was the mountains. There began our task of organizing a guerilla movement, giving it experience, and at the same time, winning, conquering the masses of peasants for the Revolution. It was perfectly logical that in those objective conditions existing in the Sierra Maestra, the revolutionary work should develop until it could count on practically unanimous support of the peasants -- as it eventually did.

In other words, we were already counting on that social force although we had few weapons and a great many difficulties. The struggle continued to unfold; it developed throughout the land. Guerilla fighting became nationwide: first, in the Second Front of Las Villas; then, in the Second Front of Oriente. The tactics we were promoting had triumphed. In other words, events had demonstrated that, under certain conditions, that way was correct. We began to give up the putschist type of tactics, organizing forces to try to win the power in a frontal attack at great disadvantage against armed forces. The tactics we favored were wearing down the forces of the tyranny.

Needless to say, that's why we have tremendous faith in guerilla warfare. We believe in guerilla fighting under the conditions of our country, which are similar to the conditions in many Other Latin-American countries -- and don't think that this is the reason...(applause)...you didn't let me finish....We seriously believe we have the right to think so because we have gone through the experience.

The Revolutionary Movement is Invincible

Naturally, we know that when this conviction takes hold of other people equally oppressed by imperialism and the cliques in the pay of imperialism, by the military castes; equally exploited by the landowners, other people going through the same things as the Cuba of hungry peasants, exploited, landless, without schools, without doctors, without credit, without aid of any sort; when they become convinced as we were convinced -- and we are convinced, above all, by facts -- I am sure that no imperialist force, no reactionary one, no military caste, no NATO army will be able to withstand the revolutionary movement.

We simply believe that given Cuba's circumstances, we must be on guard against one tactical move. Our enemies tried to use the same tactics, but with only one difference: they think they can make a revolution in a country that has done with landlords, that has done with rent; where there is a teacher in every neighborhood, hospitals, doctors, credits, aid; where the day of the middleman is over, speculation is done with, harvests guaranteed. In other words, conditions that are the absolute opposite of the conditions in which we made our Revolution.

All of the Military Science of the Pentagon is Going to Clash with Reality

In other words, we made a revolution under given conditions and along come the counter-revolutionaries to try to fight under conditions that are the very reverse of the conditions we fought under. In short, whatever had to happen to them, happened. In the Sierra Maestra and those areas where they tried to form counter-revolutionary groups, they were always knocked out of action within forty-sight hours.

They copied one part, but did not copy the other. You can't copy the other. They copied the idea of guerrillas, but got them from among the enemy, among the reactionaries. Now, the Pentagon has followed suit, finally, but on the other side of the coin. We do not have to copy anything. We leave things as they are and see what happens. And we know that all the military science of the Pentagon is going to clash with reality; reality being the conditions under which the peoples of Latin America live.

The Spark That Kindles the Fire

There is only one way to combat the revolutionary guerrilla: with the disappearance of imperialism, its monopolies, and Its exploitation. That is why we don't worry when we hear that General Taylor or some other general who was in Korea or wherever is setting up an anti-guerrilla school in Panama or Argentina. It's a waste of time.

In short, they are afraid; they're showing that they are really afraid. But they imagine they cap escape it, the revolutionary struggle of the peoples. There is no remedy at all for the revolutionary struggle-.of the peoples except the disappearances of those conditions that drive people to revolt. That is why we can't help laughing at those schools of Taylor. We are sure than-any handful of men can launch the struggle wherever the objective conditions that existed in Cuba are present -- and I refer to no country in particular -- that revolutionary movement, that group, following the rules that guerrillas have to follow, we are absolutely sure that is the spark that would start the fire.

We were like a match in a haystack. I won't say in a cane field because a match in a cane field is serious business. A match in a haystack! That was the guerrilla movement, given the conditions that existed in our country. Little by little, the struggle became a struggle of all the people. Naturally, it spread; it was the people, simply all of the people, who were the sole actors in that struggle and it was the masses who decided the issue.

When our tactics began to pay off, the people immediately started to join. All the revolutionaries began to join and were converted to these tactics and to the struggle of the entire Cuban revolutionary movement. And, in the end, to the struggle of all the people.

How was it possible -- though finally by the end of December, the regular forces of tyranny were completely broken -- for the revolutionary movement to avoid what's happening in Santo Domingo today, to avoid what reaction and imperialism have always tried to do everywhere in America? Only by the revolutionary consciousness that has been developed in the people, the active participation of the masses.

What was it that made the maneuvers of the American embassy and of reaction disappear like candy in a school yard? Simply the general strike. It was not necessary to fire one more shot. That was the right moment to give the signal for a general strike.

Sure, we launched it at a very premature moment. But what did is mean? That the subjective criteria predominated, that we didn't understand the objective conditions. Our own Revolution can show ,ampler of everything. We had hoped that the conditions were ripe; and that the tyranny would collapse; that is what we wanted, what we hoped for. It so happened that we converted those desires into reality, but only in our imagination.

And what does a revolutionary have to do? He has to interpret reality. We did not interpret that reality and we made a mistake. The suit was that the strike didn't come off because conditions were .t completely ripe, because of the tactics employed; but mostly cause, fundamentally, conditions were not ripe; the military force of the Revolution amounted to less than 200 men.

The Conquest of Revolutionary Power

When the signal was given the second time, we had already isolated whole provinces, destroyed complete enemy units; the enemy had been really split wide open. On other occasions, the enemy had always been able to cross any territory he wanted to and had always dominated the situation in the country. The signal must be given at the right time and then strategy is easy to carry out: the conquest of revolutionary power by the masses. This is what makes the difference between a true revolutionary movement and a coup d'etat.

What factor mobilized the masses? The guerrilla war was the factor that mobilized the masses, that made the struggle, the repression $cute, intensified the contradictions of the regime; and the people simply seized power; the masses seized power. This was the first basic characteristic.

It's possible to liquidate the force, the military apparatus, the machinery that propped up the regime. In other words, a series of evolutionary laws was passed: first, the seizure of power by the masses; second, the liquidation of the apparatus, of the military machinery that held the regime of privilege together.

What do reaction and imperialism try to do? What do they try to preserve in any crisis? The history of Latin America is full of examples. What they try to preserve at all costs is the military apparatus, the military machine of the system. In the final analysis, neither imperialism nor the ruling classes give a hoot who the president is, who is a representative, who is a senator.

Naturally, reaction and imperialism would like to have for president, if possible, a man who is not a complete crook; it is to their interest, if possible, that he be honest, that he spend money to advance the interests of the ruling classes. It is to their interest to have the public administration function with honesty and, in the end, they prefer a government that steals less to one that steals more.

What is imperialism interested in? It is interested, naturally, in a government that looks after the interests of the monopolies. It is all the same to them whether it be Perez Jimenez or Romulo Betancourt. If you want examples, there's one for you.

What more can a Perez Jimenez give them than a Romulo? Perez Jimenez respected the interests of the oil companies in Venezuela. Romulo more than respects these interests; he worships them. He goes to the extreme of even imposing taxes in order to get himself out of the mess he's in and exempting the military and the United States oil companies, the American interests, from these taxes. He has absolute respect for all the landowners, the big bourgeoisie, the interests of home owners, owners of apartment buildings, big businessmen, owners of large estates -- these he respects. And what's more, he pays all the debts Perez Jimenez incurred, money that the bourgeois financiers lent him. In fact, he paid it back, penny for penny. He couldn't renounce these debts.

Romulo Serves Imperialism

And so, he is wholehearted in serving the interests of imperialism, of the ruling economic classes, the big bourgeoisie of Venezuela and the military caste. Yes, indeed, he finds it necessary to burn one candle for the Department of State and another candle for the military, although the two candles were really serving the same interests. He is trying to please the military and at the same time, see that the American ambassador (that was the role of Mr. Moscoso) (laughter)...the role of Mr. Moscoso in Venezuela was to visit officials, to tell the high officials of Venezuela: "Don't conspire against Betancourt; Betancourt offers a solution; if you stage a coup d'etat, there will be another Cuba."

What does this prove? That it suits the imperialists to dress up their domination of Latin America in a certain civilian garb, the trappings of "representative democracy" which disappear, as they have disappeared in Venezuela, as soon as the contradictions become intensified.

In fact, at this very time, they have just begun the suppression of the Communist Party and the Movement of the Revolutionary Left. They have shut down the newspaper of the Democratic Republican Union; muzzled their newspaper. And who is left there? The COPEY party, the must reactionary party in Venezuela. And with whom are they allied? With the worst elements, those who were left behind with the Betancourt regime when the best people dropped him: the crooks, the gangsters, the Mujalistas, that whole gang working together.

In other words, we have the perfect union of the American embassy, military reaction, a political party which is the most reactionary, representing the interests of the exploiters and the worst elements, crooks and thieves of the Betancourt clique. Yes, it has come to this. There is no more "representative democracy" there; they lack even that!

Well, the same is true of Peru. What more can you expect from an Odria than from a Prado? It's no problem for them.

It is only logical that the national bourgeoisie, the ruling classes, should prefer a type of government -- as I said before, that it' possible, is respectable and, if possible, runs things in a way that will cause the least trouble. They have been partial, frequently, to military regimes; and why? Because they are governments by repression, by force, against the workers' movement, against the peasant movement.

Down with One and Up with Another

But, at any rate, when a revolutionary movement comes to a head, ,.url a popular movement turns into a revolution, they remove this military group and another military man or a junta of military and civilian groups always emerges. They remove a military man here, put him there, appease the people and, in the end, after a while, the Dame military man is doing the same things. Or the same thing happens that happened in Venezuela, for one must take into account the special conditions in every country.

In Venezuela a military figure of prestige arose, one, moreover, the few military figures to act in a democratic, popular way: Wolfgang Larrazabal.

And what happens? There is a great movement of unity, a movement of unity resulting in the overthrow of Perez Jimenez. And what is the first thing that Betancourt did? He divided the nation. He ran for election, destroyed the unity of the people, exactly when the people of Venezuela had a wonderful opportunity to get rid of the military caste.

Imperialism and the Bourgeoisie are Trying to Keep the Military Machine Intact

Well, I want to say simply that the first thing imperialism and the bourgeoisie try to do is to keep the military machine intact. What are they doing in Santo Domingo? In Santo Domingo, they are trying to keep the military machine intact. It's all the same to them whether it's Trujillo or Trujillo's brother or Balaguer or Juan Bosch. It does not matter to them that there is a military machine intact with aircraft, tanks and police skilled in persecution and repression of the people. All the imperialists aim for is to maintain the military machine. All the efforts of the Dominican people are, therefore, to destroy the military machine.

When a moment of crisis arrives, as it arrived in Cuba on the 1st of January or has now arrived in Santo Domingo, the key to this whole situation is whether the people take control of the weapons or whether the military machine remains intact with weapons in hand and the people defenseless. When a crisis of this kind arises in any country, the prime objective of the people's movement is to destroy the military machine and seize its arms. This is an indispensable condition; without it, the revolution can be checked, can be betrayed, and can be crushed.

Imagine what would have happened if the people of Venezuela had, been able to take control of the arms when the regime of Perez Jimenez fell. Goodbye imperialism, goodbye oil companies, goodbye Romulo Betancourt or whatever traitor, to call things by their right name!

Of course, we do not invent this; it is all very clearly stated in a book by Lenin -- I imagine that all of you or most of you are familiar with it -- called "The State and Revolution." It is a

point he stressed very much and it is undeniably a vital, perfectly. comprehensible truth, even to those who have not been through the experience of Cuba.

This is just what we have seen happen throughout Latin America. The revolution must first destroy the military machine of the old system and take over control of the weapons.

Of course, that is not the only condition for a revolution; but It is an indispensable condition for revolution.

In this way, the Cuban revolutionary process carried through a series of laws, laws that are fundamental to any revolutionary process. First, the conquest of power by the masses, that is, the conquest of power by the people; and, second, destruction of the military apparatus of the ruling economic class.

In other words, the military machine was in the pay of imperialism, of the landowners, of the financial, of the commerical and industrial bourgeoisie.

Those people, those people can now talk about democracy when they had renounced even that bourgeois democracy, a democracy that was for them alone.

Everyone remembers perfectly well what happened in Havana the day after the attack on the Palace. There was the most shameful procession of representatives of those economic classes marching to the Palace. Gentlemen, can you imagine anyone with honor marching to the Palace after that slaughter, after that bloodshed, after those acts perpetrated upon wounded men who fell prisoner, murdered students, people who sacrificed themselves in a heroic deed? Can you imagine that bunch of "boot lickers" lining up at the entrance of the Palace the following day to congratulate Mr. Batista?

And who went there? Well, simply the big bourgeoisie and their lumpen, their gangsters, their Mujalistas; the whole gang. Of course, the labor leaders went there right away; or, as they said, the workers. What a farce -- the workers! Instruments of reaction and imperialism in the labor movement, the reactionary clergy, big business, that whole crowd; the landowners, the industrialists, the whole crowd in Indian file to pay their respects. What did they care? I can assure you that none of those gentlemen visited the Presidential Palace after a revolutionary law was passed. None! And as we know, none of those gentlemen has yet marched to the Presidential Palace where so many revolutionary laws have been made.

On the other hand, they went there to congratulate Batista the day after the massacre. Why? Because, those people, those shameless people who now prate of democracy (perhaps many of them get together in Miami on a Sunday to talk about democracy or if not, to hear a sermon of some priest or other. I say some priest or other, not a revolutionary priest). They now talk about democracy.

If someone should ask them, "Good, but what are you fighting for?" "We are fighting for democracy," they say. Actually, they're not even fighting for bourgeois democracy, a regime with a minimum of freedom -- but only what the ruling class permits. With this said, let's go on to something else.

When they owned all the newspapers, all the radio and television stations, and even wrote the history books, it was understandable that we should fall for all those tales. But today it is really absurd to try to fool anyone with them. And they are less likely to succeed with the people learning and understanding more every day.

What these people cared about was the government, however bloody, however large the number of youths assassinated, of bodies piled up early in the morning. They didn't care about that. How many died on April 9? They didn't care. How many died in those torture chambers, assassinated? Why is it that wherever you go, you find a marker and a murdered youth -- on nearly every highway? And they weren't the only ones. If you were to put a marker everywhere a youth had been murdered, the roads would be full of crosses and markers. In the hills, what they did: in the mountains, the murderers. One still learns of a child, every now and then; what can be done with him? He has such problems. He has to be taken to the doctor because he is the only surviving son of a family of six brothers and they killed the father. So the child has psychological problems. One still finds things like that everywhere.

What did these sufferings of our people matter to the bourgeoisie, that whole ruling class? They were indifferent to them. They went to see Batista, because Batista was obviously the one who protected their class interests. And, as you would expect, they were preparing to take immediate advantage of a change, should a change come about.

I will never forget the first days after the triumph, the visitors I received at home.

It turns out that one -- I'm not going to make propaganda now -but I think that I acted quite decently. Anyone who asked for an interview with me I saw right away. I say that this was quite decent. Who showed up at my house? Well, from early in the morning, from the cardinal's nephews to the whole Pepin Rivera family of Diario de la Marina; bankers, businessmen, all the factory managers, the whole pack. What a list it was! During the first days I tried to receive those people. I thought it was one of my obligations to receive people who asked for interviews. I didn't have much to do those days because I had no part in the government either. They filled up my house, not only the first day, but the second day, too, and the third day. And I said to myself, "What do those people want?"

Of course, I knew. But what really disgusted me was to see that procession of all those people of former days. (I asked myself) First, what are they thinking? And I said, well, the conceited ones, the more they think they can come here to see us freely, the better; the more of a surprise they'll get. (le/ngthy applause)

They came to offer their paper, the same paper that had been serving Batista during the tyranny. They came to offer their banks, the same banks that had served Batista to the very last. And then to talk only about the day that the American ambassador, Mr. Bonsal, arrived. Three days before, the entire bourgeois press, radio, and television began to herald the arrival of Mr. Bonsai as a great event. They gave it such publicity that it really began to jar and insult every revolutionary and every man of honor who may not have been revolutionary. Any honorable person holding any position in the country must have felt ashamed of all that publicity surrounding the arrival of a foreign official, as though the great chief executive of the country were arriving -- the great governor of the country. They began to surround it all with an atmosphere as though a proconsul, Bonsai, were coming.

The First Interview I Had with Bonsal

I remember the first meeting with Bonsai. It's a shame I don't have the habit of keeping a diary of my impressions and of events. Well, no matter, I received him there in Cojimar -- the great Bonsal. The American ambassador! From the first moment he began to talk, he spoke about the Electric Power Company, about the Telephone Company, about the problem of the banks, about the problem of the estates of North American companies, the history of what those companies had done for the country.... Good, those were the very first words that gentleman began with. Furthermore, his manner was truly the manner of someone who comes to a country to give instructions. Of course, he didn't have the slightest idea what sort of people he was dealing with. His manner from the outset was something shocking, that of a gentleman...practically, those were the mannerisms of that gentleman. Finally, he left.

I don't think there was a single interview in which that gentleman didn't harp on the same old theme. But at that time there wasn't yet the Agrarian Law or nationalization of...well, I do not quite recall what month it was; I believe Miro Cardona was still Premier.

Well, of course, from the very outset he began to rub us the wrong way, from the very first moment immediately; simply over the. Ah! The American Military Mission and all that, because one of the first things we found when we got to Havana and at Ciudad Libertad -- Ciudad Libertad after the triumph -- were the officers of the American Military Mission delighted with their life there, with their uniforms, with their job. They were still there; Batista's army was there; Batista's army leaves, enters the Rebel Army, and they still went to the office every day "to render their services." They were ready to render their services calmly to the people.

I remember when I met those officers. I arrived there and I said to myself: "And these people, what are they doing here?" And I went there and called over two or three officers -- and I don't remember whether it was in Spanish or English, I don't remember -- and I told them to leave. How could they give us classes, seeing that we had defeated the army they had been teaching. How could they give us classes?

Of course, all that reaction, all that press, was very interested in what the Ambassador would do. They began to deify him, to prepare the ground. All they managed to do, actually, was to make us look forward even less to the arrival of Mister Ambassador. From the very outset, a series of clashes began because of the opinions and points of view, etc., so that those meetings became strained and intolerable until somewhat later, I recall, after he spent three months asking for an interview -- it was three months before we gave him an interview. Finally, I had no alternative, according to the elementary rules of protocol, but to give it to him.

Why? Because we just couldn't stand that gentleman's proposals. Good, that's how it was with us. Imagine how those ambassadors must talk in other places where they find a Romulo Betancourt, a Prado, or that type of individual. We certainly know that the American ambassador must talk to them as one talks to a servant.

Well, we were speaking about the reaction of all that bourgeoisie and big bourgeoisie the day after the Revolution seized power. Those were the conditions. Two requirements had already been fulfilled. And let us now delve a little deeper into the subject. We must look at it all, eh? I assure you. Let's go into the subject.

The Revolution had (accomplished) two things: it had already come into power with the masses; secondly, it had liquidated the military apparatus of the ruling social class. It had an army of the people, that is, it now had the people armed.

Bearded ones, who hadn't gone to military school, were, however, the army of the people. In fact, the Rebel Army was the firmest, the most solid part of the Revolution.

How were the existing classes related one with the other? Well, in the hands of the ruling class at this moment were: all the financial resources, all the economic resources, the entire press, all of radio; that is, to say, all the big radio and television stations, the big printing presses, the publishing houses, all these, were in their hands. Besides this, were the American magazines, all the imperialist literature in our country. They held all these resources in their hands, the economic resources...they were, to put it simply, still the owners of the country. And in the government....Of course, we were the ones to put him there; in other words, it was simply due to the Rebel Army and the fighting of the Rebel Army that a president of the republic was proclaimed.

I am not going to say that we are now revolutionary sages, nor that we were sages then. Far from it. But I will tell the truth, how we always thought, at least how I used to think. One can introduce personalities when one speaks of how we thought then, because the revolutionary forces were still fragmented. I was sure that neither Urrutia nor anyone could prevent the achievement of a revolutionary program. We certainly knew what a revolutionary program was. If we didn't plunge in with a whole set of basic measures, it was because we understood that a series of revolutionary reforms and laws, given the conditions in which the struggle against Batista was developing, would simply weaken the camp of those forces opposed to the Batista tyranny.

We had succeeded, fortunately, in welding together against Batista a large number of political and social forces. We had succeeded in welding together, into a broad front for the struggle, many sectors of the country. Of course, we had to go through certain embarrassing situations. For example, there were the opinions of the Prio-Miro Cardona group, that whole bunch in the Front, who were in Miami, opposed to a broad, complete unity. They all were in favor of excluding the Socialist Party from that unity. We defended the inclusion of the Socialist Party. Carlos Rafael is witness to all the difficulties we were in because we had to prevent a split, we had to keep (the united front) together. They wanted to have a meeting in Miami to discuss who would make up the union of forces against Batista. We knew that if the discussion took place in Miami, those people were going to impose their conditions and, to put it simply, to break the little unity there was.

Then, we argued that the meeting should be held in the Sierra Maestra, that the delegates of the Front should come to the Sierra Maestra to confer with us. We knew that in any discussion held in the Sierra Maestra, we would be able to lay down the conditions, but that, on the other hand, in Miami, they would be the ones who would lay down the conditions. We weren't going to accept that, because we weren't at all disposed to go along with the exclusions they proposed, and that would have created a problem at a most inopportune moment.

But in the long run, with a little cooperation from some quarters, you could say we all agreed on the prime objective: the prime objective of overthrowing the Batista tyranny. Of course, we had already had a previous experience with the Front. It was when some delegates went and said they represented "the 26th of July" and formed a front there. We had been in the mountains a long time already, more than a year, struggling under difficult conditions, under many privations and without help from the outside; and we became boiling mad, all of us, when we found that they had made a pact in our name in Miami. What we did was to send that letter there which those elements called a divisionist letter, and things like that. The only thing we could not accept at all was that pact.

Then, of course, we made a proposition that had a very clear intention, and always formed part of our proposals. It was the following: proposals that made all reconciliation with the army impossible. We always tried to create the worst conditions for a putsch. In other words, we wanted to make a putsch impossible. We were always worried lest, since the revolutionary forces were not yet very developed, a military coup would take place through the maneuvers of imperialism and reaction, like that famous coup of which so much has been said, Barquin's coup. Still, let it be said in passing, that among those officers there were some good ones, honest, who are today with the Revolution. Well, when the historical record eomes to be written, let them clear up what properly needs to be cleared up.

The leader of that coup was a man who had been shaped by the ideology, and by the methods, and by the style of the North American Department of State or of the Pentagon...I believe he was part of that junta, that junta which bred dictators and this, the Inter-American Organization...I believe they threw us out of it, or didn't admit our representative. They do not comply with the laws of the Organization of American States, well, they do not fulfill their international commitments. The question is that we always tried to prevent a military putsch. When the Revolution did not have sufficiently developed forces, the people would have accepted that change and would have been deceived as other peoples at other times have been deceived, because they do not understand that the system itself, and not individuals, must change. We always feared that maneuver. And what did we do? We said that we would never accept a coup, that we reserve the right to clean out, reorganize and rebuild the armed forces of the Republic. Clearly, no military organization is inclined to accept, even remotely, a formula that implies that a civilian movement could come and rebuild it. And our first move then was this: but, I want you to know first that when we sent word (to strike) from the Sierra Maestra, we were just 120 armed men. Of course, to anyone, it must have seemed a colossal and monstrous absurdity that such a small force should give the word. The followers of Prio and all those people then said that what we were doing was contributing to the strengthening of Batista, because we were scaring the military off with our declarations.

We Stood Alone

The military didn't want to know about us then; they changed their minds later on, due to the progress of the war: many of them were taken prisoner and later freed, and they were well treated. The fact is that at that time, first in the campaign that developed around Moncada which was a slaughter of soldiers for all that, and also through our own proposals, because we were interested in seeing that the military did not stage a coup, and we always warned, "If there's a military coup, the war goes on, and on, and on." And we said that from first to last.

The eventuality that worried us was that imperialism might promote a coup before our forces became strong enough to decide events. That was a most correct tactic, and we expounded it in the letter to Miami denouncing the pact, and the pact was broken. We were alone, but it was a time when it was a thousand times better to walk alone than in bad company.

We Reject the Miami Pact

Another thing: Why, at that time when we were just 120 armed men, weren't we interested in a kind of broad unit with all the organizations that were in exile; yet, later on, when there were thousands of us, we certainly were interested in that broad unity? Very simple. Because in any union at a time when there were 120 of us, the conservative and reactionary elements, or representatives of interests, non-revolutionary but against Batista, would have formed a clear majority. In that unity, we would have been a very small force. However, when the struggle was over, all those organizations agreed that the movement should march ahead victoriously and that the tyranny should be overthrown. At that time, they were interested in unity, but we already were the decisive force in that unity.

At a Miami meeting of representatives of those organizations -- there were so many, I can hardly remember them; but there were several--there were Just one or two revolutionary organizations represented: the Directorate and the 26th of July Movement, and that was all. Then -- I'm talking of Miami, don't make such a face, Carlos_ (apparently an aside to someone, Ed). Or were you represented at Miami? Well, in that group of...at-a meeting in Miami, they could have tried to set the conditions. What did we decide to do? Well; we were going to prolong the situation, and not have a meeting until the war ended. It was better to sidestep the position those people took, opposed as it was to the point of view we were going to present . . . and they were interested in excluding the Socialist Party. This was a basic point of theirs. They would never have accepted it. We understood that it was better not to discuss this problem and to end the war.

That unity did mean definitely that the front against Batista would be maintained, and solid. That is, a broad front, with everyone against Batista. Now then, money didn't matter to me, arms didn't matter to me. Actually we were capturing weapons by the hundreds; as for money, we were collecting taxes from the sugar mills, and we already had millions of pesos. It simply represented a broad front, but a front in which we were the main force. Under those conditions, we were more interested in maintaining that front than in any other interest we could have had, inasmuch as, if anyone were left out of that front, the interests of the reactionaries and rightists would have prevailed. These are the conditions under which the overthrow of Batista took place.

The Power of the People

Then there was the phase when we broke the pact that had been made without our agreement, with no representation from us, and without our authorization and, furthermore, that did not represent any revolutionary goals. That was when Urrutia was proclaimed a candidate against one of their candidates. It would have been better if the Revolution had not made any commitment, but we were obliged to name a candidate. Of course, this was not important, nor is it important in any revolution. In a revolution in which the military apparatus does not exist, In a revolution that conquers power with the people, destroys the military apparatus and has a revolutionary army, it does not matter if it'is Tom, Dick, or Harry, who is nominated.

At any rate, we never had the least worry -- I say this with all clarity -- that the Revolution could be distorted, that the reactionary elements could seize the government, because the force of the masses and the armed force were there, were in revolutionary hands.

What were we worried about? I believe, I do not know what historians will say and that's up to them, but we'll give our opinion -I believe that what happened those first months was correct, considering the interrelation of the existing forces, the social, the political order, and the ideological order, it was convenient to have Urriitia and all those people in the Revolutionary Government. Especialiy, the interrelation of the ideological forces still existing in the country. We had the sympathy of the masses and we had the Rebel Army.

How was the revolutionary leadership formed? The revolutionary leadership was mostly a one-man leadership: that is to say, at that time numerous decisions were made pretty nearly by one man. Why were they made by one man? Simply because a well developed revolutionary organization did not exist. There were differences between those who had been in the mountains and those who had been in the plains; between the leadership in the mountains and the leadership in the plains. There were differences that lasted all through the war and some persisted.

I Never Wanted to be a Dictator

It is not always the most pleasant thing to speak about those problems. But even so, one is able to talk about them. Why? Because a part of those comrades with whom we differed at the time, a part, some of those comrades, today take a magnificent revolutionary position and have fully identified themselves with the Revolution. Another part of that leadership is today in Miami, in Puerto Rico, in the American Department of State, or here making counterrevolution. There certainly were differences. Besides, something else took place: the military arm of the Revolution had developed in a really extraordinary way, and this extraordinary development also changed its relation within the 26th of July Movement. The preponderant force at that time was represented by the Rebel Army. And when we arrived in the plains we found within the Rebel Army -- which was a military organization that was led, as armies are led in war, through decisions of a-supreme commander -- almost a kind of one-man leadership, due to the way the Revolution developed and ended.

I remember, and I can speak of those things calmly for a good reason, a little unpleasant though it may be to speak in the first person. I'm going to say the following because, if some people are going to speak of it, it is well for interested parties to speak of it, too. I remember that we felt we had to be on guard against dictatorship. We always said that one of the things we had to fight against was dictatorship, because our country suffered from dictatorship and also suffered the consequences of dictators. From the time of the War of Independence a series of dictators cropped up; among other peoples of Latin America a series of dictators cropped up. Fortunately, I really was not born with any bent to be a dictator, although leading an army at war creates the kind of authority, as armies do, that makes for one-man rule. It can create the habit of dictatorship in men, the habit of being overbearing, the habit that takes pleasure in giving orders. I never really got any special pleasure from giving orders. I remember that, even during the war, I did not issue orders in a military way. I knew that they would be carried out, but I always liked to give my reasons for them: that this ought to be done for such and such a reason. It always seemed much better to me that people should accept orders because they are convinced of the reasons for them.

The First Stage of Revolutionary Government

That's why they talked so much about dictatorship at the time, why they had already begun to talk about it. Who talked about dictatorship? Were they who talked about dictatorship really worried about it? They were worried only by the fact that the Rebel Army was getting the upper hand in the Cuban revolutionary process. The talk of dictatorship was not against a non-existent dictator; the argument against caudillismo was against a growing revolutionary force. And one heard certain remarks about caudillismo and such things, but this what they were really directed against. But the fact is that when the Revolution comes to power, the Revolution, that's the way it we being led.

There is something else. We, the principal leaders of the Revolution, did not even meet to discuss many of the problems. Some of my other comrades were very confident and many of those decisions were taken in the heat of events and were not collective decisions. At tl time, on the other hand, the first Revolutionary Government include( elements representing those classes. I said that it was proper to 1 through that stage. First, we probably had prejudices of our own. I do not know whether it is unfair for us to call it prejudice; but, among other things, it was necessary...we acted, certainly, imbued with the idea that the revolutionary struggle could not be interpreted in terms of personal ambitions, and things of that sort; second the circumstances gave rise to the naming of a president and a count of ministers...

Let us return to the main thread of the theme, which was somehow lost. The main thread was as follows: There was a group that formed part of the government and largely decided who the ministers of the government would be. They put in the government men who, in some cases, were people with anachronistically conservative or more or lo conservative minds; in short, it was a conservative type of government.

Good, I recall that in those early days the responsibility for making revolutionary laws was left in their hands. The policy we adopted was that there was a council of ministers all set up and that V was not a matter of calling the President on the telephone or anything like that. Throughout that whole period, we waited to see what would happen. And what finally happened had to happen. The first went went by and they had not passed a single revolutionary law. We had ' put up with this because some of those gentlemen had a certain following among the people; and if they had no following because of their merits, they had a following because the entire press and radio and television, which were in the hands of the social class whose ideological and economic interests those gentlemen represented, defended them and had taken it upon themselves to wage a big propaganda campaign for them. The interests those gentlemen represented were diametrically opposed to the interests of those peasants whom we met when we arrived in the Sierra Maestra; diametrically opposed to the interests of the farm laborers who worked three months during harvest and then went through the endless "dead season" hungry; diametrically opposed to the interests of the great majority of the country.

What Did Miro Cardona & Company Represent?

And it was simply necessary to pass through that stage, to use it to unmask those gentlemen.

Now, under what conditions does the Revolution come to power? Why do all these things happen? Well, all these things happen as a result of the absence of what we stated before: a single revolutionary movement, organically embodying all revolutionary forces. So, it had to happen. We represented part of those forces; but did not have the organization.

How were the revolutionary forces represented? What were the revolutionary forces, in the first place, the revolutionary social forces? The working class, the peasants, the students, and more or less wide strata of the petite bourgeoisie. Those were what could be called revolutionary forces whose interests were opposed-to the interests of the big bourgeoisie, in the first place, to the interests of imperialism and of the financial, commercial, and industrial bourgeoisie: small property owners, small businessmen, that whole stratum of the petite bourgeoisie; intellectuals, students, peasants, and the working class. They were the forces, the revolutionary classes.

Now, what did Urrutia represent in all that? What did Miro Cardona represent? What did Felipe Pazos represent? What did Justo Carrillo represent? What did those gentlemen represent? I am not going to ask what Manolo Fernandez represented, because, I believe, he represented trash; he was a "mad anarchist."

Reporter: He aspired to be another Peron, from the Ministry...

Dr. Castro: To tell the truth, I do not know that gentleman. I was told later that he was very famous for his conversations in cafes and that he talked for hours and hours and hours; I do not know him. The truth is, I did not know many of those people; they were there in the government...

Then, what organizations represented these forces? The working class, the most advanced, most developed elements of the working class, of the industrial and agricultural workers? What political organization represented that class? Not the entire class, because within those classes there were sectors with a petit bourgeois mind, especially those with higher incomes. Certainly, no one can deny that the petite bourgeoisie was against Batista.

The P.S.P. Represented the Working Class

The Popular Socialist Party represented the most advanced elements of the working class, both in the city and in the country. It also had some followers in the countryside; among the small farmers we found a few militant followers of the Popular Socialist Party in the Sierra Maestra. But, fundamentally, it represented that class.

The 26th of July Movement represented, in the first place, the peasants; that is, the entire peasant movement which was organized around the Rebel Army. It represented...the 26th of July Movement attracted many people, too, from the working class who did not belong to any party, laborers, groups of workers who belonged to some party of the petite bourgeoisie, any political party, decent people, also joined the 26th of July Movement, professional people, intellectuals, youth, students, and elements of the petite bourgeoisie, the most progressive and the most revolutionary elements of the middle class and of the petite bourgeoisie also joined. It can be said that those were the forces that the 26th of July represented.

Similarly, the Revolutionary Directorate represented more or lest the same sectors, but fundamentally the student sector, where Jose Antonio Echeverria, Faure Chomon and their companions came from. The Revolutionary Directorate sprang up from the student groups and in turn also worked to win members from labor sectors, intellectual sectors and peasant sectors.

That is to say, the revolutionary forces of society were represented in three organizations. It is a fact, I believe, that we have all learned to agree in matters of politics and revolutionary theory. Isn't that so?

You, what sector did you belong to, to the intellectuals? (pointing to Soto).

SOTO: To the middle class.

DR. CASTRO: No, you did not belong to the petite bourgeoisie...

Well, you came from the petite bourgeoisie but were a member of the Socialist Party, a vanguard organization... Listen, if you are going to say that to the people, they are not going to understand well the revolutionary instruction you give them in class. You were an intellectual, you were a member of the party of the working class. And that business of being an intellectual is something among us here! Now, no, no! Lionel, now you are an intellectual. It's true that I recognize you sincerely as an intellectual of the working class, so don't let the jokers here misunderstand you and harm the program of revolutionary instruction.

Those are the forces.

They Defended the Bourgeoisie

Whom did Prio Socarras represent? I still believe that one can say he represented the "lumpen bourgeoisie," to coin a phrase. Of course, like the crowd that followed him, his role was to defend the interests of the Yankee monopolies, to defend the interests of the landowners and of the big bourgeoisie. Without any doubt all those groups... Pazos? Pazos was a bourgeois intellectual; Justico was a bourgeois intellectual; Manolo was so much loose garbage. Ray, for all his ideology, his mind, was a perverse defender of bourgeois ideology. The great debates in the Council of Ministers were simply over the question whether works projects were to be carried out by the Administration or by contractors. That was one of the tremendous arguments we had with that gentleman. Our position was that the projects should be carried out and that it was inconceivable that a worker would work better on a job for a contractor than for the state. It was one of the first points we clashed over in the Council.

Let me say that the President signed the Agrarian Law and signed some other legislation, but the situation was becoming more difficult every day.

The other elements who had really played at revolution, who had been in exile, and were portrayed as great men here on the bourgeois radio and television and in the press, they represented simply the interests of the dominant classes.

Well now, the revolutionary sectors, the revolutionary classes, were represented by three separate organizations. Those three separate organizations, of course, maintained contacts. They helped each other during the revolution, during the revolutionary struggle, but organically they were three completely separate organizations each of which had its own leadership, its own tactics, its own sphere of action. It is well known, in fact, that there was friction between our colleagues in the Directorate and us because of the hassle over arms.

REPORTER: All of our comrades in the Directorate and we were closely united in the Revolution.

The Force Lenin Spoke About

DR. CASTRO: How absurd those problems really appear today! How different are the power, security and confidence, the force of the revolution of today from those early days when the Revolution had to face the most trying moments, when it had to face the responsibilities of power, to launch a revolutionary program, and when a large part of the government, all of the press, all of the mass media and, above all, a force -- a force that I believe was the greatest -- the force Lenin had spoken about, that is, the force of custom or of the manner and habits of thinking and looking at things prevalent among a vast segment of the populace.

That is, force of habit, a series of prejudices, instilled, sustained, and spread by the ruling economic classes, by imperialism and by capitalism in our country, constituted, beyond any doubt whatever, one of the most powerful forces that faced the Revolution. And yet, the revolutionary elements of society, the revolutionary social forces, were divided into three organizations, into three separate forces, (taking) three separate paths.

Revolutionary Unity

How much more healthy the situation would have been if, when the Revolution came to power, these forces had been an organic unit as they are today, with a single leadership, with a single program, with one tactical orientation, with one strategic orientation? Now, of course, this is to pose something illusory. Why? Because the conditions that produced this unity are the conditions that were engendered by the revolutionary process itself.

Our force, that of the 26 of July Movement, at that time made up primarily of the elements of the Rebel Army, was a force that comprised many comrades, many of them officers of the Rebel Army, who, in a revolutionary way, from a revolutionary point of view, had been magnificent fighters, valiant in battle. Many of them were of peasant origin and lacked any solid political instruction.

From inclination, from feeling, from a spirit of rebelliousness, they had joined the ranks of the Rebel Army, enemies of abuse, enemies of crime, men who, while lacking opportunity and with no political instruction at all, developed into officers. Many of these comrades were easy prey then to the lies and confusion sowed in our ranks.

Of course, there were some comrades -- there weren't many, fortunately, who attained some prominence in the Rebel Army, elements who, even before they joined our ranks, knowingly defended the interests of the bourgeoisie and the ideology of the bourgeoisie. They had reactionary ideas. Many of the comrades of the Rebel Army, magnificent comrades, today politically conscious militant comrades of the Rebel Army, having acquired unusual training in the course of these three years, were good comrades, but soldiers who, at the time, still lacked any solid ideological training. That was the situation.

In other words, the very force the Revolution counted on was fundamentally of peasant origin, of working-class origin,. including politically, many comrades in the Army who could neither read nor write.

Conditions that made it possible for the revolutionary forces that exist today to take shape were maturing through the revolutionary process. And that organic unity of the revolutionary forces, that is to say, that unity was forged, precisely, and it necessarily had to be forged, through the revolutionary process itself, which is in fact how it was forged.

What is the meaning of the organization of this Party, this organization? What does the unification of all these revolutionary forces mean? What does the unity of these three organizations mean? What, clearly and in all truth, does it mean for the people, and what does it mean for the Revolution? It means that all the revolutionary forces of society, all the revolutionary forces of society, that is, the working class, the peasant class, the students, the revolutionary strata of the petite bourgeoisie, and the intellectuals -- that is to say, the only sectors or classes in society, the only classes in society who, by their very nature and because of the place they occupy in the society, are called upon to be revolutionaries, are today all united within a single revolutionary organization.

The Working Class

In other words, then, all the forces which were previously divided among these separate organizations are now fused in a single organization, under a single revolutionary leadership. What does this mean? It means simply a tremendous strengthening of the Revolution.

From the very first moments, these forces, except for some differences and except for some initial friction, advanced, though separately, of course, by common agreement from the beginning of the Revolution. We went through that first stage of the Revolution with more or less discussion, with more or less exchange of views.

That is, a revolution acquires extraordinary strength when the revolutionary strata of the people, the revolutionary classes, represented in their class organizations, become united in a single organization. And the facts have shown this to be so.

Consider, for example, what forces support the Revolution. They are not the big landowners, they are not the owners of sugar mills, nor big bankers, nor businessmen, nor industrialists, nor any of those people, though there may be an individual here or there who does support the Revolution, for there are always exceptions; there is always the exceptional case of some philanthropist, some honest individual who, besides, becomes enthusiastic over the Revolution and can pass beyond his own class interests.

The working class...Who joined the procession at the funeral of Manuel Ascunce? (16-year old volunteer in the literacy campaign, lynched in the Escambray by counterrevolutionaries in October, 1961 - Ed.) Fundamentally, of course, it was the entire population, but who made up the bulk of that demonstration? Simply the workers. Who make up the bulk of the National Revolutionary Militia? The workers. Who gave their lives in the fighting at Playa Giron, who fell and died fighting the mercenary invaders? It was the force composed of battalions principally from the capital, though units from Matanzas and Cienfuegos also participated, fighting bravely there, too, workers in the overwhelming majority.

In other words, the fundamental strength of the Revolution, the backbone of the Revolution, is made up of the working class.

The Revolution in the Escambray Mountains

Now who, along with the workers, supports the Revolution? Let's not say, rather let us distinguish between agricultural workers -the agricultural workers on the sugar latifundias who today are members of sugar cane cooperatives -- they were a group that before they formed cooperatives, belonged to the working class and should be viewed as such; the peasants, the peasants of the Sierra Maestra, the peasants of the Baracoa area, the peasants of the Escambray, certainly, because the best proof of what we're saying is the following: despite the fact that a group of elements in no way revolutionary developed there, a group of free-loaders, and we are going to distinguish clearly between the role played there by the "Second Front of the Escambray" and the Revolutionary Directorate. But the situation was such that that band of free-loaders practically forced out from the Escambray the more revolutionary elements, for neither Menoyo nor those people started the Second Front. The Second Front was started by comrades of the Directorate, but the group that developed under the leadership of Menoyo and those people ended up by virtually displacing the comrades of the Directorate out of one Zone. Among those gentlemen, the more revolutionary elements were practically pushed aside. That was the situation prevailing in Las Villas when Che Guevara arrived there.

Those people, who had formed a clique there, at a certain point began to act on their own, and followed an outrageous line of action. There are some facts, for example, which are worth recalling. Just one of those gentlemen of Menoyo's "Second Front," himself murdered thirty-three persons. During the entire war, even during the most difficult times among our forces throughout the Sierra Maestra, in a war lasting over two years, we found it necessary to impose the death penalty to hardly more than ten persons. And one single individual, one man alone, had executed thirty-three peasants. And the terrible thing is that this was a group that was up there sponging off the people.

In the Escambray a Revolutionary Tradition Was Not Awakened, as in the Sierra Maestra

A revolutionary tradition was not awakened there, as it was in the Sierra Maestra. The whole way in which the nucleus of the so-called "Second Front" was developed had a negative influence on that entire Escambray area. When the war ended, all of the jobs, from the mayoralty of Cienfuegos, Trinidad, and Topes de Collantes, to the director of public works of Hanabanilla and other places were distributed. They later went there to go politicking as much as they could. That contributed to the development in the Escambray region of a counterrevolutionary movement they organized.

However, even though that counterrevolutionary nucleus developed there, when they had 200 or 300 or 400 and even 500 men -- not all from the Escambray, because there were a lot of worthless people who went up there to the Escambray. That's not all. The people in the Escambray were a small minority -- the forces that hunted down the counterrevolutionaries there had 3,000 men from the Escambray. In other words, the Revolutionary Militia from the Escambray numbered 3,000 when they had hardly 100, which definitely shows that the small farmers benefited from agrarian reform, rescued by the Revolution from taxes, given teachers, doctors, and credits, even when on some occasions, the revolutionary policy came to peasants more slowly than in other places. Despite that, that is despite the fact that they actually carried on counterrevolutionary work there, negative work, the number of people they managed to get from the Escambray was very, very small. And the Revolution had thousands of militiamen and still has thousands of militiamen there.

Since the Escambray was cleaned up, after the revolutionary work was done there, there are innumerable Revolutionary Defense Committees and militiamen in the Escambray. The anti-illiteracy campaign in the Escambray culminates on the 9th; more than 20,000 people have learned how to read and write in the Escambray. The Escambray is today a revolutionary reserve. And it is undeniable that the small peasant, the poor peasant, the small farmer, that numerous sector of the population, is decidedly with the Revolution, in spite of the fact that culturally it had the highest rate of illiteracy in the country, where they lacked the experience that the organized labor movement had, and the degree of political awareness of the labor movement, the proletariat. That sector is with the Revolution.

Now, the students are with the Revolution. What better proof is there that the students are with the Revolution than the 100,000 volunteers who are teaching people how to read and write? In other words, while the students, in Venezuela, in Caracas, for example, are in the streets protesting against repression, struggling against imperialism, fighting the fascist measures of Mr. Romulo Betancourt and while throughout Latin America there is a vigorous student movement struggling against imperialism, in our country 100,000 students have gone into the countryside to teach people how to read and write. An overwhelming majority of the intellectuals are with the Revolution; honest professional men are with the Revolution, and a wide and numerous stratum of the petite bourgeoisie is with the Revolution. That cannot be denied.

That social stratum, the upper bourgeoisie, the counterrevolution; is trying to drag them back, while the Revolution is trying and is succeeding in keeping the best elements with the Revolution. As you can see, Lionel, it is not bad to come from the petite bourgeoisie. Those are truths.

The Working Class Is With The Revolution.

I believe that our people can perfectly understand these things because they see them. When it sees a congress of 10,000 labor delegates, when they see huge gatherings, when they see hundreds of thousands of militiamen, they realize that the working class is with the Revolution. When they see 100,000 volunteer teachers, they realize that the students are with the Revolution. When they see peasant meetings, tens of thousands of peasant militiamen, they realize that the peasants are with the Revolution, and they realize that the intellectuals are with the Revolution, the more honest professional men. The facts prove it,

And, this precisely has been the significance of the unity, the efforts of all the revolutionary sectors of society united in a single revolutionary organization.

Because now another question comes up: How many revolutions could three separate organizations have made? That is, those organizations that represented the revolutionary sectors of society, could they have made three separate revolutions? Or did they have to make one revolution?

I believe this is an important point. In discussing the question of the United Party of the Revolution,-it is, above all, desirable for the people to understand the historical roots of the revolutionary process and of the unity of the organizations, so that everyone can realize that there are certain positions or certain attitudes that are purely utopian, illusory, idealistic, false.

We recall that during the interrogation [of the prisoners from Playa Giron - Ed.] one fellow spoke up about a third position and a string of idiocies along the same lines.

First, I must say one thing. In the first place, we are gaining a lot of experiences with the Revolution itself. The Revolution itself is revolutionizing us. The Revolution itself is making us more and more revolutionary everyday. There was a time when we were not revolutionaries. Yes, there was a time when there was nothing revolutionary about me. Ah, was it because I was reactionary, thieving and corrupt? No, nothing of the sort. There was a time when -politically I could be considered a complete illiterate as a result of my class origins.

And, did I know more about revolution twenty years ago than Marinello, Carlos Rafael, Anibal, Blas? No, sir. Twenty years ago, many of us knew not one word about revolution, among other things, because twenty years ago many of us...I believe that twenty years ago Raul was just learning to read and write; we were just boys.

But even though many of us were not just boys, we came from social classes other than the working class, and I am very much aware of that; very much aware, furthermore, of the influence that class origin must have had. on our thinking. But by the same token I am very much aware of this too, very much aware of instilling in myself revolutionary thought, clear, straight, and cleansed of everything that could have remained in me by reasons that have nothing to do with the consciousness and will of men. But many of us, even when we were students at college, were still political illiterates. I was a political illiterate when I finished, even when I received my bachelor's degree.

Should I be ashamed to admit it? No, quite the contrary. I am very proud to know that I was a B.A. and knew nothing about politics or revolution, and yet today I do know something. Because that proves that I have made some progress.

Don't think I am talking about my own case just because it is my own. I believe I am talking about a case I know better than others and which can serve...As we have had here today the pleasant surprise of seeing the students of the National School of Revolutionary Instruction present, I have taken advantage of the opportunity to expound some ideas that might be useful. It must be an example similar to many others.

What is the most revolutionary class? The working class, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Why? Because its social position makes it •evolutionary. Which are the reactionary classes, by definition? The wealthy classes. Their social position as the exploiting class makes their minds and their thinking reactionary.

But in the Revolution there are many cases of revolutionary comrades coming from strata other than the working classes. What has happened in some countries with the presence of numerous people from the middle class in the labor movement? Well, they have instilled the thinking of the petite bourgeoisie and of the middle class in the labor movement. That has happened and we have to struggle se that it does not happen here. We therefore have a tremendous struggle in revolutionary education. Why? So that the presence of so many of them shall not inculcate the ideas of a vascillating social class that does not understand discipline, that is given to despairing, that has a whole string of vices, which I am not now inventing, but have been known throughout the history of the revolutionary movement from the middle of the past century until today.

Now, does that mean that a good revolutionary cannot come from that stratum? No A magnificent revolutionary can come from it; in fact, the great theoreticians of revolutionary thought came from those strata. But why did they come from those strata? Because they were the ones who went to school and to the universities.

I have not come here to present an autobiography, far from it; nor an analysis of how I came to be revolutionary. If I ever have the time, and right now I don't see where I will find the time, I may write about it. But I can say this. Whenever I discovered something, I always held firmly to it, as many other people do.

My first contacts at the University -- even with bourgeois political economy -- for I remember that I began to see contradictions and began to have a few revolutionary ideas while taking a course on bourgeois political economy.

Later on, naturally, at the University, we began making our first contacts with the Communist Manifesto, with the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all that. This marked (the beginning of) a process. I can certainly say, admitting it honestly, many of the things which we have done in the Revolution are not things we invented -- far from it.

When we left the University, especially in my own particular case, I had already been greatly influenced -- I wouldn't say that I was a Marxist-Leninist, far from it. It is possible that I had two million petit bourgeois prejudices and a string of ideas that I'm glad not to have anymore, but fundamentally -- if I did not have all those prejudices, I would not have been in the position to make a contribution to the Revolution, as I did.

Anyway, let's put things as they are.

I meant to say that had I been in the position of Carlos Rafael (Rodriguez), we would have faced a much more difficult situation when we went up into the mountains. Definitely, certain circumstances were really quite favorable. Our revolutionary thinking was already strongly influenced precisely by contact, and that is how arose.... I remember that when we were reading the history of Latin American independence, even in the classical history books, of course, books written by bourgeois authors explain that the influence of the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution was a factor that greatly influenced the thought of Latin American liberators. Ideas naturally always spread and win adherents.

One thing is indisputable -- I'll come back to this point later on -- these ideas already formed much of our revolutionary thinking, although we could hardly say that we were polished revolutionaries. We still cannot honestly claim to be polished revolutionaries. Why not? Because we ourselves realize full well that our love for the accomplishments of the Revolution, our passion for the Revolution, is something that we felt growing from day to day, our attitude in the race of all the problems.; at most, today we believe that we are thorough-going revolutionaries and five years from now we may find out that we were really still ignoramuses.

We All Have Much To Learn.

I believe that we all have a great deal of studying to do. Am I a convinced revolutionary? Yes, I am a convinced revolutionary, that Is so. To some of those who have at times asked me, some people have asked me if I used to think at the time of Moncada as I do today, I say, "I thought very much like I do today." That is the truth. Anyone who reads what we said on that occasion will see that many fundamental things about the Revolution are expressed in that document, and that it is, moreover, a carefully written document. It was writ= ten with sufficient care to expound some basic points without at the same time raising problems that could limit our scope of action within the Revolution, so as to prevent the movement which we believed could lead to the overthrow of Batista from being very much reduced and limited. In other words, it was necessary to try to broaden that movement as much as possible.

If we had not written that document carefully, if it had been a more radical program -- although it is true that many people were somewhat skeptical about programs and often paid them scant attention -- of course, the revolutionary movement of struggle against Batista would certainly not have gained the scope it did and which made victory possible. Anyone who reads the manifesto, the speech on that occasion, will realize what the basic ideas were.

There are some things, like certain suggestions we made on that occasion, such as increasing the cane workers' share of the sugar, which were brought up to me later on at meetings with the cane workers. They would say to me: "Good, but didn't you mention an increase?" And I told them: "Yes, but at that time we could not say what we can say today and that is that we have made those cane workers owners of the land which is much more than having granted them an increase in the share of sugar."

Certain suggestions were made at that time simply through care not to damage the scope of the revolutionary movement. I remember that on that occasion among the books the police caught us with was a text of Lenin. And then one of the lawyers asked at the Moncada trial: "And that book? Whose is it?" "That book was ours." And, of course, as I was somewhat irritated, I added: "Yes, that book was ours and anybody who does not read those books is an ignoramus." And that shut him up!

By that time, our revolutionary thinking had, in general, already taken shape. We were not, however, complete revolutionaries; we were far more revolutionary when we attained power. We are convinced revolutionaries. I say so with all due sincerity, because I believe that these appearances should not become a matter of theoretical explanation of things and... There is something that can help more to shape the political thinking of the people, and that is to speak this way, with complete frankness and clarity and honesty.

I consider myself more revolutionary today than I was even on t first of January. Was I a revolutionary on the first of January? Yes, I believe I was a revolutionary on the first of January. That all of the ideas I have today I had on the first of January.

Now then, am I at this moment a man who has studied thoroughly all of the political philosophy of the Revolution, the entire history? No, I have not studied it thoroughly. Of course, I am absolutely convinced and have the intention -- an intention we all ought to have -- to study. Recently, while looking through some books up there in the capital, I found that when I was a student I had read up to page 370 of Capital. That's as far as I got. When I have the time, I plan to continue studying Karl Marx's Capital.

I Believe Absolutely in Marxism!

In my student years I had studied the Communist Manifesto and selected works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Of course, it is very interesting to reread now the things I read at that time. Well, now, do I believe in Marxism? I believe absolutely in Marxism! Did I believe on the first of January? I believed on the first of January Did I believe on the 26th of July? I believed on the 26th of July! Did I understand it as I do today, after almost ten years of struggle? No, I did not understand it as I do today. Comparing what I understood then with what I understand today, there is a great difference. Did I have prejudices? Yes, I had prejudices on the 26th of July, yes. Could I have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary on the 26th of July? No, I could not have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary. Could I have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary on the first of January? No, I could have been called almost a thoroughgoing revolutionary. Could I be called a thoroughgoing revolutionary today? That would mean that I feel sati fled with what I know and, of course, I am not satisfied. Do I have any doubt about Marxism and do I feel that certain interpretations were wrong and have to be revised? No, I do not have the slightest doubt!

What occurs to me is precisely the opposite: the more experience we gain from life, the more we learn what imperialism is -- and not by word, but in the flesh and blood of our people -- the more we have to face up to that imperialism; the more we learn about imperialist policies throughout the world, in South Vietnam, in the Congo, in Algeria, in Korea, everywhere in the world; the more we dig deeper and uncover the bloody claws of imperialism, the miserable exploitation, the abuse they commit in the world, the crimes they commit against humanity, the more, in the first place, we feel sentimentally Marxist, emotionally Marxist, and the more we see and discover all the truths contained in the doctrine of Marxism. The more we have to race the reality of a revolution and the class struggle, and we see what the class struggle really is, in the setting of a revolution, the more convinced we become of all of the truths Marx and Engels Wrote and the truly ingenious interpretations of scientific socialism Lenin made.

The more we read today, with the experience, the load of experience we have, in those books, the more convinced we become of their inspired vision, of the foresight they had.

But there is something more than what anyone, any revolutionary leader can say to explain why Marxism made its way in history. It is enough to read the history of Marx, the biography of Marx, which is a book I believe everyone should read when the Government Printing Office publishes it, which is the biography of Marx by Mehring.

But who was Marx, his life, his work, his sacrifices? How did he study? And it will be seen that Marx was a man little known in his time, even hated by many intellectuals, by many pseudo-revolutionaries. His work was known only in small circles. In his time, many other socialist writers had far more renown and prestige than Marx and were better known than Marx. A whole series of writers on socialism who wrote that they were socialists, but who were socialists as a Cuban in 1917 might have been, who had conceived of an ideal world, a more just world, without slaves and without exploiters; they were idealistic socialists, utopian socialists. Then, many of these people devoted themselves to working out a program, writing about a utopia, expressing a revolutionary sentiment on an idealistic basis, not on a scientific basis. But many of those writers had the opportunity to make themselves known; many of those thinkers, many of those thoughts penetrated broad segments of the proletariat in Europe, in France, in Italy, in Germany, in Belgium, in England. Marx writes his scientific, eminently scientific work, not writing things as he wished them to be, but writing things as he saw them, as they would have to be as a result of the very development of human society. From his study of history, from his study of economics, he drew a series of conclusions. It is a fact that the work of Marx has made a way for itself. Indeed, the work itself, the truths it contained were so superior and so solid and had such a firm basis, compared to anything of all other socialist writers, that the workers he wrote for -- because he wrote for the workers and knew that one day, the workers would understand his work. He had a blind faith that the workers would understand his revolutionary work, his ought end, as they interpreted the truth, it would become the dominant thought among workers throughout the world.

Engels Carries on The Work of Marx

And Marx's work by itself -- and this is the fullest proof of the scientific value, of the theoretical value, of the real value of a revolutionary doctrine -- the fact that it showed the way by itself, for when all the most advanced workers, the most progressive intellectuals, began to search through everything that had been written on socialism, they rejected all other socialist theories as lacking a sound basis, as lacking a scientific character, and adopted the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. After the death of Marx, Engels undertook to steer the thought... One must keep in mind that Engels was a great thinker, too, but that Engels sacrificed his own intellectual work, because Marx was so poor and lived in such misery and hunger and under such terrible conditions that he saw his children die of hunger, that Engels who knew Marx's genius better than anyone else stuck to working as a merchant simply so that Marx could write Capital, on which he had been working for twenty years. It was one of the most noble, most self-denying and most beautiful lives; and one of the most altruistic sacrifices ever made was the sacrifice Engels made for Marx.

This, aside from Marx's own life, his conduct, his spirit as a self-denying and exemplary father, the sacrifices he made, are sufficient in themselves to destroy one of the greatest hoaxes that the bourgeoisie, capitalism and imperialism have spread about. Marxism: that it is an enemy of the family, children, women. One has only to read the life of Marx to begin to realize the number of infamous and stupid lies they have written about him. The moment Marx discovered a great truth and that truth in turn began to influence events, all the writers of reaction and exploitation naturally began to write against Marx. Nevertheless, in spite of that, scientific socialism, Marxism, made headway and was to become the revolutionary theory of the labor movement.

To begin with, there was a labor movement and the labor movement was revolutionary and Marx clearly saw and understood that and, since he had uncovered the truth, the first to become Marxists, the first to adopt his theory were the workers, the labor movement throughout Europe, the most advanced groups, the most intelligent, until it really became the theory of the working class.

The Value of Lenin

But it wasn't enough that the European labor movement had a revolutionary theory; this theory needed interpretation and so there came a period when the influence of non-revolutionary thought, of bourgeois thinking and bourgeois ideology tried to distort Marx's thought. What is Lenin's great merit? Well, simply that he takes Marx's thought, defends it against all mystification, against all forms of revisionism, against all of the revisions and changes they wanted to make in the thinking of Marx. Armed only with theory, he forms a party, struggles within that party against all petit bourgeois currents, against all non-revolutionary currents, triumphs over these currents in the party and, with a revolutionary theory, seizes power. That is to say, he wins revolutionary power. What is Lenin's great merit? Lenin has the extraordinary merit of having made a thoroughgoing interpretation of Marx's thought, of having carried it into practice and having developed it under new circumstances, as is the case of a revolutionary party in power. That he developed an entire theory, thought of extraordinary depth, there is not the slightest doubt. That is Lenin's great historical merit as theoretician and leader.

The Building of Communism

Marxism is continuing to develop. Now, one has only to read Khrushchev's report to the 22nd Congress, which is a wholly political treatise, one that begins to confront an entirely new task, the building of communism. Marx did not say how to set up a socialist regime or society. Marx did not say how to build a socialist society. Marx interpreted the laws of history, made a correct interpretation, studied the nature of class society, developed a whole revolutionary theory by virtue of which he explained history through the development of means of production. He studied history through the systems of production which in turn develop relationships of production. These little words, I warn you, are quite hard to understand when one begins to study Marxism -- means of production, system of production, relationships of production -- but they can be explained perfectly through practical examples. He interprets history, for until then, history was a mass of interpretations.

Some gave a divine interpretation to history. They said: history develops in accordance with supernatural designs, in accord with the designs of God. Others said that men make history and that men who made history were individuals like Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon. There were racial theories of history, claiming that race was the determining factor of history. A series of anti-scientific theories. A series of absurd theories. Then Marx says: no, history is not made by the divinity, not made by races. History is a process of development, determined by the material conditions of production. In other words, man first hags to live, I'll explain this in simpler terms.

Man has to live. In order to live, he begins to struggle with nature. First stage of man: man the gatherer; the Stage of primitive communism. In the stage of primitive communism, land is common, property is common, means of production are absolutely rudimentary, corresponding to the stage in which man's means of production are most elemental; that is, in techniques for producing goods to satisfy his needs, man is really very poor. I am not going to give you a better lesson than Lionel, but I am going to explain things, not to you; I am going to explain things to the people.

Primitive Communism and Its Mode of Production

In the stage of primitive communism, there are neither exploiters nor exploited; property is held in common; and some social groups still live under primitive communism in some parts of the world. I have to laugh, because at times some comrades want to make such a great leap ahead as to land in primitive communism. Yet, it is fitting that we learn to appreciate this difference in order to distinguish between primitive communism and the communism the Soviet Union is planning for. What is the difference? Simply this, the fundamental, the big and outstanding difference is that the former was a communism of poverty, an elemental life of poverty and scarcity among men which corresponded to their means of production. The means of production, techniques of production, of cultivation, the first accumulations of capital develop. This further develops, as a consequence, the private appropriation of the means of production and of land, (domestic) animals, of farming tools. A new mode of production, new relations of production consequently arise as the means of production develop.

Private owners appear on the scene: private owners of livestock and farming. implements, of land, and also, as a means of production, of men themselves.

Slavery

The second social system (in the history) of man was the system of slavery, of slave labor; very simple, very rudimentary; more advanced, much more advanced, of course, than the techniques of labors in the stage of primitive communism. So, the system of slavery spread. This is the system that characterizes that whole epoch of mankind, of the history of Greece especially, of Rome. The whole Roman Empire developed with that social system as a base. Men were then divided into slaveowners, the masters... There were classes that had no political rights, but had certain civil rights; for example, in Rome, the plebians, as well as the slaves.

Everyone knows the history of the struggles of those classes to free themselves -- the history of the slaves and their uprisings so shake off the yoke of slavery. The slaves managed to rise up, and developed a great movement all over Italy, opposed to Roman power. They placed the power of Rome in jeopardy, founded cities, even organized a nation of slaves. In the long run, their revolution was smashed.

(We have) the movements of the plebians with the Gracchi, demanding their rights from the Roman patricians who had economic rights and political rights. Eventually, the system of slavery is superceded, replaced by a system which was a little more benign, but nonetheless still cruel and still a system of exploitation, coming into being as the Roman Empire fell apart: the system of feudalism..

Under feudalism individuals were not slaves, but were semi-slaves, dependent on the feudal lords, who owned the land. They worked part of the time on their own land, part on the lands of their masters, a situation that does not really differ much from that of some peasants today, who work on the land of their landlords and have to turn over half the crop to him, and, in addition, have to supply their own tools and seed.

And that medieval system corresponded to the Middle Ages, was based on the system of serfdom. Men were dependent on a few lords, on the land; when those holdings passed to the hands of other lords of the nobility or of the feudal aristocracy, the peasants changed hands with them. Again, this is not much different from what happens in some countries, like Peru, where latifundias are still sold with the Indians on them.

The Bourgeoisie

Now a new class emerges, but who? The manufacturers, the traders, the merchants make their appearance. Where do the traders and merchants set up shop? In the towns, in the villages. As a result, they begin to develop industry, trade. But this trade finds itself bound in shackles. What shackles? I don't see any shackles... What shackles do they find? They find all the shackles of feudalism. What were these, shackles? A whole array of taxes, complete insecurity. When merchandise leaves a town, goes from one village to another, from one medieval burg to another, they have to pay a whole series of tolls. You can imagine what happened with goods from the Near East, from those countries to Italy: spices, perfumes, gold, and things like that, that had to reach France and pass through a hundred feudal lords, a hundred practically different states that did have, it is true, some fealty, some weak bonds, in the first stage of feudalism, to the power of a king, of an absolute monarch.

This new social class coming to the fore, that is, the class of traders and merchants, very rudimentary, to be sure, begins to build up the economy, to accumulate wealth, and begins to clash with the existing relations of production. That is, the existing social relations, the superstructure -- so they call it technically in Lionel's classes -- the economic structure begins to conflict with the social superstructure. The economic structure of the emerging class comes up against all that framework that was a real hindrance to its growth. That social class then begins to fight for a whole series of rights. It undertakes a long struggle. The new class kept winning such rights in the various countries of Europe. In some cases, the movement culminated in a bloody revolution, in others in less bloody revolution, in still others in a transformation, but the indisputable fact is that the problem was the same in all countries. That is, this rising social class, the bourgeoisie -- and that is where the word "bourgeoisie" stems from -- appeared everywhere, in France, in Germany, in England, in Italy. It had no political rights, it represented different interests from the interests of the nobles and the aristocracy that ruled those countries. It began the struggle against the aristocracy, and then two social classes became locked in struggle: the nobility versus the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie came out on top, as it inevitably had to.

How did it triumph? In France, through a bloody and violent struggle. First, national states were set up, developing in a way parallel with the absolute monarchy, an absolute monarchy resting on a feudal basis, as in France. The bourgeoisie had to break with the existing social system, had to destroy all those feudal shackles. It is then that the French Revolution occurred, in the course of which, this social class, having burst through all the bonds of feudalism, developed, and a new social system was established. Under new conditions, that new system began to develop all the forces it was capable of developing: an extraordinary development of technique, of production, a significant step forward from the previous system.

The Proletariat

It triumphed in other countries as well, without overthrowing the monarchy; instead, converting the absolute monarchies into monarchies resting on a bourgeois base. In other words, it was all the same to the bourgeois whether there was a republic or a monarchy. What really mattered was to eliminate the existing feudal obstacles to the development of the new system, of the new social class, of the new productive forces. Then national states were set up, the ideal of that class, a vast market it could sell to.

I have been explaining all this pretty much in my own way, without the elegance of the teachers of the School of Instruction. These were the things that Marx discovered. He discovered that a new social class arises at the same time: the proletariat.

Where does the proletariat arise from? Precisely, from the development of all the means of production. Factories arise. Textile weavers gradually disappear from the scene (cotton industry) and are now concentrated in the workshops; new techniques of production lead to a steadily increasing concentration of the means of production into few hands. The workers begin to form associations and the new class begins to take form, centered, where? Around the factory. Marx discovers that all these factories would keep on developing, and that the process of concentration of property was going to continue, , that the small proprietors or small industrialists were going to be ruined, and that an increasingly powerful working class would develop.

But at the same time that this capitalist system has given rise to the bourgeoisie, it becomes transformed -- as happened to feudalism in its time. Feudalism became an obstacle to the development of society in its opposition to the emergent class. So capitalism, in turn, becomes an obstacle. What, then, are the characteristics of the capitalist mode of production? Waste in production, lack of planning, competition, squandering, failure to utilize all the technical resources mankind has developed to produce the goods that men need.

By that time in history there were already a number of socialist thinkers who were writing that "We must have socialism." But why should there be socialism? "Because I like it and it seems good to me, and all the workers would want it." Others gave different reasons and advanced a series of hypotheses.

Scientific Socialism

What is the historical merit of Marx? Marx writes something, a correct interpretation of what was going to happen, not simply because people wanted it, but because the very laws of historical evolution predetermined it. This is the great merit of Marx, the founder of scientific socialism which gives the working class a theory.

They interpreted the laws, studied the conditions at a given moment. Marx did not claim to be a fortune-teller. Once they asked him what it would be like once communism was established. He said that he had no crystal ball. He interpreted the laws, gave the labor movement a scientific theory. The theory was developed. The first revolutionary workers' movement came to power in the Soviet Union armed with that theory, the theory continued to develop, and the Soviet Union develops a long experience. What experience?

The experience of building the world's first socialist state.
One should bear in mind that this experience is of incalculable value for humanity. When they developed, initiated and carried out the building of the first socialist state, they were taking a path entirely new to humanity, just as they are today advancing along another entirely new road: the building of communist society.

This tells us one thing: simply, that Marxism is a living science, a developing science. We have to study everything that Marx taught, but at the same time we have to study everything that Lenin taught, we have to study the entire experience derived from the building of the first communist society.

There is a question: when the Bolshevik party of the Soviet Union started out to build the first socialist state, what was involved was simply giving reality to a political theory, a revolutionary theory. Humanity stands today before the reality that this theory has been put into practice. What are the results of the application of that theory? What is it that no one can argue against today? Only the imperialists still argue against the facts and I don't think they themselves are sure of their ground.

Socialism is no longer something new to mankind. Socialism is a reality for mankind. But this reality is contained in numbers, in the statistics of the Soviet Union, in the figures comparing the difference between the old Russia of 1913 and the Soviet Union of today. The development and growth of production, the radical change in all aspects of the life of the Soviet people, and what they are today, and the foundations for further development which the Soviet Union has available today. Even during the first five-year plans of the Soviet Union, they were experimenting, just starting to learn something about planning and acquiring experience. Today, they're working at the same program, but from the perspective of 20 years, with a great deal of experience and certainty. No one can doubt that they'll carry out the program they've outlined because the men carrying the job forward have an apprenticeship of forty years in managing the economy, in planning the economy, in building socialist society. And the figures already demonstrate unequivocally the victory of socialism over capitalism and over imperialism.

This means it takes much less merit to be a socialist today, to build a socialist society, than to have been a socialist when there was no socialist state anywhere in the world yet, and the experience of life and reality had not yet taught and had not submitted the implementation of that theory to proof.

The building of socialism follows a well-beaten path by now. This doesn't mean that conditions are exactly the same in all countries, that socialism has to be built in exactly the same way in every country or that we have to copy rigidly the way it was done. Certainly not! Every country has its own peculiarities, and each country has to tailor its program, and its methods, and tactics to its own peculiar features. That is what we have to do.

But there do exist some common experiences of immense value, just as in medicine, in astronomy, in physics, there are truths already proved by historical fact, and we have the advantage of being able to rely on all this experience and all these acquired techniques as we build a socialist society.

This is, of course, easy enough to say. In practice, however, the job is somewhat difficult.

Sacrifices by the USSR

There is an enormous gap between theory and practice. It is easy to say that the Soviets built a socialist society. Well, they had to build that socialist society, to build their society at the cost of immense and titanic sacrifices. They even made mistakes, they made many mistakes, at first. Lenin himself undertook to expose some of these basic errors.

Among other things, the workers' movement, the triumphant revolution in the Soviet Union, had to face a long series of interventions. Well, one of Lenin's great merits was to see clearly the moment when it was possible for the revolutionary movement to seize power. Many felt that this movement would not be able to stay in power. He thought it could, if it took advantage of the correlation of international forces brought about by the imperialist war, and made the demand of the people for peace, bread and land its foremost demand. And he thought that while the imperialist powers were still fighting, he would set up Soviet power and consolidate it. In effect, he was-banking on the supposition that he had a certain amount of time before the imperialist war came to a close.

The imperialist war ended and all the countries agreed to intervene in the Soviet Unions Consequently, the Soviets were confronted by unbelievable hardships. First, they had to face foreign intervention. They had to deal with a powerful bourgeoisie. They had to confront the whole aristocracy and the remnants of tsarist; they even had to face petit bourgeois movement at home. But finally they won their victory, naturally under the most difficult conditions. At last, they had in their hands power over an immense country, divided, thoroughly devastated, and worse yet, a backward country; a country left with such devastation after the civil war that discontent broke out one occasion among the peasants and among the workers of Moscow and Leningrad.

Lenin himself acknowledged that one of the most trying moments for Soviet power was when the peasants and workers themselves gave vent to their discontent stemming from the extremely precarious economic situation and devastation in the Soviet Union. This was the time of the New Economic Policy: a series of measures temporarily installed to save the situation.

For a long time, the Soviet Union had to go through a period of starvation, of privation, of sacrifice. And when, after twenty years !of building socialism, the Second World War broke out, the country was invaded and lost twenty million lives. One must remember that among those twenty million lives were the finest youth of the Soviet Union, the most self-sacrificing, the bravest -- who lost their lives in the underground or at the front lines. And imperialism again, with its factories intact, its economy intact, threatens with war. Moreover, all the capitalist countries, with their arms, their atomic weapons, faced a war-ravaged Soviet Union which, in addition, had to help rebuild countries that had also suffered under the Nazi boot. To do this, it had to invest its meager resources in the reconstruction of other countries in the socialist camp.

Advantages Over Capitalism

And, surmounting all those conditions, it reached the present stage. Nobody will dare challenge the extraordinary technical, cultural and scientific progress made by the Soviet Union. I feel that it would be an absurdity and folly only of the blind, not to see that in the scientific field, the Soviet Union has completely surpassed all capitalist countries. In the technical and educational sphere, it suffices to say, for example, that three times as many engineers are studying in the Soviet Union than in the United States. In housing, the Soviet Union is at present the world leader. It has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world. And the average life span is increasing at the fastest rate in the Soviet Union. All this holds true now at this stage and in the wake of all these vicissitudes.

In other words, one thing has been definitely proved: the reality of history has fully demonstrated, has confirmed the doctrine of Marxism and Leninism. Socialist construction promotes an incomparably greater progress in society than does capitalism. The United States is growing at an annual rate of 2.3 or 2.5 percent; the Soviet Union, at an annual rate of 10 or 11 percent. So that in twenty years' time the Soviet Union will have surpassed with something to spare, total United States production, and in per capita production, will have surpassed the United States at an even earlier date.

Can the United States win in that competition? Can they compete with the socialist countries? Not at all! They would have to give up capitalism to do it. They would have to give up private ownership of the means of production, private control of the circulation of finance capital, private ownership of land, and transportation. They would simply have to set up a socialist system. They would have to tell the American millionaires: "There'll be no more throwing money around." They would have to tell all the American millionaires: "No more underutilization of capital, no more unemployment; we'll use all the means of production achieved by technology here, all the factories that have been built, and we'll manage the economy of the country, we'll plan it, and plan its development, and we'll build the plants we don't have.!' The only way they will be able to compete with the Soviet Union is with a planned economy, with rational invest ment of the entire national income -- there is no other way.

In other words, the only way out for the United States is to cease being imperialist and capitalist and become socialist. This is the truth. To understand this now, at a time when we have the opportunity to read, to study and to appreciate all these facts is of no particular merit. The absurd thing about it is that people should be so fenced in by a curtain of lies and prejudices that they are unaware of things that are basic historical truths.

It is fairly easy and quite simple for our people to understand these things today. All the more so, since the capitalist system of production has reached its highest stage, the phase of imperialism, of colonialism, of exploitation of all peoples, creating starvation and misery. Where do colonial wars take place today? In the Portuguese and French colonies. Where do we see discrimination, persecution, hunger, poverty, cultural backwardness, all this? In the colonies, in colonized countries, in countries exploited by imperialism.

Revolution at the Crossroads

Imperialism today is also the cause of starvation, of poverty, of underdevelopment of all the people. Imperialism makes it necessary to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on armaments every year.

Who alone is not interested in disarmament? Imperialism. If the manufacture of armaments were to be stopped in the United States, the immediate result would be that instead of four million unemployed, there would be perhaps ten or fifteen million unemployed.

They have been trying to resolve their problems through wars and arms races because, on the one hand, they can maintain a certain level of employment that way; on the other hand, they can keep the people in a state of hysteria -- more readily manipulated in the direction they want to take them.

Anyone who honestly analyzes the state of affairs in the world will find that it is the imperialists, the capitalists, who subject the world to the worst poverty, the worst backwardness, and they they are simply the scourge of mankind. It is enough for our people to study what is happening around the world to become even more an enemy of imperialism, an enemy of capitalism, simply because of its world policy of exploitation and extortion, its policy of war.

We didn't have to look around the world to find out what was going on, it was enough to see what was happening right here, in a nutshell. I have dwelt at some length on this topic to draw the following-conclusions. When the Revolution came to power, there were two roads for it to follow: to stay within the framework of the existing social order or to go forward; to remain within the capitalist system, within the imperialist orbit, within the criminal policy of imperialism in the Western Hemisphere, in Asia, in Africa, within the same policy which embraces a Franco in Spain, an Adenauer, a Chiang Kai-Shek, which embraces all the military dictatorships, all the French colonialists in Algeria; or to place our country where it rightfully belongs, that is, on the side of, the exploited peoples, on the side of the oppressed peoples, on the side of the colonized peoples.

Our nation, seeing things clearly, could never have accepted a place alongside France against the Algerians, at the side of Franco against the Spanish people, at the side of Chiang Kai-Shek against the great Chinese people, at the side of the imperialists against the South Vietnamese who are fighting there for their independence, at the side of Portugal against the Angolans, at the side of Romulo Betancourt against the Communist Party and against the MIR Movement of Venezuela (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, or Movement of the Revolutionary Left), an independent revolutionary leftist mass movement in Venezuela ), at the side of the Somozas, at the side of any of those regimes. For despite the fact that the propaganda of _imperialism pretends there are differences, the great truth is that the policy of imperialism was exactly the same in Spain and in Nicaragua as in Cuba -- in Cuba under Frio; in Venezuela, the same as under Perez Jimenez as under Betancourt; in Peru, the same under Odria as under Prado..

Viewing the march of world history, viewing the great efforts all people are making to free themselves from starvation, poverty, exploitation, colonialism, discrimination, such as the struggle the peoples of Asia, of Africa, of Latin America are waging, we could never in all conscience be on the side of imperialism. It is possible that some people stuffed with the. Reader's Digest, Yankee films, Life magazine, the UPI and AP news services which have told so many lies, may be led to believe that the policy of the United States was a correct, noble, and humanitarian policy, as they try to make out.

What thinking person today, what reasonable person today, what person who sees what is going on all over the world today, can honestly be on the side of the imperialist policies?

It was logical that our nation, not just from the point of view of national values and national feelings, but from the point of view of the universal interests of mankind as well, could never be on the side of those policies, but instead on the side of the policy it supports today, defending the rights of all peoples everywhere. It is possible that some people see this more clearly than they see their own economic problems.

There Are No Middle Roads

For anyone who does not see that our country had to choose between two policies: either the policy of capitalism, the policy of imperialism, or the anti-imperialist policy, the policy of socialism, we must point out that there are no middle roads between capitalism and socialism. Those who persist in thinking they can find some third positions have fallen into a really false and really utopian position. This would be equivalent to blindfolding oneself, it would mean becoming an accomplice of imperialism. It is perfectly understandable that anyone who remains indifferent to the struggle of the Algerians is an accomplice of French imperialism. Whoever remains indifferent to Yankee intervention in Santo Domingo is an accomplice of that Yankee intervention in Santo Domingo. Whoever remains aloof from the persecution unleashed by the traitor Romulo Betancourt against the workers and students of Venezuela, those same workers and students of Venezuela who are defending us, is an accomplice of that oppression. Whoever remains indifferent to Franco in Spain, to German rearmament, to the German warmongers, the Nazi officers who are today rearmed and even demanding thermonuclear weapons; whoever remains indifferent to what is happening in South Vietnam, to what is happening in the Congo, to what is happening in Angola, whoever remains indifferent and seeks to adopt some third position in the face of those facts, is not really adopting a third position, but is adopting a position of virtual complicity with imperialism.

There are some who believe, who presume themselves to be sharp thinkers, when they insist that what the Cuban Revolution should have done was to take money from the Americans and to take money from the Russians as well.

That is to say, there is no lack of people who preach such a repulsive, such a cowardly, such a cheap and vile political line. What they're saying is: sell yourself, sell the country as if it were just any piece of merchandise to the imperialists. Take handouts from imperialism while scaring them with the threat of friendship with the Soviet Union; in other words, be a blackmailer. There were those here who peddled the line of blackmail.

Ah, but how to blackmail? How would they carry out that line of blackmail? There was no room for such blackmail. To have done this would have meant to remain in the status quo prevailing in the country, to respect all the interests of imperialism here: all their thousands of acres, all their sugar mills, their electrical monopoly, their telephone company, their control of our foreign and domestic trade, of our banks. On the other hand, any country that decided to free itself from the monopoly grip of North American business, that decided to carry out agrarian reform, that decided to run its own industries, to carry on an independent policy, would have to take an anti-imperialist position.

Treason or Revolution

In other words, either the Revolution was not revolution or there had to be a betrayal. The Revolution had to choose between both these terms: betrayal or revolution.

And we who remember the men who have died for this Revolution, who remember our fallen comrades, as any revolutionary remembers those who fell, from Guiteras, from Martinez Villena -- although Martinez Villena actually did not die murdered, but died as a result of the disaster of that fight -- of Melia, all those revolutionaries. They who thought not of the revolutionaries of today, they who thought of Marti, Marti who also had a brilliant vision.

What is the merit of Marti, what makes us admire Marti? Was Marti a Marxist-Leninist? No, Marti was not a Marxist-Leninist. Marti said of Marx that since he placed himself on the side 01 the poor, he had all his sympathies.

Because the Revolution of Cuba was a revolution of national liberation against Spanish colonial power; it was not a revolution that was a social struggle; it was a struggle for national independence first. And even at that time, at that time Marti said of Marx: "Since he placed himself on the side of the poor, he deserves my respect."

And what other vision did Marti have? An equally brilliant vision in the year 1895. He had the vision of North American imperialism when North American imperialism had not yet begun to be imperialism. That's what you call having long-range political vision.

North American imperialism began to develop vigorously from the time of the intervention in Cuba, during which it practically seized the wealth of the country, seized Puerto Rico, seized the Philippines and launched the imperialist stage of North American capitalism. Marti foresaw in 1895 the development of the United States as an imperialist power. And he wrote and alerted the people against it; and spoke out against it. See how brilliant a revolutionary Marti really was to grasp the development of imperialism in 1895, when it had not yet begun to manifest itself as a world force.

And then one must think of all those who fell, all who died, all who fought. What did they fight for? So that the Electric Power Company would keep on being a Yankee company? So that the 18,000 caballerias (600,000 acres) of Atlantic Gulf would keep on being 18,000 foreign-owned cabalieries?,So that our peasants would keep on being landless, in hunger and misery? So that the banks would continue being foreign properties? So that our country would again be drained of hundreds of millions of dollars every year? So that there would continue to be a million illiterates in our country? So that the peasants would remain without schools, without hospitals, without homes, living in shacks and in slums? So that our people, fifty years after it had supposedly won independence, would continue under those conditions?

No Sacrifice in Vain

Of course, I am not talking here to the revolutionaries, and it is possible that it is unnecessary to talk to the revolutionaries about this. It is the insensitive, the indifferent, the confused who have to be spoken to, those who do not understand why this and why that.

Did all those people die so that the big landowners could continue to be the masters of thousands of caballerias of land? No. Anybody understands that this could not be; that the leaders of the Revolution would have been traitors, had they made a Revolution, led so many young men into combat and into war, sacrificed so many lives for that. So little glory would not have been worth the life of a single Cuban! For so little glory it would not have been worthwhile to raise one weapon. To raise a weapon, to fight, to struggle, to suffer what our country suffered, had to be for something much more than all that.

And some people tried to say that all were dying just so that this system of exploitation could go on, so that a thousand families could go on living like princes in our capitals and in our cities, so that this system of exploitation, of starvation, of poverty, of discrimination, of social abuses, could continue. Some tried to say that. They seemed to believe that the Revolution would do nothing to change that. There were some who, at the last minute, even bought up some bonds and did a few little things, with that in mind. How mistaken they were: How mistaken they were who thought that certain achievements our country had made and had aimed at from as far back as the war of 1895 were going to remain unfulfilled and that things would continue in the same old way.

It is obvious that this honest line, this revolutionary line, this line which marches in step with history, in harmony with the feelings and interests of underdeveloped and exploited peoples everywhere in accord with national interests and national honor, is not an easy policy to pursue. It necessarily had to be a policy of sacrifices, since, if we wanted to redeem our people from illiteracy and a low cultural level, from unemployment, from hunger and poverty, if we really wanted to develop our economy, to manage our own economy, an independent economy, and along with an independent economy, an independent policy that would wipe out unemployment and illiteracy, poverty and backwardness, misery and ignorance, sickness, and the unhappy situation in which most of our people were living, we had no other choice than to pursue a consistently revolutionary line. Had we not done so, we would not have been able to do what we have done. To do it meant that we had to brave imperialism with all its power. That is what we have done.

The Anti-Imperialist Struggle

Of course, we, leaders of the Revolution, are revolutionaries; were we not revolutionists, we would not be here making a revolution. What I mean by this is simply that the revolutionists and the people together with the revolutionists, in other words, the great exploited mass of the people, is ready to make the necessary sacrifices and pay the necessary price for all this.

A "pancista" (person concerned only with his "panza" or potbelly), one who is indifferent, one who is insensitive, one who is corrupt, would say: "It's best not to look for trouble; it's best to leave all those foreign interests alone." They could have said this, and they did.

We had to choose between remaining under the domination, under the exploitation and, furthermore, the insolence of imperialism, to go on putting up with Yankee ambassadors giving the orders here, keeping our country in the state of poverty it was in, or making an anti-imperialist revolution, making a socialist revolution.

There was no alternative. We chose the only honorable road, the only loyal road that we could follow for our country, and in keeping with the tradition of our revolutionary forefathers, in keeping with the tradition of all those who fought for the good of our country. That is the path we have followed: the path of anti-imperialist struggle, the path of the socialist Revolution. Moreover, there was no room for any other position. Any other position would have been a false position, an absurd position. We will never adopt such a position, nor will we ever waver. Never!

Imperialism should know well that, for all time, we will never have anything to do with it. And imperialism must know that however great our difficulties, however hard our struggle to build our country, to build the future of our country, to write a history worthy of our country, imperialism must not harbor the slightest hope so' far as we are concerned.

Many who did not understand these things before understand them today. And they will understand them more and more. For all of us, these things become ever clearer, more evident, and more Indisputable.

There Is Only One Revolution

This is the path that the Revolution had to follow: the path of anti-imperialism and the path of socialism, that is, the path of nationalization of all the big industries, nationalization of big business, nationalization and social ownership of the basic means of production; a path of planned development of our economy at a pace that our resources permit, and that the aid we are receiving from abroad permits. Another truly favorable thing for our Revolution has been the fact that we have been able to count on the aid and solidarity which have enabled us to carry our Revolution forward without the enormous sacrifices that other peoples have had to make.

The Revolution had to be anti-imperialist and socialist. Good. There could have been only one anti-imperialist and socialist Revolution, because there is but one revolution. And that is the great dialectical truth of mankind: imperialism, and imperialism versus socialism. The result of this: the victory of socialism, the triumph of the epoch of socialism, the overcoming of the stage of capitalism and imperialism, the establishment of the era of social ism, and later on the era of communism.

No one need be scared by that; here won't be any communism -- I'm saying this for any anti-communists left out there -- there won't be any communism for at least thirty years.

Just so even our enemies will get to understand what Marxism is. In a nutshell, simply, remember that you just cannot skip over an entire historical stage. Perhaps, today, some underdeveloped countries can skip over the stage of building capitalism, that is, they can start developing the economy of a country through planning and along the path of socialism, but they cannot skip over the stage of socialism. The Soviet Union, itself, after forty years, is just beginning to build communism and hopes to have made considerable progress in this area at the end of twenty years. Thus, we are in a stage of the building of socialism.

I Am a Marxist-Leninist

What is the socialism we have to apply here? Utopian socialism? We simply have to apply scientific socialism. That is why I began by saying with complete frankness that we believe in Marxism, that we believe it is the most correct, the most scientific theory, the only truly revolutionary theory. I say that here with complete satisfaction (applaud) and with complete confidence: I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I shall be a Marxist-Leninist to the end of my life. (prolonged applause).

And what kind of a Marxist-Leninist am I? Am I a halfway one? We revolutionaries don't know how to be anything halfway. We only know how to be 100 percent something. And to that we shall dedicate our efforts, our energies, our entire selves. Moreover, it is a great satisfaction to have been illiterate at the age of eighteen and to feel revolutionary as I do now at thirty odd years -- I think the "odd years" run to thirty-six (laughter and applause). I've learned a thing or two in eighteen years, and still have a lot to learn! And that is what we are telling the people, with complete candor, with complete loyalty, with all clarity, as I have always spoken to the people, always with complete frankness.

Did I have prejudices? I believe it is good to talk about that. Did I have prejudices about the communists? Yes. Was I ever influenced by imperialist and reactionary propaganda against the communists? Yes. What did I think about the communists? Did I think they were thieves? No, never; I always regarded the communists -at the university and elsewhere -- as honorable and honest people and all that... But, well, that is no special merit, because almost everyone recognizes these qualities in them. Did I have the idea they were sectarian? Yes. Why did I have such opinions about the communists? Simply, I am absolutely convinced that the ideas I had about the communists -- not about Marxism, nor about the Communist Party -- like the ideas many people have .were the product of the propaganda and prejudices instilled in us since childhood, practically from school age, in the university, in the movies anal everywhere else. I should say so. Do I believe they could make mistakes? Yes, I believe they can make mistakes. Marx, Engels and Lenin could make mistakes, and they themselves were the first to admit that they could be wrong, that they could err, because they did not think themselves infallible.

The Merit in Being Communist

My opinion of the members of the Communist Party, the opinion they really deserve? I believe that as they were unknown for a long time and were excluded and attacked and kept on the sidelines and, whenever a committee was formed, they were left out and were left out because they were regarded as "pests" and none of their statements were printed in the newspapers, we must also recognize that it was a great merit, a very great merit to be a communist. Not today... No, today we are going to see to it that is is a merit. Of course, we are going to see that it is a merits!

It had to be a great merit to have been a communist in those days when, as Felix Torres told me, he was taken out of Santa Clara jail and was forced to walk to Yaguajay. On foot to Yaguajay And so on, along those lines, they made innumerable sacrifices and (suffered) tribulations. It is a merit to have been a communist when they were persecuted, when all doors were shut to them, all printing presses, all newspapers, all opportunities. This we have to say.

Far more merit, of course, than being one today. Today, conditions are different. I have, therefore, said that we have to strive so that socialists, Marxists, are really Marxists, in the true sense of the word, ready for all contingencies.

But, in short, I meant this: that I had prejudices against the Socialist Party, prejudices stemming fundamentally from the campaigns. I admit it with the honesty one ought to have when admitting such things. I am not going to ask anything at all of the socialists. I say this now that we are perfectly integrated -- comrades all, socialists all.

On certain occasions, on certain occasions early in the revolutionary process, there was some friction between us, probably due to different conceptions of certain things, but, basically, because we did not discuss matters.

I must also say that there were people here who fell victim to the intrigue of the early days, when, every time something happened, it was said that there were a group of communists stirring up trouble, provoking a riot. I must say that at one time I even believed that it was the communists who had provoked a riot at a certain place, when a group of people with sticks attacked a citizen there. I was led to believe it, I must admit it here. And later I discovered that it wasn't the communists who had staged the riot, but divislonist elements who had armed that whole mob with sticks to beat up some citizens.

Unity Follows Discussion

In any case, in the first stages, there was a clash between two things, in reality between prejudices and a series of things: There was a "communist" behind everything. The employment of a communist had to be almost a secret. Right off the bat, the UPI, the AP and all the North American newspapermen would be on the spot digging up ten, a dozen, fifteen or so "communists." It was strange, back in those days, they were already starting to call all the comrades communists, and there was a group of comrades who were not members of the Communist Party, but members of the July 26th Movement. Then

they were pointing the finger at them, dragging some story of previous communist activities before the public. They started with that campaign, a campaign which even found an echo in some, more or less numerous, in all areas influenced by anti-communist and imperialist propaganda. Fortunately, due to the efforts of everyone, we got through those stages.

I believe that one of the errors of those first days was the lack of any major exchange of views between the different organizations. Each of us was acting more or less on our own account. It was the revolutionary struggle itself which brought us more and more into contact, more and more into common discussion, more and more into an exchange of views, and steadily promoted our unification.

I must tell you about a terrible experience we had. Some day when the history of this stage is written down and something is said of merit of this Revolution, they might well say that we were making a socialist Revolution without socialists, because at that time anticommunist prejudice was so strong that whenever a communist functionary was appointed to a job no matter how modest, there'd be a wave of protest, followed by a squabble and a train of intrigues. Our measures were socialist measures: a people's farm, a cooperative, an industry nationalized, all these are socialist institutions. We had good comrades, honored comrades of the July 26th Revolutionary Movement; but there weren't enough of them for those tasks. Certainly, there aren't enough men now! How were we going to manage with the jobs and tasks piling up on us at the time? Carrying out a socialist revolution without socialists was one of the most difficult jobs. When the process of uniting the revolutionary forces and the revolutionary organizations began, when anti-communism began to be routed and destroyed, we reached the stage in which it was easier for a number of members of the Socialist Party to fulfill various functions without all that intrigue and all that divisiveness.

A Marxist-Leninist Program

Now, what does this union mean? What is the significance of the moment when all revolutionary organizations unite? What it means, among other things, is hundreds, thousands of cadres, thousands of cadres! of tested people, of people who had gone through sacrifices, through hard trials, through difficult trials, who had a political education. And this reminds me of the times people came and said: "When are we going to carry our the July 2bth program?" And I said: "What 26th of July program are we going to carry out unless it is a Marxist-Leninist program? Why should we carry out two Marxist-Leninist programs?" This is the reality. Anything else would mean building castles in the skies.

So then, unification meant the participation of thousands of cadres, all indispensable, basic and essential to the building of socialism. It meant the participation of all the cadres of the Revolutionary Directorate. The Revolutionary Directorate didn't have as many experienced cadres as had the Socialist Party. Yet there were people who said: No, they want to seize this, they want to seize that!" One must be completely ignorant of what a revolutionary really is, to think that a revolutionary just wants to grab a position. What we know about all revolutionaries is that they all share in the work now, and that there is so much work that there are not enough people to handle it all. So much work that some comrades, if they are in the army, would rather go to military school, and if they are civil servants, they prefer to go to a School of Revolutionary Instruction, as a vacation. In other words, some revolutionaries find studying easier than the work they have to do.

All of the Members of the Revolutionary Organizations

Today the Revolution can count on all the cadres of all the revolutionary organizations. A very important contribution of the Socialist Party has been the cadres of old members, educated in Socialism, educated by the Socialist Party; the contribution of the Directorate is its youthful cadres; the contribution the 26th of July Movement could not consist of politically educated members with long years of experience, but of many young and enthusiastic people, revolutionary by choice, with all of the experience they acquired in the struggle to attain power. In other words, we have all made our contribution in one way or another and have represented the basic forces.

Formation of the ORI

These forces were called upon to unite in a single organization, and we organized the CORI. It was not easy, it was also a lengthy process; but, in the end, we organized the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations.

Sectarian attitudes are gradually disappearing; so are the attitudes of exclusivism. In the same way, people are no longer being excluded because they are socialists, and, consequently, sectarianism and similar attitudes are disappearing. Some attitudes of extremism are also disappearing. Extremism, which is often called "the measles," should, of course, not be confused with revolutionary firmness. Extremism is another manifestation of the petit bourgeois spirit in the revolutionary movement which we must fight against just as we have to fight against sectarianism.

There are many things our people have already had time to learn. They have had time to get rid of some of the prejudices that many people had who depicted socialism as something terrible something inhuman, something harsh, something enslaving, which is exactly all that imperialism is and which it accuses socialism of being.

Well, we are in a socialist regime. How different is this socialist regime from everything that had been said about socialism So much so that even those who have had problems, like the reactionary clergy, who have had problems with the Revolution, can't blame the socialists for them, can't say the socialists tried to close the churches, prohibit and persecute religious ideas. On the contrary, Aware that religious sentiment is a part of the feelings of some people, revolutionary power must respect the religious sentiment of that part of the people. It does respect it, and gives it every facility. It was those who waged war on the revolutionary regime who said that they would be deprived of parental authority over their children. And the people have learned the truth. Who were they who took away parental rights? Saboteurs who murdered young men and women, counter-revolutionary criminals who murdered a 16-year-old teacher and deprive his mother forever of parental rights, of affection, of warmth and the hope of having her son at home again.

Not only did they murder him; they tortured him. Why did they torture him? Did they torture him, as the Batista secret police used to do, to force a secret from a revolutionary? No, they did not torture him to get any secrets out of him. They tortured him because they were sadists, because of their love of torture, because that boy was there teaching. What secret could he have had? Thus, it was not to squeeze out any. secrets. They stabbed him fourteen times. They stabbed him simply to torture him, to fill him with anguish, to make him suffer, to sow terror in the hearts of all mothers. We found out that what robbed people of their parental rights was exploitative - capitalism, which dragged peasant girls away from the countryside to put them to work as servants, to force them into a life of prostitution. We found out that it was capitalism that condemned the daughters of workers and the daughters of peasants to that fate. And it turns out to be precisely socialism that wipes out illiteracy, that educates a million Cubans, that makes plans to rehabilitate prostitutes, to teach typing and shorthand to domestics, to wipe out unemployment , to bring teachers to the remotest corner of the country, to fight and die defending the country from the claws of imperialism, to bring hospitals, to bring roads, to organize social activities, to organize children's activities, to organize youth activities, to develop culture and to struggle for the happiness of the people. That is what we have given our people.

Socialism behaves very generously toward its enemies -- too generously. The social system which captured over a thousand mercenary traitors -- paid by and serving the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, and who came here escorted by foreign ships -- the system that captured 500 counter-revolutionaries -- among whom were many murderers who had already committed blatant crimes against the peasants -- without even applying the maximum penalty on them, the social system that sees with anguish its calm and generous attitude repaid by the cowardly and vile murder of a 16-year-old youth -- that is socialism.

In other words, with all its power, socialism does not abuse it. It is calm. It is conscientious. It struggles to overcome all its defects. It struggles to overcome-extremism, sectarianism, abuses, injustices, simply because it is socialism, simply because it is what Marx and Engels conceived of, what Lenin and all the revolutionaries fought for -- a better life for man, a happier life for the people, a freer life for the people, that replaces the regime of class oppression, the regime of an exploiting class over the workers, with a workers' democracy. In Marxist terms, this is known as the "dictatorship of the proletariat". (applause).

But though it is called "dictatorship of the proletariat," it does not mean torture, murder, crime. Certainly not! Those are characteristics of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie -- which, indeed, means torture, murder, dipping into the public till, injustice and arbitrariness. Proletarian government means simply that the working class seizes power to develop a historic cycle, and that it exercises this power over other classes, against which it has to struggle during the entire stage of the building of socialism. What better proof of the hatred of a class displaced from power than the murder of a boy in Trinidad. Could hatred and sadism be expressed any clearer? That is, simply, a manifestation of the class struggle, the struggle of the classes thrown out of power to regain their class control. That's why they develop such hatred, a hatred which, as Marti put it, is born "drooling from the entrails of the man." That description fits this case better than any other because only a mouth-frothing hatred born from the entrails of the exploiting classes could engender a crime like the crime they perpetrated against that boy.

This rule by the working class, the dictatorship of the working class, does not mean torture, or social crimes, or arbitrariness because socialism is opposed to all that. None of those things has anything to do wit -socialism. Socialism struggles against all injustice and rectifies all injustice. It struggles against all arbitrariness and rectifies all arbitrariness. It struggles against crime and-will never tolerate crime, never tolerate torture, never tolerate cowardice, never tolerate any baseness. Of course, it's no bed of roses. The enemies of the working class, the enemies of the peasantry, the enemies of the students, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of national independence won't find the struggle a bed of roses either. These enemies will get a reply from the strong hand of the Revolution, the strong hand of the proletariat, the strong hand of the people.

This means they are not going to waltz through here; for the things that were the cause of the law which the Revolution approved -- and which it had to approve because of their behavior, for despite all the care the Revolution takes and all the effort it makes not to commit excesses, to use its power with discretion, to be generous and to keep on stressing generosity, it has been rewarded with crimes and acts as cowardly and barbarous as this (murder of a teacher) -- have taught the people to be harsh toward the enemy. We are not inhumane, and none of us can ever take pleasure in anything that involves bloodshed, that involves shooting. No, none of us likes that. None of us are cruel, but we are aware, however, we are very much aware that the enemies of the Revolution should be treated with the harshness they deserve. That in this struggle they are not going to find a proletariat that murders, tortures; but they are going to find a proletariat that is firm, hard, and will give them the punishment they deserve. This law was not made just to be proclaimed but to be carried out.

The Revolution Has Cadres

The very intensity of the struggle between the interests of the exploited classes and those of the exploiting classes compelled us to take this decision and to adopt these measures, all absolutely necessary. The Revolution has strength enough for this -- strength that comes from the union of all revolutionary social forces, from the integration of all those forces, from the union of all the revolutionary cadres, from the formation of a powerful revolutionary armed force. From all the apparatuses of the masses which the Revolution has created -- like the unions, youth organizations, peasant organizations, student organizations, Committees for the Defense-of the Revolution and women's organizations -- from these organizations the Revolution gets its cadres, gets its mass support, gets strength and the power to apply the necessary measures against its enemies. And let us repeat: We take no pleasure in being harsh out of pure fancy, in being harsh for pleasure, but we revolutionaries know how to be harsh when we have to, and we will be as harsh as necessary with the enemies of the Revolution.

I believe that this background explains the reason for the integration of the revolutionary forces and the creation of the ORI, the reason for the socialist course of the Revolution. But they are going to throw the blame for the socialist Revolution on Carlos Rafael. A Marxist would never blame Carlos Rafael for the socialist-revolution. Of course, it is logical that the non-Marxists, the utopians, the lunatics - because they are lunatics - should throw the blame on the Popular Socialist Party, on the socialist leaders. That is simply the result of their lack of political education, of revolutionary instruction. Rather, we have all contributed to this unity We feel satisfied to have contributed to this unity and we are striving to organize and create a strong, disciplined and firm vanguard political organization of the working class and of the Cuban Revolution.

A Party of Selected Members

How are we trying to do this? Do we do it like the traditional parties, by inviting everyone, opening the doors equally to everyone to join the party? No.

What did the bourgeois parties do when they were in power? They opened the doors wide, invited everyone in and suddenly, any party that came to power immediately had a million followers.

When we were novices and knew nothing about politics, the newspapers we read used to say: "As proof of what the Soviet Union is, the Communist Party has no more than five million members out of a population of two hundred million. To capitalism and imperialism this proved that it was a tiny minority! Of course, they wanted to make us look at a revolutionary Marxist party through the same prism they use on a bourgeois party. With a bourgeois party, the more people, the bigger the show. The bourgeois party has no ideology. It defends the class interests of a bunch of politicians, a conglomeration of individuals. The more people it has, well, the more the patronage, the bigger the shows. They are not at all concerned about what their party members think. So they try very carefully to hide the fact that a revolutionary Marxist party is a vanguard party, a party of leadership and a party of selected people, that if the Soviet Union had opened up recruiting centers, well, there would have been tens of millions of members; that a party of leadership directs and works through mass organizations; that mass organizations are the instruments of leadership and revolutionary work and form the basis of revolutionary work. A revolutionary party is a selective party which leads. It leads and works basically through its mass organizations, through labor unions, youth organizations, women's federations, defense committees (which, in this case, is an invention of the Cuban Revolution and is also a fantastic mass organization) peasant associations, cooperatives and the farms which are now in the unions. In other words, it leads and guides through all of these mass organizations.

Therefore, the standard that the political organization of the Cuban Revolution will have to follow will be, above all, the standard of selection and quality. It will not be a quantitative organization; it will be a qualitative organization.

It Is Better to be Selective

We must say that as this is a product of the union of different revolutionary organizations, it is logical that in this initial stage the standard shouldn't be applied too rigidly, since one of the steps, in the plan to organize this force -- the integration of this revolutionary force -- is to train revolutionary cadres. That is, in this initial stage of unification, we cannot logically set as strict requirements as they will have to be in the future, because all the comrades and cadres of the separate organizations have to be integrated into one organization and many of them are engaged in study and training.

This organization will be restricted in membership. It will not be small in number; it will be large, but not too large numerically, because we are going to be very demanding in our requirements for membership in the political organization of the Revolution. Furthermore, as we face greater demands, more conditions and more requirements will be laid down for membership in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution. We will establish a strict standard of selec for it is better to be selective before admitting, than to expel after admitting.

Because, moreover, the enthusiasm of the masses, the revolution spirit of the masses is so great, we know that a party which Lakes shape, develops, and grows strong under these conditions has he advantage of being able to recruit the best elements, the most 'positive elements from among the masses, and make them members of .hat organization. It is fundamental that precisely the best of the people, the best of the mass organizations should get the honor and it the same time, fulfill the honored role of membership in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

And the more this is so, the more every worker, every peasant, every intellectual, every citizen will appreciate it. It is necessary to point out that any citizen can become a member of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution, whether he is a worker or not. In other words, the doors are open to any true revolutionary who identifies with the Revolution and is willing to follow the standards set and to accept fully and with conviction the program of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Good. In the first place, the standard of selection will become stricter and stricter, precisely because we want the best people represented in that apparatus, which is a vanguard organization, the leadership of the Revolution.

Naturally, other comrades will talk here about certain organizational problems. We want to say a few important things: All members of the separate revolutionary organizations will have equal rights and privileges in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution. This means that there will be no special privilege for having been a member of the Socialist Party for twenty years and it means no discrimination for having been a member of the 26th of July Movement or of the Revolutionary Directorate. Everyone comes in with Absolutely equal rights! We especially have to avoid extremes and mistakes. On the one hand, we must prevent those who say "I have thirty years", or "I have twenty years", from resting on their laurels of these twenty years and believing that their revolutionary background is sufficient. On the other hand, being a new member doesn't give one the right to believe that he doesn't have to know everything he should know about the questions of socialism and the questions of revolutionary theory nor to feel that he is not obliged to follow all our standards with discipline.

The Merit of the Future

That is, we must now have...make an effort to create a fuller and deeper unity on the basis of one thing alone which is what we should all take as a basis. In the early days, there were people who used to say: "I was in the Sierra." And they drove people crazy with this "I was in the Sierra." And there were also people who had been nothing in the Sierra. There are also people now who say: "I have been a communist for fifteen years" when there has been nothing communist about them in all their lives. We definitely have to eradicate from the vocabulary and the attitudes of a true revolutionary such things as: "I have been a communist for fifteen years."

Neither the "I was a communist" nor the "I threw bombs" nor the "I was in the Sierra" has any, reason to show off.

Whatever the merits each of us may have, comrades, there is still a greater merit and that is the merit in what lies ahead. It would have been correct to say to a militiaman: "You are a boaster." What rumor, what line did the reaction try to put across? To divide the militiaman from the rebel soldier, to create animosity between them?" Some people even let themselves be carried away by that false sentiment and some let themselves be carried away by the opinion of a militiaman who had done nothing. On that basis, what should we think about the hundred militiamen who fell alongside the soldiers and the revolutionary police! What should we think when we see today the photograph of a young worker who died fighting at Giron Beach, who gave his life, who left his wife a widow, who left his children orphans! Wouldn't everyone really feel ashamed to have thrown up in someone's face that, at one time, he was a militiaman, that he was not in the Sierra? Wasn't Giron Beach a historical battle too, as glorious as any other battle, a battle that will go down in history as the great victory of the revolutionary Cuban people against Yankee imperialism? Who fell and died there? Don't we have to take off our hats today in respect for the heroes who fell there, though they may not have been in the Sierra, though they may not have been communists for fifteen years, though they may not have thrown a single bomb? So, what is the greatest merit?

In the long run, everything that has been done is done and over with. All those who have died and all those who have fallen would have done so in vain, if we don't learn how to carry the work of the Revolution forward. And so the merit is in what is not yet, in what is to come. Who knows what struggles lie ahead of us? Who could have told that sixteen-year-old boy, whose picture we saw recently as an eleven-year-old among children seated at desks, that today he was going to be a great hero of our fatherland, a symbol of the nation, a symbol of the culture of Cuba and America? Who would have had a right to look scornfully at that sixteen-year-old boy who was teaching people how to read and write, and not have to bow their heads in respect to his name and his memory?

Who knows what battles we'll have to fight, what struggles lie ahead? Why should we believe that there is merit only in what is behind us? Why don't we believe that there is some merit in what we will have to do together from now on. I wish we had been able to do it together from the very beginning. I wish we could always have done it together, like the Bolsheviks who carried out the revolution in 1917.

There Will Be No Special Privileges

Let us be enthusiastic about the tasks before us. Let us approach them with honor, starting with the honor we have spoken about here today, with what I have said here with all honor and with all candor, because the first thing a revolutionary must be is honorable and frank -- in the history we must all write together, in the history the OBI must write, and in the history the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba must write.

In that history, and that struggle, and in the task before us, we must be enthusiastic. Who belongs in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution? Everybody. Every honorable Cuban, every revolutionary Cuban does. Does anyone have special privileges? No, no one. Is there any favoritism here? No, none. For the first time in our fatherland there exists a revolutionary power in which neither influence, nor patronage, nor nepotism, nor favoritism count, but in which merit alone is indispensable. And what a beautiful thing it is that today our country has such an opportunity.

What, before anything else, will the United Party of the Socialist Revolution be? It will be a school for revolutionaries. It will be a party where one learns to be revolutionary. That is why such special emphasis has been put on the school. The party, as such, is still not officially established. It has not had its first congress yet; but it will have one. When? There's no rush, but it'll have it. But the important thing is that extraordinary progress at the base has been made in integration and unity, and that in fact a revolutionary vanguard organization exists and that hundreds of schools are functioning, and that more than 10,000 citizens are taking courses of revolutionary instruction; they are training and developing their capacities.

And I tell you sincerely that one thing that makes each of us more and more revolutionary every day is to see a comrade who knows practically nothing of revolution, nothing of economics, nothing of Marxism. There were even anti-communists among-them, poor people, who had been instilled with anti-communist ideas, though they owned nothing: no capital, no wealth, no property of any kind. That's the limit. There's an explanation for the anti-communism of the owner of the sugar mill, or of a bank, but it is inconceivable that a man who has absolutely nothing should not be in accord with us when we tell him that we are going to socialize big business and the big banks.

Study is Necessary

And to see comrades devote themselves to the study of economics but in such a way that, to speak the truth, if we revolutionary leaders don't study, we'll soon have people from the ranks knowing more about economics and political economy, Marxism-Leninism, and a whole lot of revolutionary things than we do. I tell you this seriously, whether you want to take it seriously or not, but we shall see. I believe, I believe that, meanwhile, we the leaders are obliged to study more than any one else.

I have seen how those comrades have changed. Why have they changed? They see themselves as comrades who have discovered something, who have found a truth, an indescribable enthusiasm, not usually found in their first studies. We have something to give the masses. We'll be lacking many material things, but there is something more, there is a whole revolutionary doctrine, scientific, profound, full of interest, which we can give to the masses. We can educate them politically, teach them, give them a revolutionary theory. We have schools, we have a press to teach the people.

There is one thing that no one should doubt, and that is that our people will become more revolutionary by the day, and as they become more revolutionary, they'll become better workers, better students, better administrators, we'll have higher production, better fighting units. The Revolution will be better defended, and the Revolution will have more prestige as the people assimilate revolutionary instruction.

Teaching, Not Indoctrination

It is not a matter of indoctrination -- we should drop that term. Why? Because the word "indoctrinate" implies instilling something in someone, filling someone's head with something. It isn't a matter of indoctrinating or instilling the people with something, but teaching them to analyze, teaching them to think. No one could have instilled Marxism-Leninism in me, and the best proof is that they tried to inculcate the very opposite of this in me, and they failed completely. They might have planted a few prejudices in me, some things, but really, no one could have instilled the reactionary, fascist, counter-revolutionary, selfish, exploitative spirit in me. And you must remember that for twelve years I was a pupil in parochial schools. And in those twelve years, they couldn't really instill the counter-revolutionary spirit in me, the conservative spirit, the spirit of the exploiter, but on my own I was reading, analyzing and thinking with honesty.

I believe that we ought to teach the citizen to think, to analyze; to search among the sources of history where there are so many lessons; to search among the sources of the universal revolutionary movement where there are so many lessons; to search among the sources of the universal workers' movement; to search among

the sources of theory and explain them. Do not say that a person can believe something he doesn't understand. You create fantasies that way. You develop mystic, dogmatic, fanatic minds that way.

And when someone doesn't understand something, don't stop discussing with him until he understands; and if he does not understand today, he'll understand tomorrow or the day after, because the truths of historic reality are so clear, so evident, and so obvious that sooner or later, every honest mind understands them. So, it isn't a matter of indoctrination.

No one goes to any revolutionary school to be indoctrinated. No one lets himself be indoctrinated, no one accepts absolutely something he doesn't understand. He goes to be educated, to learn to think, to learn to analyze, to be given the elements of wisdom so that he may understand and discuss the ideas of the bourgeoisie, the lies of the bourgeoisie, the lies of imperialism, the lies of capitalism; so that he can learn to dissect, analyze and understand and with patience get to understand Marxism-Leninism, assured that it will cost nothing to teach the people the truth.

Revolution as a Career

No one should fear he'll be indoctrinated. He who believes that he's going to be indoctrinated will not find anyone interested in giving him a "shock treatment" or a hole in the head or anything of the sort. Besides, there are people who, because of their nature, their temperament, can never be revolutionaries. They couldn't be because, above everything, a revolutionary is also a generous person, a disinterested person, a person ready to sacrifice himself.

A revolutionary is not an opportunist or a faker. He is a man who is ready to give up many comforts, and who likes it and wants it that way.

Not everyone is a revolutionary just as not everyone is a musician, or a painter just because he has to have a career. Now, we must teach the worker above all, the peasant, the student, the great masses of the exploited of yesterday. And we must do this more every month because just as it is certain that there are people who could never be revolutionaries, so are there more and more people who understand the truths of the Revolution. This is what we have to do, and this is the aim of the School of Revolutionary Instruction: to teach our people to analyze, to teach them to think.

And a revolutionary has to be, above all, a man who knows how to analyze situations objectively, not subjectively. Learning to think is learning to seek the right solutions. That is one of the important questions I wanted to bring out.

Furthermore, regarding questions of organization, any day now I imagine Anibal will also be invited to join in this program, so that he can speak of everything relating to the organizational aspect of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Program? It will be a Marxist-Leninist program conforming to the specific objective conditions of our country. That is to say, we shall adapt in our program the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism to our conditions. So, that is not nor is it going to be a secret, not at all. And our people, our working class agrees with that, our peasantry agrees, all honest intellectuals agree, the youth, all honest citizens of our country agree.

So, those were the fundamental questions. Other questions relate to discipline and a whole series of standards, but it seems to me that my duty here today is to talk about the United Party of the Socialist Revolution -- and I wish to point out that you were the ones who decided when and how the United Party of the Socialist Revolution should be discussed -- the fundamental thing, the "why" of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution, the roots of the process and the functions of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Fundamental Task of the Party: to Lead and to Organize

It is known how fundamental is its task: to organize and to lead, through mass organizations, through its cells; and, at the same time, to organize the people in accordance with Marxist-Leninist standards of collective responsibility and leadership.

I am now going to say something about collective leadership which is possibly the only thing left for me to discuss). For a good part of the time revolutionary leadership was a one-man leadership. That is to say, it was not bossist, not whimsical, nothing like that, but for a good part of the time the decisions were decisions that were made in practice by virtue of the confidence bestowed in the Premier of the Revolutionary Government; and as such, the basic-decisions were so made.

I said and I say and repeat: I firmly believe this is wrong. I do not have to reproach myself for this though; it was simply the result of the revolutionary process. Well, what did we think about that? We simply thought that was wrong; in fact, for a long time there was concern here about the problems of leaders and "what would happen if we should lose a leader?" and "if the Revolution is deprived of a head?" Why? We just had to get out of that situation as soon as possible; above all, we had to create a revolutionary party leadership.

That instrument is the best guarantee and the only sound guarantee of the continuity of power and of the revolutionary line. I sincerely believe that of the many political systems man has devised throughout his history, throughout his wanderings through history, it is simply the system of government based on administration of the state by a revolutionary and democratic party with collective leadership.

Why? Since individuals play a role, there is no doubt that individuals play a role in revolutions and an important role, but individuals are, after all, just individuals. And there is nothing more fragile than the life of an individual; even the conscience of individuals is fragile. But we have absolute faith in the firmness of our consciences; however, we know that an individual is the most fragile thing there is. He dies from a bullet, an accident, a stroke, a sickness, anything.

The Idiot Kings
Monarchies, which represented the social system of the empires of the feudal era and of the first national states, are characterized by the fact that a country can be ruled by an idiot. A son of a king is an idiot and the country is condemned to having an idiot rule for forty years because unless he dies before, he can live for forty years and even more. And there are many cases in history of nations ruled by idiots.

Representative bourgeois democracy is characterized by politicking, bribery and corruption and it is a system in which only the ruling classes and the wealthy classes have access to power, aside from the accompanying anarchy of that system of government, as demonstrated by recent history, for example, in France, a country where the government changes ten times a year.

Besides the risks arising from the system -- a system of one class ruling another -- it also often happens that one man alone can deceive the masses, one man can confuse the masses. A big demagogue, a theatrical person, can under certain circumstances rise to a position of leadership in the state, far beyond his capacities and his merits.

The system of one-man government, the consequence of dictatorship, has two important drawbacks. First, if the dictator is bad, the people suffer the consequences. And secondly, there is the lack of continuity and security in the continuity of power and of revolutionary direction and program. Moreover, some individuals are weak and feeble when exposed to all kinds of risks; and this is in absolute contradiction to the sentiments of the revolutionaries, in absolute contradiction to the sentiments of men.

The Ideal System of Government is the Party System

I, therefore, believe that the ideal system, the most perfect ever devised by men to govern a country, a system moreover that does not aspire to be eternal, but transitory, as temporary as are the stages in the history of a country, is the system of government based on a revolutionary party democratically organized through collective leadership. This meant the party must exercise the functions of a leader.

Why is it the best system? (It is the best) if democratic rules work, if the rules of collective leadership work. If democratic rules do not work, if the rules of collective leadership do not work, the system can be as bad as any other system. But if the fundamental principles of internal democracy and collective leadership are maintained, it is without any doubt the most perfect method of government and, above all, of government of a country in a stage of revolutionary transitions.

What does this mean? In the first place, if that party is not a mass party, but a selective party, it will get the best citizens of the country, because of their character and their merits, to join revolutionary cells. For long years, they undergo a process of apprenticeship, of direct experience, of performance of duty.

Little by little, through merit, such a citizen can take on ever greater responsibilities. That citizen can become a member of the Regional or Central or National Leadership; he can become a leader through merit. This is not the case with the king who leaves the idiot son in power; it is not the case with the lucky military caudillo, the great soldier, because there are men with great talents as fighters and they acquire great fame and great prestige as warriors, but are perfectly stupid as rulers.

It is not a question of being a demagogue or faker or a theatrical man. In a party where discipline, principles, selectivity, internal democracy and collective leadership predominate, the fool cannot rise nor can the idiot become chief of state nor can the lucky adventurer. That school will be a school where men will be tested by learning and training.

And so the most important posts in the state will be filled by men who have ability and have risen through merit.

What citizen can get to be a leader of his country in this way, a member of the leadership of his country? Simply, all citizens through merit, all citizens through their own worth. Only those who have true political bent, who have a true spirit of sacrifice, will get ahead.

It is not the other kind of politics where positions depend upon money, upon connections, upon favoritism. Let's rid ourselves of connections, of favoritism; let's rid ourselves of all that, and we shall without a doubt have a system that guarantees that the people will be governed by the most competent, best equipped men. Put simply, collective leadership.

How can the most fundamental decisions of the country, all of the decisions vital to the life of a country be made by one man, by a single official? That is simply absurd. We have seen, as one can see every day, that in some issues he can be wrong.

Suppose the views of some leaders were not checked with those of other leaders, if one leader's evaluation of the facts were not checked with another leader's, were not discussed and that decisions were simply adopted unilaterally and without discussion.

What does this expose the people to? It exposes them to being victimized by all the whims, all the mistakes and all the errors. It is far less likely that solutions which are discussed can be wrong, than solutions that are adopted without guidance and without discussion. I believe that very strongly, I believe in collective leadership, I believe in leadership by a vanguard political party.,

And that is simply what we think and that is what every revolutionary has to think. The words of the Internationale are appropriate: "neither Caesar nor bourgeois nor God." As for the believer, well, he can leave out the other two and remain with God. But neither Caesar nor bourgeois nor, above all, Caesar. And to be truthful,. we have had no ambitions to be Caesar.

If the people are interested in our personal experience, we can say that nothing really gives more satisfaction than discussion, than looking for the best solutions through discussion. Nor is there, greater satisfaction than when everyone shares responsibility, when the Party shares it, when the people share it. I strongly believe this, I have the right to speak from having gone through this revolutionary period, from having assumed grave responsibilities in the Revolution, from never having become vain because of it, never having felt I was infallible and admitting that I can make mistakes.

People Write History

I believe that one of the most honest things any citizen, any revolutionary can do is to recognize not by words alone but sincerely that one can make mistakes; to say there are no Caesars; to say that no one is appointed by Providence; to say that one believes, strongly that it's the people who write history, and who make history.

What often happens is that they don't mention the people They refer to the people by the name of a leader, and millions of men die anonymously, and all the glory, all the prestige often falls on one man, on one individual, on one leader so that one attributes the merits of the people to the leader. This is wrong because a revolution is not made with the intelligence nor through the efforts of one man alone; it is made with the intelligence of many people, with the blood and sacrifice of many, with the blood and sacrifice of thousands of comrades who won the fight against the tyranny, with the blood and sacrifice of hundreds of comrades who won the fight against counter-revolution; who defeated imperialism; with the unselfish efforts and the self-sacrifice of those who go to the mountains for training, who shut themselves up in schools separated from their families for long months, of workers who cultivate the fields for hours in the sun; of workers who cut cane, of fisherman who fish, of conductors who drive trains, trucks; of workers who manage factories; of workers who get up early in the morning to milk cows, to do some chore, or perform some service. These are the ones who make history, the fighters.

Who can credit himself with all the merit of millions of men who make up a society, who make up a people? Who can think that personal vanity and pride -- however legitimate, it's still his pride only -are worth the effort and the sacrifice of millions? Whoever believes himself superior and so infallible as to feel this way is simply wrong.

There Are Many Camilos

I came here to tell the people what I believe, and I have defended it and contributed to removing all obstacles to it. Very seldom have we felt as we feel on this occasion that we have contributed something to the history of our country, to the progress of our country, and if all of us, if all the comrades with more responsibility in leadership; if we all respect these rules, if we all live by these principles, our country will enjoy a great future, our country will be spared the problems of provincialism, will be spared a thousand other problems. For one thing that nobody doubts is what was said about comrade Camilo at his death, that among the people "there are many Camilos." And nobody doubts it because Camilo worked for a tailor shop and left. Camilo would not have been Camilo without the Revolution, without a chance to fight. Give this young man the chance to fight and you will see that he is a Camilo, that he wins battles and displays courage.

The Party Must Be the Great Instrument of Merit

"There are many like Camilo among the people," we said that time. But what is valid for a military leader is also valid for everything else; it is also valid for all other responsibilities. There are thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of worthy men, of competent men among the people. Give them the chance to educate themselves, to train themselves, to learn, to lead, to work! Give them the chance and just as you'll see magnificent athletes, magnificent military leaders, magnificent students coming from the people, so will magnificent leaders, magnificent cadres, magnificent administrators, magnificent orators, magnificent writers magnificent ministers, magnificent political leaders also arise:

Let us accustom ourselves, in accordance with the times and in accordance with our Revolution, to seeing in the people the great virtues, the great minds, the great merits, knowing that there are great reserves among them and that, therefore, they cannot fail! A man can fail, because a man is one. A people cannot fail, because there are thousands, because there are hundreds of thousands of minds, hundreds of thousands of potential leaders.

Then, what must the Party of that revolutionary people do? That Party must be the great instrument of merit, the great instrument of revolutionary vocation, the great instrument of revolutionary intelligence; that Party must always be above individuals because the Party is going to embody, not the value of one mind, but the value of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of minds; not the value of one heroism, but the value of the heroism of all; not the value of one spirit of sacrifice, but the value of the spirit of sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of citizens, of the fighting spirit, of love for the Revolution.

This is what the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution must be!

[[Category:Library works by Fidel Castro]]

Library:Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism

2023-10-02T23:35:12Z

TDM: Created article. Been looking forever to add this speech but couldn't find a transcript online until now

{{Library work|title=Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism<br>"I Shall Be a Marxist-Leninist to the End of My Life"|author=Fidel Castro|published_date=1961|source=http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-12-02-1961.html}}

Fidel Castro Speaks on Marxism-Leninism
December 2, 1961.

FOREWORD

No statement by a world leader has ever been so willfully distorted as Fidel Castro's historic speech of December 2nd, 1961. Made in a Havana television studio during the early hours of the morning and broadcast live over television and radio, the speech is a lengthy and complex analysis of the development of the Cuban Revolution, so frank .that it bars comparison. It was not a formal diplomatic utterance of a statesman, but an incredibly sincere and searching account by a tested revolutionary leader of the evolution of his own political thinking. Officially, the speech opened a series of talks to the Cuban people by revolutionary leaders on the organization of the new United Party of the Socialist Revolution. And Fidel takes great pains to outline the political and ideological reasons behind the formation of this new integrated revolutionary party.

The speech was monitored in the Miami bureau of United Press International by a Cuban exile, and at 3:36 a.m., UPI transmitted this dispatch:'

"MIAMI, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Cuban Premier Fidel Castro said today he really has been a dedicated Communist since his college days but he concealed his views so it would be easier to seize power."

The Associated Press sent the following', more truthful version from its Havana bureau:

"HAVANA, Dec. 2 (AP) -- Declaring he is a Marxist-Leninist opposed to the personality cult, Fidel Castro said today 'the world is on the road toward communism' and he is taking Cuba down that path... Castro said that as a student at Havana University he was not a Marxist because he was 'influenced by imperialist and reactionary propaganda against the Communists. "

But, as James Wechsler has pointed out in the New York Post of December 14th, the U.S. mass media almost unanimously used the UPI version. Anti-Castro columns and editorials mushroomed across the country. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who should have known better because a hastily prepared U.S. Government translation of the entire speech was available, gleefully declared that Castro had branded himself a Communist, making the task of the U.S. easier at the forthcoming Punta del Este conference. In other words, Rusk hoped to use the speech as part of U.S. propaganda against the Cuban Revolution. As Wechsler commented: "The hard fact is that much of the country has been duped by a misleading report which reflected a sad lack of sophistication in dealing with the intricacies of Communist world politics."

The following translation is offered by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to the American public, in keeping with FPPC's policy of presenting factual and first-hand information about Cuba and the Cuban Revolution.

Why is the United Party of the Socialist Revolution a necessity?
I would certainly have liked a little more time to make a serious study of this topic, since the subject of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution is a matter of extraordinary importance to the Revolution. I, therefore, told some of my comrades that I was going to give a sort of provisional talk now, since I expect to return to this question in the future when I have more time to develop it thoroughly.

I am, therefore, simply going to express at this time a series of fundamental ideas with which the United Party of the Revolution is concerned.

In the first place, what is the United Party of the Revolution and why is it being organized? Of course, on previous occasions, in different public ceremonies, we have already referred to thlo4ues.- tion and have expressed certain ideas about it.

The United Party of tile Revolution was, in the first place, a necessity. Why was it a necessity? To begin with, you cannot make a revolution, and above all, you cannot carry a revolution forward without a strong and disciplined organization.

This necessity is becoming more and more evident as the revolutionary process advances and deepens and faces even more difficult tasks.

It has always been said, and rightly so, that it is easier to win power than to hold it; it is easier to win power than to govern.

And that is a great truth. The tasks a revolutionary movement faces in the struggle for power become enormous and multiply the minute that revolutionary movement seizes power. It has also been said in various books, (and we are really reviewing all of the boors we have read and studied, seeing that we all studied in places where we often had to learn a lot of foolishness, things of no great importance); it has been said that the harder it is to win power, that is, consolidate it, the easier it is to keep it; that the easier it is to win power, the harder it is to hold on to it.

The only truth there can be in that assertion is basically the following: that it is in the struggle for power that the cadres who will later govern the country are trained. The longer and more protracted the struggle, the greater the number of men it trains capable of later discharging other duties.

To recall briefly the experience, our experience, an experience that was relatively short when compared with much longer struggles which other countries had to wage, armed struggles, as for example in China where the guerillas fought for more than 20 years before they seized power. Of course, the struggle for power does not begin only at the moment of armed conflict.

I remember when we gave the word to strike, prematurely, when the revolutionary movement made what you could call an error in evaluating the objective conditions, already trying to seize power in April, 1958.

At that time, we still had very few men. If I am not mistaken, the total of our guerilla forces numbered about 180 combatants. When we decided to open the Second Front, we did it with 50 men; we opened the front around Santiago de Cuba with 35 men; and this left other forces that numbered no more than 130 men, all told, perhaps less; there were fewer than 100 men left in the Sierra Maestra at the time.

Resisting with Limited Resources
Well, if, at that time, we had succeeded in overthrowing the tyranny from the military point of view, our military leaders would not have been able to get the experience they got later. Up to that time, our guerilla forces had never launched a serious frontal attack from prepared positions against the enemy forces. It had been, indeed, a guerilla war.

However, it was during the last stage of the struggle, right after the failure of that attempt to seize power, when the guerilla forces faced the most complex and crucial military problems. Once, we had to defend some national territory that we could not abandon because we had set up workshops, the Rebel Radio Station, and a whole lot of fighting equipment there which we would lose if the enemy took over.

We had to make a stand there with the limited resources at our disposal.

Among other things, we had to regroup all our forces, excepting those at the Second Front in Oriente, to resist the enemy offensive and we8

However, that new situation brought about a serious battle in defense of that territory, which was getting smaller and smaller, to the point where we could not, allow it to get any smaller. We fought some important battles. Once, the enemy surrounded us and we surrounded them, in turn. An enemy battalion surrounded us and other enemy forces surrounded our other forces. But we had our first successes here in that sector, we became stronger and were able to counterattack. But one thing is certain: A complex battle developed and we acquired a lot of experience from it. And the experience,'and arms, and men strengthened by that struggle made it possible for us to start more important operations, for example, the invasion of Las Villas.

The Fight Against the Army

It goes without saying that without the men forged by those 71 days of fighting, it would have been difficult to undertake the invasion of Las Villas from Oriente.

The more we analyse the conditions under which we began that operation, the number of men who carried it out, facing an enemy militarily much stronger, the more extraordinary a feat it seems. crossing all Camaguey from Oriente without cover, without anything in our favor, and arriving in Las Villas was a truly :great feat.

One often wonders how this was possible. The answer is simply that the men who made the crossing were comrades who already had an extraordinary confidence in themselves, had developed a great composure, a great skill and were men who were fully tested. These are the things that made it possible to undertake that operation, and those operations in the lowlands that at first seemed incredible.

In other words, the continuation of the struggle kept developing a set of human values, and the ability to carry out more and more difficult tasks, and we kept on acquiring more experience.

So that by the war not ending in April but at the end of the year, the Revolution, at the moment of triumph, could count on a large group of comrades tested in battle and quite experienced.

Can anyone deny that all the experience acquired in those months has become of the greatest importance to the Revolution now? If we have a large number of comrades competent in defending the Revolution against imperialist attacks; if the Armed Forces of the Revolution can face up to the enemy planes, to oppose his aggression, then that is due, in great part, to the fact that the prolongation of the struggle developed a group of leaders. Of course, not in what they

understood when the war ended; but still they at least were tested men, known men, who in time, after the triumph of the conquest of power were able to develop even more.

And so, we have many comrades who took part in all those military actions who today have been trained in our military academies and who have devoted themselves fervently to study. Of course, all this involved a little work. The guerilla war from which most of our leaders sprang up -- although at a given moment it was no longer a guerilla war, but a war of major proportions, of maneuvers, and of positions -- made those who came out of it feel a certain scorn for military academies, a certain disdain for military theories and military manuals. That is an attitude we must overcome, though it will be hard at first. But this training has already brought about a change in the thinking of our war companions, a change in their attitude. And in fact today there is not a single revolutionary leader who is not interested in attending the academies.

Well, then, our military schools are training comrades of high rank, and it is not rare to find a major going to a school for sergeants and taking a course for privates, for one of the things we are doing is to see that, they learn about the problems of the people whom they are going to lead. And they are doing so with extraordinary enthusiasm.

But the continuation of the struggle resulted in all those men ending up the war with much, and enough experience of a military nature, experience that was to develop still further in the months ahead.

This is an example from the military field which is exactly the same as other fields, when it comes to organization, when it comes to the solution of administrative and political problems. During the struggle, of course, we didn't have vast areas to administer. In China, for example, they had a lot of problems, indeed, to resolve, even before they seized power. There were certain problems that we discussed after seizing power, such as the problems relating to art, which the revolutionary movement in China discussed before they seized power.

The Political Struggle Developed Revolutionary Values
It can't be said that there weren't experienced men among us. No one can deny that the political struggle in our country has developed a series of values in the public life of our country, revolutionary values and well-trained men. In the end, however, the Revolution came to power. Under what conditions does a revolution come to power? Does it come with an organized and disciplined movement perfectly prepared for the c' 'pies of government? No. Do all of the revolutionary forces organic, embodied in that revolutionary movement come to power? No.

There is only one revolutionary movement, not two or three or four revolutionary movements. There is really one revolutionary movement and, in the long run, revolution or counter-revolution. A revolutionary movement can be more or less limited; with a revolution, it is possible to reach the objectives the revolution has set (and it cannot be denied that they may be revolutionary as far as they go) and from that moment, either the revolution ceases to be truly revolutionary or it goes forward. In other words, one movement can be more or less radical, which cannot be the case with two, three or four revolutionary movements. That's absurd. Furthermore, those other movements are really counter-revolutionary.

The Various Revolutionary Forces

The truth is that a revolution does not come to power with an organization that embodies all of the revolutionary forces. There were different revolutionary organizations, and these different revolutionary organizations represented different revolutionary forces. In the common goal that united all revolutionary and nonrevolutionary organizations -- because there were forces against Batista's tyranny which you could not call revolutionary -- there were politicians who were simply against Batista because he had kept them out of his government; there were politicians of the ruling classes, those very ruling classes that Batista's government represented, who were really angling for a change of power. The politicians ousted from power, for example, on March 10th, that whole political group headed by the celebrated Sr. Carlos Prio Socar•as, was a group that in the long run represented the same interests as Batista. They, as agents of imperialism dressed in mufti, and Batista, as an agent of imperialism with a milit ary apparatus, an apparatus of force and oppression.

All those people...What did those people intend to do when they got into the government? Did they intend to do anything different from what they did? Let us imagine for just a second that the group of Prio, Tony Varona and their ilk had come to power. Of course, that was-vi•tually impossible. Here you had Prio, Tony Varona and that whole crowd after maybe ten or twelve years in exile alone and they've entered into an election, in a deal with Batista, content just to serve as senators or mayors or provincial governors. That's the way everything ended up. But let us imagine hypothetically that those people had regained power, were once again ruling our country.

What would they have done? What would they have done that was different from what they did in the years when they were in power? They were definitely going to do exactly the same thing, that is, serve the interests of imperialism and serve the interests of the upper middle classes here, insofar as those interests did not conflict with the interests of imperialism, because the interests of imperialism -- that is, the foreign monopolies -- had a privileged position here in our country, even at the expense of the native middle classes.

They Were Going to Squeeze You Dry
Those people in power would have simply limited themselves to doing the same as they had done. They would not have passed a single revolutionary law; they would not even have reduced rents, as the Revolution did, let alone instituted an Agrarian Reform or Educational Reform, or reform of any kind. Everybody knows what those people would have done. What would they have done? Don't you know? I am talking to the people. What would they have done, had they attained power? Listen to me, Lionel, it seems that this subject was not explained to your students at the School of Revolutionary Instruction. Man, everybody knows that!

What they did was to rob; what the government and that whole crowd would simply have done was to rob. That is, they were going to squeeze you dry for their services to the ruling economic interests. They would have maintained a professional army, instruments of repression; they would have maintained all the organs of persecution; they would have maintained the existing social system -- that's all. In other words, there was a group representing the dominant economic interests and imperialists which was against Batista simply because they wanted to be the ones in the government; they did not at all like having Batista and Batista's clique instead of them doing the robbing. Of course, they would be against Batista.

What did they do against Batista? Not a thing, absolutely nothing! They devoted themselves to the purchase of arms, to bringing arms here. Often they were successful in bringing them into the country, although they never had the least success in using them; they never even used them.

Everyone remembers the great supply of arms which they smuggled. into the country and which the police seized. At the time when we were beginning to set up a revolutionary movement, to train some young people; at a time when we were expecting to see those bigwigs of public life, men with money and property, do something effective against the Batista dictatorship. They had arms, they had money, they had everything; in fact, all they lacked was the will to fight. They were merely playing at revolution. It is true that they brought arms into the country, were looking for people, instructed them in the use of the arms. There were a number of cliques. They acted exactly as they did in the ward politics. Some of them had one or two machine guns hidden and they were looking for people in the wards to fight Batista. How did they win them over? They taught them how to use a machine gun. But, it was the same old, classical politics carried over into the insurrection. Well, these characters were politicking with machine guns; for, indeed, they were all of them thinking of when Batista would fall, one way or the other, and they would bring back the same old thing.

Playing Politics with Arms

We, for our part, went about recruiting young people, picking from the youthful elements we moved around in those who were more serious, more willing, more involved and had a more sincere revolutionary inclination. And what sometimes happened? Where we had organized a cell, they would come -- the genuine articles, Autenticos, the Prio, the Aureliano crowd, all of them, with a machine gun.

In the first place, we didn't have machine guns; and in the second place, even if we had had them, we would not have been able to teach anyone to use them. You cannot imagine what these people did. For example, they had a room full of arms and when they wanted to win over someone, they would tell him: "How can you join that bunch if they have no arms, haven't got a thing?" And they would take him to the house where there were thirty M-1's, forty machine guns. I remember that some people left us that way.

There were a lot of people, serious and willing to fight who, in despair of fighting Batista, in view of his abuses, crimes and villainies, joined the organization which taught them how to use machine guns. There were a lot of people like that who were ready to fight, and proved it later on. But the greatest majority, the leadership of that whole movement, was a group of people who did nothing but play politics with arms.

This was a stage we passed through. They took some people away from us. We trained them, spoke to them, explained to them what a revolution was, what we proposed to do, but the months passed and as there was no....they became discouraged and joined any group which offered them arms. It was a most interesting experience. Some day when we are discussing the insurrection, I'll have a lot to say about the experiences in those days when we were organizing....

Our attitude at first was one of willingness to collaborate with any movement prepared to fight for the downfall of Batista, for this Was essential to us. We spent months, too, waiting for all those people.

Fooling the People

Don't forget that there were a number of political leaders who had prestige among the people, with wealth; some had wealth, but no prestige; others had prestige, but no wealth. During one stage, we were simply taking stock of what was happening, ready to collaborate with any movement; above all, when you consider that the university had become a focus of rebellion. We thought that we could organize the movement around the university forces.

When We Decided to Start Organizing a Revolutionary Movement

We did not decide to organize a revolutionary movement until we became convinced that the people were really being deceived and that it was all madness, all that madness; people were desperate and were joining just any organization. There were twenty organizations at that "Montreal meeting"; there came a whole series of....I do not even wish to recall all that, but many of those important bigwigs -the Pardo Lladas and that whole crowd -- were terribly divided. We decided then to start organizing a revolutionary movement with ideas that we would eventually carry out. We were convinced that absolutely nothing was going to come out of all that, about which part of the people had conceived certain illusions; and we were convinced, moreover, that the tactics were wrong.

The whole plan of organizing an army and taking barracks and overthrowing Batista in twenty-four hours seemed absurd to us and we fully realized that civilians -- because in our country there was no background nor tradition of military instruction -- those men called upon to fight in the streets against a professional army with discipline and technical training that had at its disposal tanks, aircraft, fighter planes, weapons of all types and, moreover, organization and experience; experience....I do not mean military experience, but experience in killing people in the streets and splitting up groups and breaking up demonstrations and all that -- we realized that in those circumstances an organization of civilians, armed but without training, could be completely defeated in a putsch-type movement like the one we were planning.

It was not a type of insurrection that is accompanied by a condition indispensable for overthrowing a government, such as a strong and powerful mass movement, that is, a general strike. Neither the objective nor subjective conditions existed for organizing a general strike and it was simply a completely adventurous type of operation. We became convinced that it was all absurd and that was when we conceived the idea of launching another type of struggle, like the one we finally carried out, seizing an army barracks.

I remember that I always had a plan. I do not know whether I managed to convince many people, but when they told me that they had brought in 50 Garand M-1's in a ship, I said to them: "But there are places where you can get more than 50 M-1's; there are places where there are a thousand rifles, greased and well cared for. You don't have to buy them, you don't have to grease them, you don't have to bring them in, you don't have to do anything; all you have to do is take them." I always really believed that there are far more weapons in a barracks than you can import in tons of oil and grease and so on.

I do not know whether I convinced them of that. In the end, we set about getting the first weapons in order to see how we could get the second weapons and how we could launch the revolutionary struggle with the second weapons.

What we always had in mind was, first, to attempt an uprising in one region and try to keep it going and, if that failed, then to go into the mountains with all those weapons and begin a struggle in the mountains.

It seemed to us that revolutionary conditions had to be created by fighting. We were smart enough to realize that we could wage that type of struggle and, under existing conditions, carry it forward to success. From that point of view, we made only one mistake. Do you know what it was? We believed that to begin that type of struggle, we needed more resources than was actually the case. Reality later taught us the following: that while we thought we needed several hundred armed men, (and we were unable to gather those forces and

had to start with fewer than one hundred men) experience later demonstrated that it was possible to begin the struggle with far fewer than one hundred -- with ten or twelve men. Had we known that, possibly we would not have planned to take Moncada Barracks. We would have planned to take Bayamo Barracks, close as it was to the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. And with the forces we used to attack Moncada Barracks, we would have been able to take Bayamo Barracks and would have certainly succeeded in taking it. And we wouldn't have had to work as hard as we did to get weapons for 82 men; so much fuss was not needed and the fuss was created in order to get money; no one believes that the fuss was....The fuss had two objectives: agitation regarding the revolutionary struggle. No, it had three objectives: one, to paralyze the politicking elements that were making a tremendous effort to bring the country into a truce and an electoral solution, that is, a nonrevolutionary solution; second, to uplift the revolutionary spirit of the people; and third, to gather the minimum resources necessary for us to carry on the revolutionary movement.

We were correct in opposing the elections of those days as a political sell-out, and in .doing everything to encourage the revolutionary mood of the people. But the fact was that to start some action, we needed a great deal less than we had imagined.

Now, why did we follow those tactics? Can anyone imagine that you can win revolutionary power with a handful of men? We never imagined such a thing. Our entire revolutionary strategy was geared to our revolutionary understanding. We knew that you can win power only with the support of the people, by mobilizing the masses. We never thought we could win power with ten, twelve or a hundred men. We intended to lay the groundwork for revolutionary struggle through a guerilla action and to develop the struggle until it becomes a mass struggle, and to win power simply with the backing of the masses, as we eventually did. There is no question that the conquest of revolutionary power was due fundamentally to the support of the masses.

Our People Were Eager For a Revolutionary Change

We simply thought out how to take advantage of existing objective conditions, the objective conditions existing in our country and, above all, the system of exploitation prevailing in our country. The situation of the peasants. It wouldn't have occurred to anyone, at least not to me -- although there are counterrevolutionaries who think that way, who try to bring off a revolution the way we did. But it would never have occurred to us to start a revolutionary struggle in a country where there are no owners of vast estates; a revolutionary struggle with guerillas in the countryside where there are no estate owners, where the peasants are owners of the land, where there are cooperatives and people's farms, where there is full employment for the entire population. That would not have occurred to us.

Everyone in our country was aware of conditions in the rural areas. Peasants who were not squatters were tenants. Squatters on public lands were the victims of constant evictions and abuse. Cane workers toiled three of four months during the harvest, and two or three months during "the dead season."

Unemployment in the countryside was high. The rural population had migrated to the city where in turn there was already much unemployment. Those who were not squatters were tenants. A tenant on the coffee plantation had to pay one-third or one-quarter of his crops. The tobacco tenant farmer or sharecropper also had to pay 25 or 30 per cent of his crop. The cane planter had to pay a lower percentage, but still it was high, considering the value of raw cane. He had to pay at least 5 per cent of the value of the raw cane. As for prices, the peasants were victims of all kinds of levies and speculating. Their crops were bought cheap and speculators took advantage of their condition to exploit them miserably. In the countryside, commodities were very dear; the peasants had to sell their produce cheap. That was the situation in the countryside. The coffee planters were in the mountains. Who picked the coffee? Well, tens of thousands of men and women from the cane fields, from the sugar plantations, who had no work during "the dead season" went into the mountains to pick coffee. Coffee was grown in the mountains, because the peasants, evicted by the sugar and cattle barons, had taken refuge in the mountains and planted coffee there. It is not because coffee grows exclusively in the mountains, but because that was the only place where they could go to survive.

When we reached the Sierra Maestra, however, it was evident that we had not organized certain aspects of the struggle we were undertaking. For example, we hadn't even made a geographical survey of the Sierra Maestra. We hadn't even set up a preliminary organization in the Sierra Maestra; in short, we could not have started the struggle under worse conditions. It may be good to point up these things so that they can serve as examples to other exploited peoples. We have to say that we did not know a single peasant in the Sierra Maestra and, furthermore, the only ideas we had of the Sierra Maestra were those we had acquired in geography books, and I am sure that if you were to ask anyone here what they learned in their geography books about the Sierra Maestra, they would not know the name of a single river in the Sierra Maestra. They might know that the sources of the Cauto is there, in the Sierra Maestra, and the Contramaestre and the Yara. And what we knew of the Yara was the song about the Rio Yara -- that's all.

In other words, conditions were very difficult, but it's true that where the objective conditions are favorable, the Revolution can develop, that it's only on the basis of objective conditions that you can, at a given historical moment, make a revolution. This was fully demonstrated, because the other circumstances, the subjective ones, did not exist. We began that struggle on the basis of certain premises, correct premises, the premise of an exploitative social system in our country and the conviction that our people wanted a revolutionary change. Though they may not have been very aware of it, nevertheless, that's what they wanted. It showed in their general discontent, in the fact that a rebel band immediately found support among wide sectors of the public, in the rebellious spirit of the people and in the degree of political maturity of our people; in spite of all the confusion sown, in spite of all of the propaganda and of all of the lies of imperialism and reaction.

We started with that assumption. That assumption was correct and since it was correct, the hopes and possibilities we had envisaged were fulfilled. So, this teaches the first lesson: that there can be no revolution, in the first place, unless there are objective circumstances at a given historical moment to facilitate and make the revolution. In other words, a revolution cannot be created out of the minds of men. We can give one very clear and evident example. Let us suppose that Marti had been born not in the middle of the past century, the 19th century, but had been born in the middle of the 18th century. With all his extraordinary intelligence, Marti would not have played the role he actually played in the era when he lived and carried on his revolutionary action, under really objective conditions, to start a struggle, a struggle that could not have been launched one century earlier.

Lenin. Let us suppose that Lenin had been born at the end of the 18th century. Well, he could not have developed the theories he developed as leader of the Russian proletariat, as interpreter of Marxism, since if Marx, in turn, had been born in the 18th century, in the middle of the 18th century, he would possibly have done only what Voltaire, Diderot and all those intellectuals did. One could not have been the intellectual of a class that did not exist; the other, creator of the doctrine of a revolution that could not be realized.

In other words, revolutions do not spring from the minds of men. People can interpret an historical law, a certain moment of historical development. To make a correct interpretation is to propel the revolutionary movement. In Cuba, our role has been that of propellers of that movement, through evaluating a series of objective conditions. Of course, the analysis is not as simple as this, inasmuch as there was another series of circumstances that favored the revolutionary movement we started -- certain circumstances which, in the first place, were not taken into account. In the second place, many people thought we were romantics, that we were going to die right there. In the third place, many thought we were ambitious. In the fourth place, many thought that the group of revolutionary leaders was a group of leaders of conservative or non-radical ideas. There is no doubt that had we, when we were getting strength, been known as people with very radical ideas, the social class which is fighting us today would have fought us right then and not only since we took power.

There was a series of circumstances which favored the role of we who initiated, on an objective basis, the guerilla movement in the mountains.

And what did we find in the Sierra Maestra? Well, we met with the first peasants who wanted to join us, peasants who were in a bad way; first, we had met setbacks and were scattered. Some peasants helped to bring the remnants of our forces together. This group of peasants, a very small group, helped us to go deeper into the Sierra Maestra. Some peasants began to join our ranks.

Terror of the Army

But to the majority of peasants what were the hard facts at that time? First of all, there was great fear of the Army. This was the important fact. In the second place, it was difficult for them to realize how such a small group of starving people, ragged, with only a few arms, could destroy all those forces moving about in trucks, trains, airplanes -- with so many resources. That is why at first we were, indeed, in a very precarious and difficult position. Indeed, many times we had to move around without the people seeing us. Why? Because in a village or group of 100 persons, there was always a Batista supporter, a grafter, a political sergeant, a something. Well, although he did not see us, he was able to find out where we were from rumors that an armed group had passed through. And he would then go and inform the army.

Nevertheless, we succeeded fairly well in passing through unnoticed until we reached one area, the area of La Plata. And what did we find there? The Army had taken advantage of the existence of our expedition, which it had already assumed to be entirely liquidated, to carry out a series of evictions and terrible abuses.

At the time, there was a certain amount of resistance among the farmers there to a company -- La Viti, who owned an estate and the Media Luna sugar mill -- I believe it is one of the sugar mills with thousands of acres of land in the area of Niquero. They owned large tracts of land in that area. They even owned Pico Turquino Mountain!

There was a private road going through there. You know that the history of peasants' evictions had always been intimately connected with the problems of roads. A private road is a boundary which the company sets, saying: "To enter, you must go this way; no one can get in." There was one of these roads there and the peasants had been fighting against them. There was a peasants' movement there, very embryonic, it is true. They received us well. Well, then, in those days we planned our first operation. All right, I wish to establish the following: that the day on which we took the first district, that of La Plata on January 17, we-launched a surprise attack at dawn on a mixed patrol of soldiers and marines consisting of twelve men -- we were about sixteen. We took them by surprise and overcame them. We took all their arms. Our forces came out of the operation that day with twenty-nine men. Then we turned inland towards the Palma Mocha River to the east, on the coast, facing Pico Turquino.

They Wanted to Evict the Peasants

When we arrived in the morning, a large caravan of peasants were coming down the hillside. These peasants who were about ten kilometers from the scene of action had heard nothing about what had happened. We asked them what had happened to them, but we already knew, for we had captured a harbor pilot who was part of the patrol before we attacked their post and we questioned him thoroughly and found out that a certain Corporal Baso had been around Palma Mocha River telling the peasants to leave the area, that it was going to be bombarded the following day. The patrol was staying at the house of the Viti Company's foreman. They had taken advantage of the presence of our expedition which they had already said was liquidated. No one knew we were there. However, they took advantage of this circumstance to evict the peasants. No airplane had bombed or was going to bomb. It was absurd to think of bombing these hillocks. Nevertheless, this corporal had told all the peasants living along the Palma Mocha River and on the slopes of Pico Turquino that they were going to bomb the next day, so that the peasants would abandon their houses. Then the patrol went around burning all the houses and simply evicting the peasants.

Just imagine, when we were going up along the Palma Mocha River early that morning, we saw a stream of peasants, some with seven children, ten children, four children, coming down and when we met up with them and asked them, "Why are you coming down?" they replied, "Because they are going to bomb." And I told them: "That's a lie. How can you believe that? No one knew yesterday that we were around here, no one knew that we were going to attack that post which we did early in the morning. They have done this to make you all abandon the area. Go on back." And the peasants, just imagine, when they saw us there in the flesh, after having attacked a post, thought it the more true that the place was going to be bombed. Very few went back. For -- just think of it -- a marine corporal had been there the day before, saying to them: "Clear out, they are going to bomb here." And the following day, early in the morning, while they are going down, they meet up with a patrol of revolutionaries who had just captured a post and was going to set up camp right there. What doubt could these peasants have had that they were really going to bomb the place? There was no bombing because it was absurd to bomb woods many square kilometers in area with no idea of where the devil a patrol might be. But we saw no bombing. So they had taken advantage of our expedition to force them off the land.

A Heroic Worker

There, when we crossed over into the area of San Lorenzo, what did we find? The peasants there were scared, too. It was reported that some people from Maffo with money, who owned a coffee warehouse, were going to evict them because they had title to all the land around. Wherever we went, we found peasants who were faced with lawsuits. All the peasants were faced with the problem of eviction. Even those who were not being evicted lived in fear of being evicted.

Naturally, we began to do some political work among the peasants, explaining to them the aims of the Revolution. But the problem of the peasants was not only that the landowners wanted to deprive them of their lands and were actually taking their land away, and in a number of cases, had already done so, but that in addition, it took a thousand labors to cultivate the land on the slopes of these hills. There were places in the mountains that even goats could hardly climb. Still, the peasants had cultivated the slopes with sweet potatoes and coffee.

Here, we thought, was the truly heroic type of worker. And how did he work? He worked in the lowlands for a fortnight, saved up fifteen or twenty pesos, bought a little salt, a little lard, and would go back into the hills. And for years while he went on like this, harvesting a few coffee beans; nobody helped him. But not only that. When this peasant cleared a patch of hill, a couple of rural police would show up and if it wasn't the rural police, it was a man sent by the chief of the nearest post to collect a fee for the clearing.

The unfortunate guajiro would come down into the lowlands to work for a fortnight under extreme hardships for a peso because they paid him a peso in the valley to keep a tiny coffee plantation going, and a corporal of the rural police or a sergeant from a distant post had some character in charge of collecting money every time there was a clearing. This made the peasants extremely annoyed.

These peasants had another problem: when they sold their coffee, they were paid thirteen pesos, fourteen pesos for it. They lent them money and charged them high interest. BANFAIC was already in operation, of course, but to whom did the BANFAIC lend money? They lent money to the peasant who already had a crop, to the person who already held cash, who was almost a capitalist, or to the one who with a lot of hard labor had been able to plant half a caballeria and was harvesting 100 quintals. They were willing to finance the man who collected 100 quintals, but those who didn't have a single quintal to harvest, in other words, the vast majority of the campesinos in the Sierra, would get no money because they didn't have title to the land. The BANFAIC demanded title to land. They also demanded that the peasant must already have a crop, that he harvest beans. If he didn't,. no loan. This was the situation of the peasants.

Besides, whenever a rural guard came, he was sure to carry off at least a fine rooster, if not a little pig and things of that sort.

Misery and Illiteracy

The merchandise they sold to the peasants was sold at an extremely high price. There was not one school there; not one teacher. If these peasants had realized much sooner what they could have done, it is possible that with only half a dozen rifles they could at least have made themselves independent in the mountains! For the conditions were very favorable. It was a better fate for the peasant to grab a rifle and rise up than to be thrown off his land and endure the hardship and misery he suffered.

These were the conditions, the objective conditions, that we found in the Sierra Maestra. Everything else, organization of the military apparatus, organization of the political apparatus, was still to be done! These things we had already done in the valley. In the valley we formed the suitable organization, but it was very embryonic. It was very new and, therefore, it did not have the discipline of a revolutionary organization tempered by many years of battle.

It is beyond question that in the valley, many young people struggled, made sacrifices, staked their lives, and fought heroically. Of course, it was a heroic type of fight, but it was not able to get the results that we were beginning to-get in the mountains.

The arena of the struggle was the mountains. There began our task of organizing a guerilla movement, giving it experience, and at the same time, winning, conquering the masses of peasants for the Revolution. It was perfectly logical that in those objective conditions existing in the Sierra Maestra, the revolutionary work should develop until it could count on practically unanimous support of the peasants -- as it eventually did.

In other words, we were already counting on that social force although we had few weapons and a great many difficulties. The struggle continued to unfold; it developed throughout the land. Guerilla fighting became nationwide: first, in the Second Front of Las Villas; then, in the Second Front of Oriente. The tactics we were promoting had triumphed. In other words, events had demonstrated that, under certain conditions, that way was correct. We began to give up the putschist type of tactics, organizing forces to try to win the power in a frontal attack at great disadvantage against armed forces. The tactics we favored were wearing down the forces of the tyranny.

Needless to say, that's why we have tremendous faith in guerilla warfare. We believe in guerilla fighting under the conditions of our country, which are similar to the conditions in many Other Latin-American countries -- and don't think that this is the reason...(applause)...you didn't let me finish....We seriously believe we have the right to think so because we have gone through the experience.

The Revolutionary Movement is Invincible

Naturally, we know that when this conviction takes hold of other people equally oppressed by imperialism and the cliques in the pay of imperialism, by the military castes; equally exploited by the landowners, other people going through the same things as the Cuba of hungry peasants, exploited, landless, without schools, without doctors, without credit, without aid of any sort; when they become convinced as we were convinced -- and we are convinced, above all, by facts -- I am sure that no imperialist force, no reactionary one, no military caste, no NATO army will be able to withstand the revolutionary movement.

We simply believe that given Cuba's circumstances, we must be on guard against one tactical move. Our enemies tried to use the same tactics, but with only one difference: they think they can make a revolution in a country that has done with landlords, that has done with rent; where there is a teacher in every neighborhood, hospitals, doctors, credits, aid; where the day of the middleman is over, speculation is done with, harvests guaranteed. In other words, conditions that are the absolute opposite of the conditions in which we made our Revolution.

All of the Military Science of the Pentagon is Going to Clash with Reality

In other words, we made a revolution under given conditions and along come the counter-revolutionaries to try to fight under conditions that are the very reverse of the conditions we fought under. In short, whatever had to happen to them, happened. In the Sierra Maestra and those areas where they tried to form counter-revolutionary groups, they were always knocked out of action within forty-sight hours.

They copied one part, but did not copy the other. You can't copy the other. They copied the idea of guerrillas, but got them from among the enemy, among the reactionaries. Now, the Pentagon has followed suit, finally, but on the other side of the coin. We do not have to copy anything. We leave things as they are and see what happens. And we know that all the military science of the Pentagon is going to clash with reality; reality being the conditions under which the peoples of Latin America live.

The Spark That Kindles the Fire

There is only one way to combat the revolutionary guerrilla: with the disappearance of imperialism, its monopolies, and Its exploitation. That is why we don't worry when we hear that General Taylor or some other general who was in Korea or wherever is setting up an anti-guerrilla school in Panama or Argentina. It's a waste of time.

In short, they are afraid; they're showing that they are really afraid. But they imagine they cap escape it, the revolutionary struggle of the peoples. There is no remedy at all for the revolutionary struggle-.of the peoples except the disappearances of those conditions that drive people to revolt. That is why we can't help laughing at those schools of Taylor. We are sure than-any handful of men can launch the struggle wherever the objective conditions that existed in Cuba are present -- and I refer to no country in particular -- that revolutionary movement, that group, following the rules that guerrillas have to follow, we are absolutely sure that is the spark that would start the fire.

We were like a match in a haystack. I won't say in a cane field because a match in a cane field is serious business. A match in a haystack! That was the guerrilla movement, given the conditions that existed in our country. Little by little, the struggle became a struggle of all the people. Naturally, it spread; it was the people, simply all of the people, who were the sole actors in that struggle and it was the masses who decided the issue.

When our tactics began to pay off, the people immediately started to join. All the revolutionaries began to join and were converted to these tactics and to the struggle of the entire Cuban revolutionary movement. And, in the end, to the struggle of all the people.

How was it possible -- though finally by the end of December, the regular forces of tyranny were completely broken -- for the revolutionary movement to avoid what's happening in Santo Domingo today, to avoid what reaction and imperialism have always tried to do everywhere in America? Only by the revolutionary consciousness that has been developed in the people, the active participation of the masses.

What was it that made the maneuvers of the American embassy and of reaction disappear like candy in a school yard? Simply the general strike. It was not necessary to fire one more shot. That was the right moment to give the signal for a general strike.

Sure, we launched it at a very premature moment. But what did is mean? That the subjective criteria predominated, that we didn't understand the objective conditions. Our own Revolution can show ,ampler of everything. We had hoped that the conditions were ripe; and that the tyranny would collapse; that is what we wanted, what we hoped for. It so happened that we converted those desires into reality, but only in our imagination.

And what does a revolutionary have to do? He has to interpret reality. We did not interpret that reality and we made a mistake. The suit was that the strike didn't come off because conditions were .t completely ripe, because of the tactics employed; but mostly cause, fundamentally, conditions were not ripe; the military force of the Revolution amounted to less than 200 men.

The Conquest of Revolutionary Power

When the signal was given the second time, we had already isolated whole provinces, destroyed complete enemy units; the enemy had been really split wide open. On other occasions, the enemy had always been able to cross any territory he wanted to and had always dominated the situation in the country. The signal must be given at the right time and then strategy is easy to carry out: the conquest of revolutionary power by the masses. This is what makes the difference between a true revolutionary movement and a coup d'etat.

What factor mobilized the masses? The guerrilla war was the factor that mobilized the masses, that made the struggle, the repression $cute, intensified the contradictions of the regime; and the people simply seized power; the masses seized power. This was the first basic characteristic.

It's possible to liquidate the force, the military apparatus, the machinery that propped up the regime. In other words, a series of evolutionary laws was passed: first, the seizure of power by the masses; second, the liquidation of the apparatus, of the military machinery that held the regime of privilege together.

What do reaction and imperialism try to do? What do they try to preserve in any crisis? The history of Latin America is full of examples. What they try to preserve at all costs is the military apparatus, the military machine of the system. In the final analysis, neither imperialism nor the ruling classes give a hoot who the president is, who is a representative, who is a senator.

Naturally, reaction and imperialism would like to have for president, if possible, a man who is not a complete crook; it is to their interest, if possible, that he be honest, that he spend money to advance the interests of the ruling classes. It is to their interest to have the public administration function with honesty and, in the end, they prefer a government that steals less to one that steals more.

What is imperialism interested in? It is interested, naturally, in a government that looks after the interests of the monopolies. It is all the same to them whether it be Perez Jimenez or Romulo Betancourt. If you want examples, there's one for you.

What more can a Perez Jimenez give them than a Romulo? Perez Jimenez respected the interests of the oil companies in Venezuela. Romulo more than respects these interests; he worships them. He goes to the extreme of even imposing taxes in order to get himself out of the mess he's in and exempting the military and the United States oil companies, the American interests, from these taxes. He has absolute respect for all the landowners, the big bourgeoisie, the interests of home owners, owners of apartment buildings, big businessmen, owners of large estates -- these he respects. And what's more, he pays all the debts Perez Jimenez incurred, money that the bourgeois financiers lent him. In fact, he paid it back, penny for penny. He couldn't renounce these debts.

Romulo Serves Imperialism

And so, he is wholehearted in serving the interests of imperialism, of the ruling economic classes, the big bourgeoisie of Venezuela and the military caste. Yes, indeed, he finds it necessary to burn one candle for the Department of State and another candle for the military, although the two candles were really serving the same interests. He is trying to please the military and at the same time, see that the American ambassador (that was the role of Mr. Moscoso) (laughter)...the role of Mr. Moscoso in Venezuela was to visit officials, to tell the high officials of Venezuela: "Don't conspire against Betancourt; Betancourt offers a solution; if you stage a coup d'etat, there will be another Cuba."

What does this prove? That it suits the imperialists to dress up their domination of Latin America in a certain civilian garb, the trappings of "representative democracy" which disappear, as they have disappeared in Venezuela, as soon as the contradictions become intensified.

In fact, at this very time, they have just begun the suppression of the Communist Party and the Movement of the Revolutionary Left. They have shut down the newspaper of the Democratic Republican Union; muzzled their newspaper. And who is left there? The COPEY party, the must reactionary party in Venezuela. And with whom are they allied? With the worst elements, those who were left behind with the Betancourt regime when the best people dropped him: the crooks, the gangsters, the Mujalistas, that whole gang working together.

In other words, we have the perfect union of the American embassy, military reaction, a political party which is the most reactionary, representing the interests of the exploiters and the worst elements, crooks and thieves of the Betancourt clique. Yes, it has come to this. There is no more "representative democracy" there; they lack even that!

Well, the same is true of Peru. What more can you expect from an Odria than from a Prado? It's no problem for them.

It is only logical that the national bourgeoisie, the ruling classes, should prefer a type of government -- as I said before, that it' possible, is respectable and, if possible, runs things in a way that will cause the least trouble. They have been partial, frequently, to military regimes; and why? Because they are governments by repression, by force, against the workers' movement, against the peasant movement.

Down with One and Up with Another

But, at any rate, when a revolutionary movement comes to a head, ,.url a popular movement turns into a revolution, they remove this military group and another military man or a junta of military and civilian groups always emerges. They remove a military man here, put him there, appease the people and, in the end, after a while, the Dame military man is doing the same things. Or the same thing happens that happened in Venezuela, for one must take into account the special conditions in every country.

In Venezuela a military figure of prestige arose, one, moreover, the few military figures to act in a democratic, popular way: Wolfgang Larrazabal.

And what happens? There is a great movement of unity, a movement of unity resulting in the overthrow of Perez Jimenez. And what is the first thing that Betancourt did? He divided the nation. He ran for election, destroyed the unity of the people, exactly when the people of Venezuela had a wonderful opportunity to get rid of the military caste.

Imperialism and the Bourgeoisie are Trying to Keep the Military Machine Intact

Well, I want to say simply that the first thing imperialism and the bourgeoisie try to do is to keep the military machine intact. What are they doing in Santo Domingo? In Santo Domingo, they are trying to keep the military machine intact. It's all the same to them whether it's Trujillo or Trujillo's brother or Balaguer or Juan Bosch. It does not matter to them that there is a military machine intact with aircraft, tanks and police skilled in persecution and repression of the people. All the imperialists aim for is to maintain the military machine. All the efforts of the Dominican people are, therefore, to destroy the military machine.

When a moment of crisis arrives, as it arrived in Cuba on the 1st of January or has now arrived in Santo Domingo, the key to this whole situation is whether the people take control of the weapons or whether the military machine remains intact with weapons in hand and the people defenseless. When a crisis of this kind arises in any country, the prime objective of the people's movement is to destroy the military machine and seize its arms. This is an indispensable condition; without it, the revolution can be checked, can be betrayed, and can be crushed.

Imagine what would have happened if the people of Venezuela had, been able to take control of the arms when the regime of Perez Jimenez fell. Goodbye imperialism, goodbye oil companies, goodbye Romulo Betancourt or whatever traitor, to call things by their right name!

Of course, we do not invent this; it is all very clearly stated in a book by Lenin -- I imagine that all of you or most of you are familiar with it -- called "The State and Revolution." It is a

point he stressed very much and it is undeniably a vital, perfectly. comprehensible truth, even to those who have not been through the experience of Cuba.

This is just what we have seen happen throughout Latin America. The revolution must first destroy the military machine of the old system and take over control of the weapons.

Of course, that is not the only condition for a revolution; but It is an indispensable condition for revolution.

In this way, the Cuban revolutionary process carried through a series of laws, laws that are fundamental to any revolutionary process. First, the conquest of power by the masses, that is, the conquest of power by the people; and, second, destruction of the military apparatus of the ruling economic class.

In other words, the military machine was in the pay of imperialism, of the landowners, of the financial, of the commerical and industrial bourgeoisie.

Those people, those people can now talk about democracy when they had renounced even that bourgeois democracy, a democracy that was for them alone.

Everyone remembers perfectly well what happened in Havana the day after the attack on the Palace. There was the most shameful procession of representatives of those economic classes marching to the Palace. Gentlemen, can you imagine anyone with honor marching to the Palace after that slaughter, after that bloodshed, after those acts perpetrated upon wounded men who fell prisoner, murdered students, people who sacrificed themselves in a heroic deed? Can you imagine that bunch of "boot lickers" lining up at the entrance of the Palace the following day to congratulate Mr. Batista?

And who went there? Well, simply the big bourgeoisie and their lumpen, their gangsters, their Mujalistas; the whole gang. Of course, the labor leaders went there right away; or, as they said, the workers. What a farce -- the workers! Instruments of reaction and imperialism in the labor movement, the reactionary clergy, big business, that whole crowd; the landowners, the industrialists, the whole crowd in Indian file to pay their respects. What did they care? I can assure you that none of those gentlemen visited the Presidential Palace after a revolutionary law was passed. None! And as we know, none of those gentlemen has yet marched to the Presidential Palace where so many revolutionary laws have been made.

On the other hand, they went there to congratulate Batista the day after the massacre. Why? Because, those people, those shameless people who now prate of democracy (perhaps many of them get together in Miami on a Sunday to talk about democracy or if not, to hear a sermon of some priest or other. I say some priest or other, not a revolutionary priest). They now talk about democracy.

If someone should ask them, "Good, but what are you fighting for?" "We are fighting for democracy," they say. Actually, they're not even fighting for bourgeois democracy, a regime with a minimum of freedom -- but only what the ruling class permits. With this said, let's go on to something else.

When they owned all the newspapers, all the radio and television stations, and even wrote the history books, it was understandable that we should fall for all those tales. But today it is really absurd to try to fool anyone with them. And they are less likely to succeed with the people learning and understanding more every day.

What these people cared about was the government, however bloody, however large the number of youths assassinated, of bodies piled up early in the morning. They didn't care about that. How many died on April 9? They didn't care. How many died in those torture chambers, assassinated? Why is it that wherever you go, you find a marker and a murdered youth -- on nearly every highway? And they weren't the only ones. If you were to put a marker everywhere a youth had been murdered, the roads would be full of crosses and markers. In the hills, what they did: in the mountains, the murderers. One still learns of a child, every now and then; what can be done with him? He has such problems. He has to be taken to the doctor because he is the only surviving son of a family of six brothers and they killed the father. So the child has psychological problems. One still finds things like that everywhere.

What did these sufferings of our people matter to the bourgeoisie, that whole ruling class? They were indifferent to them. They went to see Batista, because Batista was obviously the one who protected their class interests. And, as you would expect, they were preparing to take immediate advantage of a change, should a change come about.

I will never forget the first days after the triumph, the visitors I received at home.

It turns out that one -- I'm not going to make propaganda now -but I think that I acted quite decently. Anyone who asked for an interview with me I saw right away. I say that this was quite decent. Who showed up at my house? Well, from early in the morning, from the cardinal's nephews to the whole Pepin Rivera family of Diario de la Marina; bankers, businessmen, all the factory managers, the whole pack. What a list it was! During the first days I tried to receive those people. I thought it was one of my obligations to receive people who asked for interviews. I didn't have much to do those days because I had no part in the government either. They filled up my house, not only the first day, but the second day, too, and the third day. And I said to myself, "What do those people want?"

Of course, I knew. But what really disgusted me was to see that procession of all those people of former days. (I asked myself) First, what are they thinking? And I said, well, the conceited ones, the more they think they can come here to see us freely, the better; the more of a surprise they'll get. (le/ngthy applause)

They came to offer their paper, the same paper that had been serving Batista during the tyranny. They came to offer their banks, the same banks that had served Batista to the very last. And then to talk only about the day that the American ambassador, Mr. Bonsal, arrived. Three days before, the entire bourgeois press, radio, and television began to herald the arrival of Mr. Bonsai as a great event. They gave it such publicity that it really began to jar and insult every revolutionary and every man of honor who may not have been revolutionary. Any honorable person holding any position in the country must have felt ashamed of all that publicity surrounding the arrival of a foreign official, as though the great chief executive of the country were arriving -- the great governor of the country. They began to surround it all with an atmosphere as though a proconsul, Bonsai, were coming.

The First Interview I Had with Bonsal

I remember the first meeting with Bonsai. It's a shame I don't have the habit of keeping a diary of my impressions and of events. Well, no matter, I received him there in Cojimar -- the great Bonsal. The American ambassador! From the first moment he began to talk, he spoke about the Electric Power Company, about the Telephone Company, about the problem of the banks, about the problem of the estates of North American companies, the history of what those companies had done for the country.... Good, those were the very first words that gentleman began with. Furthermore, his manner was truly the manner of someone who comes to a country to give instructions. Of course, he didn't have the slightest idea what sort of people he was dealing with. His manner from the outset was something shocking, that of a gentleman...practically, those were the mannerisms of that gentleman. Finally, he left.

I don't think there was a single interview in which that gentleman didn't harp on the same old theme. But at that time there wasn't yet the Agrarian Law or nationalization of...well, I do not quite recall what month it was; I believe Miro Cardona was still Premier.

Well, of course, from the very outset he began to rub us the wrong way, from the very first moment immediately; simply over the. Ah! The American Military Mission and all that, because one of the first things we found when we got to Havana and at Ciudad Libertad -- Ciudad Libertad after the triumph -- were the officers of the American Military Mission delighted with their life there, with their uniforms, with their job. They were still there; Batista's army was there; Batista's army leaves, enters the Rebel Army, and they still went to the office every day "to render their services." They were ready to render their services calmly to the people.

I remember when I met those officers. I arrived there and I said to myself: "And these people, what are they doing here?" And I went there and called over two or three officers -- and I don't remember whether it was in Spanish or English, I don't remember -- and I told them to leave. How could they give us classes, seeing that we had defeated the army they had been teaching. How could they give us classes?

Of course, all that reaction, all that press, was very interested in what the Ambassador would do. They began to deify him, to prepare the ground. All they managed to do, actually, was to make us look forward even less to the arrival of Mister Ambassador. From the very outset, a series of clashes began because of the opinions and points of view, etc., so that those meetings became strained and intolerable until somewhat later, I recall, after he spent three months asking for an interview -- it was three months before we gave him an interview. Finally, I had no alternative, according to the elementary rules of protocol, but to give it to him.

Why? Because we just couldn't stand that gentleman's proposals. Good, that's how it was with us. Imagine how those ambassadors must talk in other places where they find a Romulo Betancourt, a Prado, or that type of individual. We certainly know that the American ambassador must talk to them as one talks to a servant.

Well, we were speaking about the reaction of all that bourgeoisie and big bourgeoisie the day after the Revolution seized power. Those were the conditions. Two requirements had already been fulfilled. And let us now delve a little deeper into the subject. We must look at it all, eh? I assure you. Let's go into the subject.

The Revolution had (accomplished) two things: it had already come into power with the masses; secondly, it had liquidated the military apparatus of the ruling social class. It had an army of the people, that is, it now had the people armed.

Bearded ones, who hadn't gone to military school, were, however, the army of the people. In fact, the Rebel Army was the firmest, the most solid part of the Revolution.

How were the existing classes related one with the other? Well, in the hands of the ruling class at this moment were: all the financial resources, all the economic resources, the entire press, all of radio; that is, to say, all the big radio and television stations, the big printing presses, the publishing houses, all these, were in their hands. Besides this, were the American magazines, all the imperialist literature in our country. They held all these resources in their hands, the economic resources...they were, to put it simply, still the owners of the country. And in the government....Of course, we were the ones to put him there; in other words, it was simply due to the Rebel Army and the fighting of the Rebel Army that a president of the republic was proclaimed.

I am not going to say that we are now revolutionary sages, nor that we were sages then. Far from it. But I will tell the truth, how we always thought, at least how I used to think. One can introduce personalities when one speaks of how we thought then, because the revolutionary forces were still fragmented. I was sure that neither Urrutia nor anyone could prevent the achievement of a revolutionary program. We certainly knew what a revolutionary program was. If we didn't plunge in with a whole set of basic measures, it was because we understood that a series of revolutionary reforms and laws, given the conditions in which the struggle against Batista was developing, would simply weaken the camp of those forces opposed to the Batista tyranny.

We had succeeded, fortunately, in welding together against Batista a large number of political and social forces. We had succeeded in welding together, into a broad front for the struggle, many sectors of the country. Of course, we had to go through certain embarrassing situations. For example, there were the opinions of the Prio-Miro Cardona group, that whole bunch in the Front, who were in Miami, opposed to a broad, complete unity. They all were in favor of excluding the Socialist Party from that unity. We defended the inclusion of the Socialist Party. Carlos Rafael is witness to all the difficulties we were in because we had to prevent a split, we had to keep (the united front) together. They wanted to have a meeting in Miami to discuss who would make up the union of forces against Batista. We knew that if the discussion took place in Miami, those people were going to impose their conditions and, to put it simply, to break the little unity there was.

Then, we argued that the meeting should be held in the Sierra Maestra, that the delegates of the Front should come to the Sierra Maestra to confer with us. We knew that in any discussion held in the Sierra Maestra, we would be able to lay down the conditions, but that, on the other hand, in Miami, they would be the ones who would lay down the conditions. We weren't going to accept that, because we weren't at all disposed to go along with the exclusions they proposed, and that would have created a problem at a most inopportune moment.

But in the long run, with a little cooperation from some quarters, you could say we all agreed on the prime objective: the prime objective of overthrowing the Batista tyranny. Of course, we had already had a previous experience with the Front. It was when some delegates went and said they represented "the 26th of July" and formed a front there. We had been in the mountains a long time already, more than a year, struggling under difficult conditions, under many privations and without help from the outside; and we became boiling mad, all of us, when we found that they had made a pact in our name in Miami. What we did was to send that letter there which those elements called a divisionist letter, and things like that. The only thing we could not accept at all was that pact.

Then, of course, we made a proposition that had a very clear intention, and always formed part of our proposals. It was the following: proposals that made all reconciliation with the army impossible. We always tried to create the worst conditions for a putsch. In other words, we wanted to make a putsch impossible. We were always worried lest, since the revolutionary forces were not yet very developed, a military coup would take place through the maneuvers of imperialism and reaction, like that famous coup of which so much has been said, Barquin's coup. Still, let it be said in passing, that among those officers there were some good ones, honest, who are today with the Revolution. Well, when the historical record eomes to be written, let them clear up what properly needs to be cleared up.

The leader of that coup was a man who had been shaped by the ideology, and by the methods, and by the style of the North American Department of State or of the Pentagon...I believe he was part of that junta, that junta which bred dictators and this, the Inter-American Organization...I believe they threw us out of it, or didn't admit our representative. They do not comply with the laws of the Organization of American States, well, they do not fulfill their international commitments. The question is that we always tried to prevent a military putsch. When the Revolution did not have sufficiently developed forces, the people would have accepted that change and would have been deceived as other peoples at other times have been deceived, because they do not understand that the system itself, and not individuals, must change. We always feared that maneuver. And what did we do? We said that we would never accept a coup, that we reserve the right to clean out, reorganize and rebuild the armed forces of the Republic. Clearly, no military organization is inclined to accept, even remotely, a formula that implies that a civilian movement could come and rebuild it. And our first move then was this: but, I want you to know first that when we sent word (to strike) from the Sierra Maestra, we were just 120 armed men. Of course, to anyone, it must have seemed a colossal and monstrous absurdity that such a small force should give the word. The followers of Prio and all those people then said that what we were doing was contributing to the strengthening of Batista, because we were scaring the military off with our declarations.

We Stood Alone

The military didn't want to know about us then; they changed their minds later on, due to the progress of the war: many of them were taken prisoner and later freed, and they were well treated. The fact is that at that time, first in the campaign that developed around Moncada which was a slaughter of soldiers for all that, and also through our own proposals, because we were interested in seeing that the military did not stage a coup, and we always warned, "If there's a military coup, the war goes on, and on, and on." And we said that from first to last.

The eventuality that worried us was that imperialism might promote a coup before our forces became strong enough to decide events. That was a most correct tactic, and we expounded it in the letter to Miami denouncing the pact, and the pact was broken. We were alone, but it was a time when it was a thousand times better to walk alone than in bad company.

We Reject the Miami Pact

Another thing: Why, at that time when we were just 120 armed men, weren't we interested in a kind of broad unit with all the organizations that were in exile; yet, later on, when there were thousands of us, we certainly were interested in that broad unity? Very simple. Because in any union at a time when there were 120 of us, the conservative and reactionary elements, or representatives of interests, non-revolutionary but against Batista, would have formed a clear majority. In that unity, we would have been a very small force. However, when the struggle was over, all those organizations agreed that the movement should march ahead victoriously and that the tyranny should be overthrown. At that time, they were interested in unity, but we already were the decisive force in that unity.

At a Miami meeting of representatives of those organizations -- there were so many, I can hardly remember them; but there were several--there were Just one or two revolutionary organizations represented: the Directorate and the 26th of July Movement, and that was all. Then -- I'm talking of Miami, don't make such a face, Carlos_ (apparently an aside to someone, Ed). Or were you represented at Miami? Well, in that group of...at-a meeting in Miami, they could have tried to set the conditions. What did we decide to do? Well; we were going to prolong the situation, and not have a meeting until the war ended. It was better to sidestep the position those people took, opposed as it was to the point of view we were going to present . . . and they were interested in excluding the Socialist Party. This was a basic point of theirs. They would never have accepted it. We understood that it was better not to discuss this problem and to end the war.

That unity did mean definitely that the front against Batista would be maintained, and solid. That is, a broad front, with everyone against Batista. Now then, money didn't matter to me, arms didn't matter to me. Actually we were capturing weapons by the hundreds; as for money, we were collecting taxes from the sugar mills, and we already had millions of pesos. It simply represented a broad front, but a front in which we were the main force. Under those conditions, we were more interested in maintaining that front than in any other interest we could have had, inasmuch as, if anyone were left out of that front, the interests of the reactionaries and rightists would have prevailed. These are the conditions under which the overthrow of Batista took place.

The Power of the People

Then there was the phase when we broke the pact that had been made without our agreement, with no representation from us, and without our authorization and, furthermore, that did not represent any revolutionary goals. That was when Urrutia was proclaimed a candidate against one of their candidates. It would have been better if the Revolution had not made any commitment, but we were obliged to name a candidate. Of course, this was not important, nor is it important in any revolution. In a revolution in which the military apparatus does not exist, In a revolution that conquers power with the people, destroys the military apparatus and has a revolutionary army, it does not matter if it'is Tom, Dick, or Harry, who is nominated.

At any rate, we never had the least worry -- I say this with all clarity -- that the Revolution could be distorted, that the reactionary elements could seize the government, because the force of the masses and the armed force were there, were in revolutionary hands.

What were we worried about? I believe, I do not know what historians will say and that's up to them, but we'll give our opinion -I believe that what happened those first months was correct, considering the interrelation of the existing forces, the social, the political order, and the ideological order, it was convenient to have Urriitia and all those people in the Revolutionary Government. Especialiy, the interrelation of the ideological forces still existing in the country. We had the sympathy of the masses and we had the Rebel Army.

How was the revolutionary leadership formed? The revolutionary leadership was mostly a one-man leadership: that is to say, at that time numerous decisions were made pretty nearly by one man. Why were they made by one man? Simply because a well developed revolutionary organization did not exist. There were differences between those who had been in the mountains and those who had been in the plains; between the leadership in the mountains and the leadership in the plains. There were differences that lasted all through the war and some persisted.

I Never Wanted to be a Dictator

It is not always the most pleasant thing to speak about those problems. But even so, one is able to talk about them. Why? Because a part of those comrades with whom we differed at the time, a part, some of those comrades, today take a magnificent revolutionary position and have fully identified themselves with the Revolution. Another part of that leadership is today in Miami, in Puerto Rico, in the American Department of State, or here making counterrevolution. There certainly were differences. Besides, something else took place: the military arm of the Revolution had developed in a really extraordinary way, and this extraordinary development also changed its relation within the 26th of July Movement. The preponderant force at that time was represented by the Rebel Army. And when we arrived in the plains we found within the Rebel Army -- which was a military organization that was led, as armies are led in war, through decisions of a-supreme commander -- almost a kind of one-man leadership, due to the way the Revolution developed and ended.

I remember, and I can speak of those things calmly for a good reason, a little unpleasant though it may be to speak in the first person. I'm going to say the following because, if some people are going to speak of it, it is well for interested parties to speak of it, too. I remember that we felt we had to be on guard against dictatorship. We always said that one of the things we had to fight against was dictatorship, because our country suffered from dictatorship and also suffered the consequences of dictators. From the time of the War of Independence a series of dictators cropped up; among other peoples of Latin America a series of dictators cropped up. Fortunately, I really was not born with any bent to be a dictator, although leading an army at war creates the kind of authority, as armies do, that makes for one-man rule. It can create the habit of dictatorship in men, the habit of being overbearing, the habit that takes pleasure in giving orders. I never really got any special pleasure from giving orders. I remember that, even during the war, I did not issue orders in a military way. I knew that they would be carried out, but I always liked to give my reasons for them: that this ought to be done for such and such a reason. It always seemed much better to me that people should accept orders because they are convinced of the reasons for them.

The First Stage of Revolutionary Government

That's why they talked so much about dictatorship at the time, why they had already begun to talk about it. Who talked about dictatorship? Were they who talked about dictatorship really worried about it? They were worried only by the fact that the Rebel Army was getting the upper hand in the Cuban revolutionary process. The talk of dictatorship was not against a non-existent dictator; the argument against caudillismo was against a growing revolutionary force. And one heard certain remarks about caudillismo and such things, but this what they were really directed against. But the fact is that when the Revolution comes to power, the Revolution, that's the way it we being led.

There is something else. We, the principal leaders of the Revolution, did not even meet to discuss many of the problems. Some of my other comrades were very confident and many of those decisions were taken in the heat of events and were not collective decisions. At tl time, on the other hand, the first Revolutionary Government include( elements representing those classes. I said that it was proper to 1 through that stage. First, we probably had prejudices of our own. I do not know whether it is unfair for us to call it prejudice; but, among other things, it was necessary...we acted, certainly, imbued with the idea that the revolutionary struggle could not be interpreted in terms of personal ambitions, and things of that sort; second the circumstances gave rise to the naming of a president and a count of ministers...

Let us return to the main thread of the theme, which was somehow lost. The main thread was as follows: There was a group that formed part of the government and largely decided who the ministers of the government would be. They put in the government men who, in some cases, were people with anachronistically conservative or more or lo conservative minds; in short, it was a conservative type of government.

Good, I recall that in those early days the responsibility for making revolutionary laws was left in their hands. The policy we adopted was that there was a council of ministers all set up and that V was not a matter of calling the President on the telephone or anything like that. Throughout that whole period, we waited to see what would happen. And what finally happened had to happen. The first went went by and they had not passed a single revolutionary law. We had ' put up with this because some of those gentlemen had a certain following among the people; and if they had no following because of their merits, they had a following because the entire press and radio and television, which were in the hands of the social class whose ideological and economic interests those gentlemen represented, defended them and had taken it upon themselves to wage a big propaganda campaign for them. The interests those gentlemen represented were diametrically opposed to the interests of those peasants whom we met when we arrived in the Sierra Maestra; diametrically opposed to the interests of the farm laborers who worked three months during harvest and then went through the endless "dead season" hungry; diametrically opposed to the interests of the great majority of the country.

What Did Miro Cardona & Company Represent?

And it was simply necessary to pass through that stage, to use it to unmask those gentlemen.

Now, under what conditions does the Revolution come to power? Why do all these things happen? Well, all these things happen as a result of the absence of what we stated before: a single revolutionary movement, organically embodying all revolutionary forces. So, it had to happen. We represented part of those forces; but did not have the organization.

How were the revolutionary forces represented? What were the revolutionary forces, in the first place, the revolutionary social forces? The working class, the peasants, the students, and more or less wide strata of the petite bourgeoisie. Those were what could be called revolutionary forces whose interests were opposed-to the interests of the big bourgeoisie, in the first place, to the interests of imperialism and of the financial, commercial, and industrial bourgeoisie: small property owners, small businessmen, that whole stratum of the petite bourgeoisie; intellectuals, students, peasants, and the working class. They were the forces, the revolutionary classes.

Now, what did Urrutia represent in all that? What did Miro Cardona represent? What did Felipe Pazos represent? What did Justo Carrillo represent? What did those gentlemen represent? I am not going to ask what Manolo Fernandez represented, because, I believe, he represented trash; he was a "mad anarchist."

Reporter: He aspired to be another Peron, from the Ministry...

Dr. Castro: To tell the truth, I do not know that gentleman. I was told later that he was very famous for his conversations in cafes and that he talked for hours and hours and hours; I do not know him. The truth is, I did not know many of those people; they were there in the government...

Then, what organizations represented these forces? The working class, the most advanced, most developed elements of the working class, of the industrial and agricultural workers? What political organization represented that class? Not the entire class, because within those classes there were sectors with a petit bourgeois mind, especially those with higher incomes. Certainly, no one can deny that the petite bourgeoisie was against Batista.

The P.S.P. Represented the Working Class

The Popular Socialist Party represented the most advanced elements of the working class, both in the city and in the country. It also had some followers in the countryside; among the small farmers we found a few militant followers of the Popular Socialist Party in the Sierra Maestra. But, fundamentally, it represented that class.

The 26th of July Movement represented, in the first place, the peasants; that is, the entire peasant movement which was organized around the Rebel Army. It represented...the 26th of July Movement attracted many people, too, from the working class who did not belong to any party, laborers, groups of workers who belonged to some party of the petite bourgeoisie, any political party, decent people, also joined the 26th of July Movement, professional people, intellectuals, youth, students, and elements of the petite bourgeoisie, the most progressive and the most revolutionary elements of the middle class and of the petite bourgeoisie also joined. It can be said that those were the forces that the 26th of July represented.

Similarly, the Revolutionary Directorate represented more or lest the same sectors, but fundamentally the student sector, where Jose Antonio Echeverria, Faure Chomon and their companions came from. The Revolutionary Directorate sprang up from the student groups and in turn also worked to win members from labor sectors, intellectual sectors and peasant sectors.

That is to say, the revolutionary forces of society were represented in three organizations. It is a fact, I believe, that we have all learned to agree in matters of politics and revolutionary theory. Isn't that so?

You, what sector did you belong to, to the intellectuals? (pointing to Soto).

SOTO: To the middle class.

DR. CASTRO: No, you did not belong to the petite bourgeoisie...

Well, you came from the petite bourgeoisie but were a member of the Socialist Party, a vanguard organization... Listen, if you are going to say that to the people, they are not going to understand well the revolutionary instruction you give them in class. You were an intellectual, you were a member of the party of the working class. And that business of being an intellectual is something among us here! Now, no, no! Lionel, now you are an intellectual. It's true that I recognize you sincerely as an intellectual of the working class, so don't let the jokers here misunderstand you and harm the program of revolutionary instruction.

Those are the forces.

They Defended the Bourgeoisie

Whom did Prio Socarras represent? I still believe that one can say he represented the "lumpen bourgeoisie," to coin a phrase. Of course, like the crowd that followed him, his role was to defend the interests of the Yankee monopolies, to defend the interests of the landowners and of the big bourgeoisie. Without any doubt all those groups... Pazos? Pazos was a bourgeois intellectual; Justico was a bourgeois intellectual; Manolo was so much loose garbage. Ray, for all his ideology, his mind, was a perverse defender of bourgeois ideology. The great debates in the Council of Ministers were simply over the question whether works projects were to be carried out by the Administration or by contractors. That was one of the tremendous arguments we had with that gentleman. Our position was that the projects should be carried out and that it was inconceivable that a worker would work better on a job for a contractor than for the state. It was one of the first points we clashed over in the Council.

Let me say that the President signed the Agrarian Law and signed some other legislation, but the situation was becoming more difficult every day.

The other elements who had really played at revolution, who had been in exile, and were portrayed as great men here on the bourgeois radio and television and in the press, they represented simply the interests of the dominant classes.

Well now, the revolutionary sectors, the revolutionary classes, were represented by three separate organizations. Those three separate organizations, of course, maintained contacts. They helped each other during the revolution, during the revolutionary struggle, but organically they were three completely separate organizations each of which had its own leadership, its own tactics, its own sphere of action. It is well known, in fact, that there was friction between our colleagues in the Directorate and us because of the hassle over arms.

REPORTER: All of our comrades in the Directorate and we were closely united in the Revolution.

The Force Lenin Spoke About

DR. CASTRO: How absurd those problems really appear today! How different are the power, security and confidence, the force of the revolution of today from those early days when the Revolution had to face the most trying moments, when it had to face the responsibilities of power, to launch a revolutionary program, and when a large part of the government, all of the press, all of the mass media and, above all, a force -- a force that I believe was the greatest -- the force Lenin had spoken about, that is, the force of custom or of the manner and habits of thinking and looking at things prevalent among a vast segment of the populace.

That is, force of habit, a series of prejudices, instilled, sustained, and spread by the ruling economic classes, by imperialism and by capitalism in our country, constituted, beyond any doubt whatever, one of the most powerful forces that faced the Revolution. And yet, the revolutionary elements of society, the revolutionary social forces, were divided into three organizations, into three separate forces, (taking) three separate paths.

Revolutionary Unity

How much more healthy the situation would have been if, when the Revolution came to power, these forces had been an organic unit as they are today, with a single leadership, with a single program, with one tactical orientation, with one strategic orientation? Now, of course, this is to pose something illusory. Why? Because the conditions that produced this unity are the conditions that were engendered by the revolutionary process itself.

Our force, that of the 26 of July Movement, at that time made up primarily of the elements of the Rebel Army, was a force that comprised many comrades, many of them officers of the Rebel Army, who, in a revolutionary way, from a revolutionary point of view, had been magnificent fighters, valiant in battle. Many of them were of peasant origin and lacked any solid political instruction.

From inclination, from feeling, from a spirit of rebelliousness, they had joined the ranks of the Rebel Army, enemies of abuse, enemies of crime, men who, while lacking opportunity and with no political instruction at all, developed into officers. Many of these comrades were easy prey then to the lies and confusion sowed in our ranks.

Of course, there were some comrades -- there weren't many, fortunately, who attained some prominence in the Rebel Army, elements who, even before they joined our ranks, knowingly defended the interests of the bourgeoisie and the ideology of the bourgeoisie. They had reactionary ideas. Many of the comrades of the Rebel Army, magnificent comrades, today politically conscious militant comrades of the Rebel Army, having acquired unusual training in the course of these three years, were good comrades, but soldiers who, at the time, still lacked any solid ideological training. That was the situation.

In other words, the very force the Revolution counted on was fundamentally of peasant origin, of working-class origin,. including politically, many comrades in the Army who could neither read nor write.

Conditions that made it possible for the revolutionary forces that exist today to take shape were maturing through the revolutionary process. And that organic unity of the revolutionary forces, that is to say, that unity was forged, precisely, and it necessarily had to be forged, through the revolutionary process itself, which is in fact how it was forged.

What is the meaning of the organization of this Party, this organization? What does the unification of all these revolutionary forces mean? What does the unity of these three organizations mean? What, clearly and in all truth, does it mean for the people, and what does it mean for the Revolution? It means that all the revolutionary forces of society, all the revolutionary forces of society, that is, the working class, the peasant class, the students, the revolutionary strata of the petite bourgeoisie, and the intellectuals -- that is to say, the only sectors or classes in society, the only classes in society who, by their very nature and because of the place they occupy in the society, are called upon to be revolutionaries, are today all united within a single revolutionary organization.

The Working Class

In other words, then, all the forces which were previously divided among these separate organizations are now fused in a single organization, under a single revolutionary leadership. What does this mean? It means simply a tremendous strengthening of the Revolution.

From the very first moments, these forces, except for some differences and except for some initial friction, advanced, though separately, of course, by common agreement from the beginning of the Revolution. We went through that first stage of the Revolution with more or less discussion, with more or less exchange of views.

That is, a revolution acquires extraordinary strength when the revolutionary strata of the people, the revolutionary classes, represented in their class organizations, become united in a single organization. And the facts have shown this to be so.

Consider, for example, what forces support the Revolution. They are not the big landowners, they are not the owners of sugar mills, nor big bankers, nor businessmen, nor industrialists, nor any of those people, though there may be an individual here or there who does support the Revolution, for there are always exceptions; there is always the exceptional case of some philanthropist, some honest individual who, besides, becomes enthusiastic over the Revolution and can pass beyond his own class interests.

The working class...Who joined the procession at the funeral of Manuel Ascunce? (16-year old volunteer in the literacy campaign, lynched in the Escambray by counterrevolutionaries in October, 1961 - Ed.) Fundamentally, of course, it was the entire population, but who made up the bulk of that demonstration? Simply the workers. Who make up the bulk of the National Revolutionary Militia? The workers. Who gave their lives in the fighting at Playa Giron, who fell and died fighting the mercenary invaders? It was the force composed of battalions principally from the capital, though units from Matanzas and Cienfuegos also participated, fighting bravely there, too, workers in the overwhelming majority.

In other words, the fundamental strength of the Revolution, the backbone of the Revolution, is made up of the working class.

The Revolution in the Escambray Mountains

Now who, along with the workers, supports the Revolution? Let's not say, rather let us distinguish between agricultural workers -the agricultural workers on the sugar latifundias who today are members of sugar cane cooperatives -- they were a group that before they formed cooperatives, belonged to the working class and should be viewed as such; the peasants, the peasants of the Sierra Maestra, the peasants of the Baracoa area, the peasants of the Escambray, certainly, because the best proof of what we're saying is the following: despite the fact that a group of elements in no way revolutionary developed there, a group of free-loaders, and we are going to distinguish clearly between the role played there by the "Second Front of the Escambray" and the Revolutionary Directorate. But the situation was such that that band of free-loaders practically forced out from the Escambray the more revolutionary elements, for neither Menoyo nor those people started the Second Front. The Second Front was started by comrades of the Directorate, but the group that developed under the leadership of Menoyo and those people ended up by virtually displacing the comrades of the Directorate out of one Zone. Among those gentlemen, the more revolutionary elements were practically pushed aside. That was the situation prevailing in Las Villas when Che Guevara arrived there.

Those people, who had formed a clique there, at a certain point began to act on their own, and followed an outrageous line of action. There are some facts, for example, which are worth recalling. Just one of those gentlemen of Menoyo's "Second Front," himself murdered thirty-three persons. During the entire war, even during the most difficult times among our forces throughout the Sierra Maestra, in a war lasting over two years, we found it necessary to impose the death penalty to hardly more than ten persons. And one single individual, one man alone, had executed thirty-three peasants. And the terrible thing is that this was a group that was up there sponging off the people.

In the Escambray a Revolutionary Tradition Was Not Awakened, as in the Sierra Maestra

A revolutionary tradition was not awakened there, as it was in the Sierra Maestra. The whole way in which the nucleus of the so-called "Second Front" was developed had a negative influence on that entire Escambray area. When the war ended, all of the jobs, from the mayoralty of Cienfuegos, Trinidad, and Topes de Collantes, to the director of public works of Hanabanilla and other places were distributed. They later went there to go politicking as much as they could. That contributed to the development in the Escambray region of a counterrevolutionary movement they organized.

However, even though that counterrevolutionary nucleus developed there, when they had 200 or 300 or 400 and even 500 men -- not all from the Escambray, because there were a lot of worthless people who went up there to the Escambray. That's not all. The people in the Escambray were a small minority -- the forces that hunted down the counterrevolutionaries there had 3,000 men from the Escambray. In other words, the Revolutionary Militia from the Escambray numbered 3,000 when they had hardly 100, which definitely shows that the small farmers benefited from agrarian reform, rescued by the Revolution from taxes, given teachers, doctors, and credits, even when on some occasions, the revolutionary policy came to peasants more slowly than in other places. Despite that, that is despite the fact that they actually carried on counterrevolutionary work there, negative work, the number of people they managed to get from the Escambray was very, very small. And the Revolution had thousands of militiamen and still has thousands of militiamen there.

Since the Escambray was cleaned up, after the revolutionary work was done there, there are innumerable Revolutionary Defense Committees and militiamen in the Escambray. The anti-illiteracy campaign in the Escambray culminates on the 9th; more than 20,000 people have learned how to read and write in the Escambray. The Escambray is today a revolutionary reserve. And it is undeniable that the small peasant, the poor peasant, the small farmer, that numerous sector of the population, is decidedly with the Revolution, in spite of the fact that culturally it had the highest rate of illiteracy in the country, where they lacked the experience that the organized labor movement had, and the degree of political awareness of the labor movement, the proletariat. That sector is with the Revolution.

Now, the students are with the Revolution. What better proof is there that the students are with the Revolution than the 100,000 volunteers who are teaching people how to read and write? In other words, while the students, in Venezuela, in Caracas, for example, are in the streets protesting against repression, struggling against imperialism, fighting the fascist measures of Mr. Romulo Betancourt and while throughout Latin America there is a vigorous student movement struggling against imperialism, in our country 100,000 students have gone into the countryside to teach people how to read and write. An overwhelming majority of the intellectuals are with the Revolution; honest professional men are with the Revolution, and a wide and numerous stratum of the petite bourgeoisie is with the Revolution. That cannot be denied.

That social stratum, the upper bourgeoisie, the counterrevolution; is trying to drag them back, while the Revolution is trying and is succeeding in keeping the best elements with the Revolution. As you can see, Lionel, it is not bad to come from the petite bourgeoisie. Those are truths.

The Working Class Is With The Revolution.

I believe that our people can perfectly understand these things because they see them. When it sees a congress of 10,000 labor delegates, when they see huge gatherings, when they see hundreds of thousands of militiamen, they realize that the working class is with the Revolution. When they see 100,000 volunteer teachers, they realize that the students are with the Revolution. When they see peasant meetings, tens of thousands of peasant militiamen, they realize that the peasants are with the Revolution, and they realize that the intellectuals are with the Revolution, the more honest professional men. The facts prove it,

And, this precisely has been the significance of the unity, the efforts of all the revolutionary sectors of society united in a single revolutionary organization.

Because now another question comes up: How many revolutions could three separate organizations have made? That is, those organizations that represented the revolutionary sectors of society, could they have made three separate revolutions? Or did they have to make one revolution?

I believe this is an important point. In discussing the question of the United Party of the Revolution,-it is, above all, desirable for the people to understand the historical roots of the revolutionary process and of the unity of the organizations, so that everyone can realize that there are certain positions or certain attitudes that are purely utopian, illusory, idealistic, false.

We recall that during the interrogation [of the prisoners from Playa Giron - Ed.] one fellow spoke up about a third position and a string of idiocies along the same lines.

First, I must say one thing. In the first place, we are gaining a lot of experiences with the Revolution itself. The Revolution itself is revolutionizing us. The Revolution itself is making us more and more revolutionary everyday. There was a time when we were not revolutionaries. Yes, there was a time when there was nothing revolutionary about me. Ah, was it because I was reactionary, thieving and corrupt? No, nothing of the sort. There was a time when -politically I could be considered a complete illiterate as a result of my class origins.

And, did I know more about revolution twenty years ago than Marinello, Carlos Rafael, Anibal, Blas? No, sir. Twenty years ago, many of us knew not one word about revolution, among other things, because twenty years ago many of us...I believe that twenty years ago Raul was just learning to read and write; we were just boys.

But even though many of us were not just boys, we came from social classes other than the working class, and I am very much aware of that; very much aware, furthermore, of the influence that class origin must have had. on our thinking. But by the same token I am very much aware of this too, very much aware of instilling in myself revolutionary thought, clear, straight, and cleansed of everything that could have remained in me by reasons that have nothing to do with the consciousness and will of men. But many of us, even when we were students at college, were still political illiterates. I was a political illiterate when I finished, even when I received my bachelor's degree.

Should I be ashamed to admit it? No, quite the contrary. I am very proud to know that I was a B.A. and knew nothing about politics or revolution, and yet today I do know something. Because that proves that I have made some progress.

Don't think I am talking about my own case just because it is my own. I believe I am talking about a case I know better than others and which can serve...As we have had here today the pleasant surprise of seeing the students of the National School of Revolutionary Instruction present, I have taken advantage of the opportunity to expound some ideas that might be useful. It must be an example similar to many others.

What is the most revolutionary class? The working class, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Why? Because its social position makes it •evolutionary. Which are the reactionary classes, by definition? The wealthy classes. Their social position as the exploiting class makes their minds and their thinking reactionary.

But in the Revolution there are many cases of revolutionary comrades coming from strata other than the working classes. What has happened in some countries with the presence of numerous people from the middle class in the labor movement? Well, they have instilled the thinking of the petite bourgeoisie and of the middle class in the labor movement. That has happened and we have to struggle se that it does not happen here. We therefore have a tremendous struggle in revolutionary education. Why? So that the presence of so many of them shall not inculcate the ideas of a vascillating social class that does not understand discipline, that is given to despairing, that has a whole string of vices, which I am not now inventing, but have been known throughout the history of the revolutionary movement from the middle of the past century until today.

Now, does that mean that a good revolutionary cannot come from that stratum? No A magnificent revolutionary can come from it; in fact, the great theoreticians of revolutionary thought came from those strata. But why did they come from those strata? Because they were the ones who went to school and to the universities.

I have not come here to present an autobiography, far from it; nor an analysis of how I came to be revolutionary. If I ever have the time, and right now I don't see where I will find the time, I may write about it. But I can say this. Whenever I discovered something, I always held firmly to it, as many other people do.

My first contacts at the University -- even with bourgeois political economy -- for I remember that I began to see contradictions and began to have a few revolutionary ideas while taking a course on bourgeois political economy.

Later on, naturally, at the University, we began making our first contacts with the Communist Manifesto, with the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all that. This marked (the beginning of) a process. I can certainly say, admitting it honestly, many of the things which we have done in the Revolution are not things we invented -- far from it.

When we left the University, especially in my own particular case, I had already been greatly influenced -- I wouldn't say that I was a Marxist-Leninist, far from it. It is possible that I had two million petit bourgeois prejudices and a string of ideas that I'm glad not to have anymore, but fundamentally -- if I did not have all those prejudices, I would not have been in the position to make a contribution to the Revolution, as I did.

Anyway, let's put things as they are.

I meant to say that had I been in the position of Carlos Rafael (Rodriguez), we would have faced a much more difficult situation when we went up into the mountains. Definitely, certain circumstances were really quite favorable. Our revolutionary thinking was already strongly influenced precisely by contact, and that is how arose.... I remember that when we were reading the history of Latin American independence, even in the classical history books, of course, books written by bourgeois authors explain that the influence of the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution was a factor that greatly influenced the thought of Latin American liberators. Ideas naturally always spread and win adherents.

One thing is indisputable -- I'll come back to this point later on -- these ideas already formed much of our revolutionary thinking, although we could hardly say that we were polished revolutionaries. We still cannot honestly claim to be polished revolutionaries. Why not? Because we ourselves realize full well that our love for the accomplishments of the Revolution, our passion for the Revolution, is something that we felt growing from day to day, our attitude in the race of all the problems.; at most, today we believe that we are thorough-going revolutionaries and five years from now we may find out that we were really still ignoramuses.

We All Have Much To Learn.

I believe that we all have a great deal of studying to do. Am I a convinced revolutionary? Yes, I am a convinced revolutionary, that Is so. To some of those who have at times asked me, some people have asked me if I used to think at the time of Moncada as I do today, I say, "I thought very much like I do today." That is the truth. Anyone who reads what we said on that occasion will see that many fundamental things about the Revolution are expressed in that document, and that it is, moreover, a carefully written document. It was writ= ten with sufficient care to expound some basic points without at the same time raising problems that could limit our scope of action within the Revolution, so as to prevent the movement which we believed could lead to the overthrow of Batista from being very much reduced and limited. In other words, it was necessary to try to broaden that movement as much as possible.

If we had not written that document carefully, if it had been a more radical program -- although it is true that many people were somewhat skeptical about programs and often paid them scant attention -- of course, the revolutionary movement of struggle against Batista would certainly not have gained the scope it did and which made victory possible. Anyone who reads the manifesto, the speech on that occasion, will realize what the basic ideas were.

There are some things, like certain suggestions we made on that occasion, such as increasing the cane workers' share of the sugar, which were brought up to me later on at meetings with the cane workers. They would say to me: "Good, but didn't you mention an increase?" And I told them: "Yes, but at that time we could not say what we can say today and that is that we have made those cane workers owners of the land which is much more than having granted them an increase in the share of sugar."

Certain suggestions were made at that time simply through care not to damage the scope of the revolutionary movement. I remember that on that occasion among the books the police caught us with was a text of Lenin. And then one of the lawyers asked at the Moncada trial: "And that book? Whose is it?" "That book was ours." And, of course, as I was somewhat irritated, I added: "Yes, that book was ours and anybody who does not read those books is an ignoramus." And that shut him up!

By that time, our revolutionary thinking had, in general, already taken shape. We were not, however, complete revolutionaries; we were far more revolutionary when we attained power. We are convinced revolutionaries. I say so with all due sincerity, because I believe that these appearances should not become a matter of theoretical explanation of things and... There is something that can help more to shape the political thinking of the people, and that is to speak this way, with complete frankness and clarity and honesty.

I consider myself more revolutionary today than I was even on t first of January. Was I a revolutionary on the first of January? Yes, I believe I was a revolutionary on the first of January. That all of the ideas I have today I had on the first of January.

Now then, am I at this moment a man who has studied thoroughly all of the political philosophy of the Revolution, the entire history? No, I have not studied it thoroughly. Of course, I am absolutely convinced and have the intention -- an intention we all ought to have -- to study. Recently, while looking through some books up there in the capital, I found that when I was a student I had read up to page 370 of Capital. That's as far as I got. When I have the time, I plan to continue studying Karl Marx's Capital.

I Believe Absolutely in Marxism!

In my student years I had studied the Communist Manifesto and selected works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Of course, it is very interesting to reread now the things I read at that time. Well, now, do I believe in Marxism? I believe absolutely in Marxism! Did I believe on the first of January? I believed on the first of January Did I believe on the 26th of July? I believed on the 26th of July! Did I understand it as I do today, after almost ten years of struggle? No, I did not understand it as I do today. Comparing what I understood then with what I understand today, there is a great difference. Did I have prejudices? Yes, I had prejudices on the 26th of July, yes. Could I have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary on the 26th of July? No, I could not have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary. Could I have been called a thoroughgoing revolutionary on the first of January? No, I could have been called almost a thoroughgoing revolutionary. Could I be called a thoroughgoing revolutionary today? That would mean that I feel sati fled with what I know and, of course, I am not satisfied. Do I have any doubt about Marxism and do I feel that certain interpretations were wrong and have to be revised? No, I do not have the slightest doubt!

What occurs to me is precisely the opposite: the more experience we gain from life, the more we learn what imperialism is -- and not by word, but in the flesh and blood of our people -- the more we have to face up to that imperialism; the more we learn about imperialist policies throughout the world, in South Vietnam, in the Congo, in Algeria, in Korea, everywhere in the world; the more we dig deeper and uncover the bloody claws of imperialism, the miserable exploitation, the abuse they commit in the world, the crimes they commit against humanity, the more, in the first place, we feel sentimentally Marxist, emotionally Marxist, and the more we see and discover all the truths contained in the doctrine of Marxism. The more we have to race the reality of a revolution and the class struggle, and we see what the class struggle really is, in the setting of a revolution, the more convinced we become of all of the truths Marx and Engels Wrote and the truly ingenious interpretations of scientific socialism Lenin made.

The more we read today, with the experience, the load of experience we have, in those books, the more convinced we become of their inspired vision, of the foresight they had.

But there is something more than what anyone, any revolutionary leader can say to explain why Marxism made its way in history. It is enough to read the history of Marx, the biography of Marx, which is a book I believe everyone should read when the Government Printing Office publishes it, which is the biography of Marx by Mehring.

But who was Marx, his life, his work, his sacrifices? How did he study? And it will be seen that Marx was a man little known in his time, even hated by many intellectuals, by many pseudo-revolutionaries. His work was known only in small circles. In his time, many other socialist writers had far more renown and prestige than Marx and were better known than Marx. A whole series of writers on socialism who wrote that they were socialists, but who were socialists as a Cuban in 1917 might have been, who had conceived of an ideal world, a more just world, without slaves and without exploiters; they were idealistic socialists, utopian socialists. Then, many of these people devoted themselves to working out a program, writing about a utopia, expressing a revolutionary sentiment on an idealistic basis, not on a scientific basis. But many of those writers had the opportunity to make themselves known; many of those thinkers, many of those thoughts penetrated broad segments of the proletariat in Europe, in France, in Italy, in Germany, in Belgium, in England. Marx writes his scientific, eminently scientific work, not writing things as he wished them to be, but writing things as he saw them, as they would have to be as a result of the very development of human society. From his study of history, from his study of economics, he drew a series of conclusions. It is a fact that the work of Marx has made a way for itself. Indeed, the work itself, the truths it contained were so superior and so solid and had such a firm basis, compared to anything of all other socialist writers, that the workers he wrote for -- because he wrote for the workers and knew that one day, the workers would understand his work. He had a blind faith that the workers would understand his revolutionary work, his ought end, as they interpreted the truth, it would become the dominant thought among workers throughout the world.

Engels Carries on The Work of Marx

And Marx's work by itself -- and this is the fullest proof of the scientific value, of the theoretical value, of the real value of a revolutionary doctrine -- the fact that it showed the way by itself, for when all the most advanced workers, the most progressive intellectuals, began to search through everything that had been written on socialism, they rejected all other socialist theories as lacking a sound basis, as lacking a scientific character, and adopted the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. After the death of Marx, Engels undertook to steer the thought... One must keep in mind that Engels was a great thinker, too, but that Engels sacrificed his own intellectual work, because Marx was so poor and lived in such misery and hunger and under such terrible conditions that he saw his children die of hunger, that Engels who knew Marx's genius better than anyone else stuck to working as a merchant simply so that Marx could write Capital, on which he had been working for twenty years. It was one of the most noble, most self-denying and most beautiful lives; and one of the most altruistic sacrifices ever made was the sacrifice Engels made for Marx.

This, aside from Marx's own life, his conduct, his spirit as a self-denying and exemplary father, the sacrifices he made, are sufficient in themselves to destroy one of the greatest hoaxes that the bourgeoisie, capitalism and imperialism have spread about. Marxism: that it is an enemy of the family, children, women. One has only to read the life of Marx to begin to realize the number of infamous and stupid lies they have written about him. The moment Marx discovered a great truth and that truth in turn began to influence events, all the writers of reaction and exploitation naturally began to write against Marx. Nevertheless, in spite of that, scientific socialism, Marxism, made headway and was to become the revolutionary theory of the labor movement.

To begin with, there was a labor movement and the labor movement was revolutionary and Marx clearly saw and understood that and, since he had uncovered the truth, the first to become Marxists, the first to adopt his theory were the workers, the labor movement throughout Europe, the most advanced groups, the most intelligent, until it really became the theory of the working class.

The Value of Lenin

But it wasn't enough that the European labor movement had a revolutionary theory; this theory needed interpretation and so there came a period when the influence of non-revolutionary thought, of bourgeois thinking and bourgeois ideology tried to distort Marx's thought. What is Lenin's great merit? Well, simply that he takes Marx's thought, defends it against all mystification, against all forms of revisionism, against all of the revisions and changes they wanted to make in the thinking of Marx. Armed only with theory, he forms a party, struggles within that party against all petit bourgeois currents, against all non-revolutionary currents, triumphs over these currents in the party and, with a revolutionary theory, seizes power. That is to say, he wins revolutionary power. What is Lenin's great merit? Lenin has the extraordinary merit of having made a thoroughgoing interpretation of Marx's thought, of having carried it into practice and having developed it under new circumstances, as is the case of a revolutionary party in power. That he developed an entire theory, thought of extraordinary depth, there is not the slightest doubt. That is Lenin's great historical merit as theoretician and leader.

The Building of Communism

Marxism is continuing to develop. Now, one has only to read Khrushchev's report to the 22nd Congress, which is a wholly political treatise, one that begins to confront an entirely new task, the building of communism. Marx did not say how to set up a socialist regime or society. Marx did not say how to build a socialist society. Marx interpreted the laws of history, made a correct interpretation, studied the nature of class society, developed a whole revolutionary theory by virtue of which he explained history through the development of means of production. He studied history through the systems of production which in turn develop relationships of production. These little words, I warn you, are quite hard to understand when one begins to study Marxism -- means of production, system of production, relationships of production -- but they can be explained perfectly through practical examples. He interprets history, for until then, history was a mass of interpretations.

Some gave a divine interpretation to history. They said: history develops in accordance with supernatural designs, in accord with the designs of God. Others said that men make history and that men who made history were individuals like Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon. There were racial theories of history, claiming that race was the determining factor of history. A series of anti-scientific theories. A series of absurd theories. Then Marx says: no, history is not made by the divinity, not made by races. History is a process of development, determined by the material conditions of production. In other words, man first hags to live, I'll explain this in simpler terms.

Man has to live. In order to live, he begins to struggle with nature. First stage of man: man the gatherer; the Stage of primitive communism. In the stage of primitive communism, land is common, property is common, means of production are absolutely rudimentary, corresponding to the stage in which man's means of production are most elemental; that is, in techniques for producing goods to satisfy his needs, man is really very poor. I am not going to give you a better lesson than Lionel, but I am going to explain things, not to you; I am going to explain things to the people.

Primitive Communism and Its Mode of Production

In the stage of primitive communism, there are neither exploiters nor exploited; property is held in common; and some social groups still live under primitive communism in some parts of the world. I have to laugh, because at times some comrades want to make such a great leap ahead as to land in primitive communism. Yet, it is fitting that we learn to appreciate this difference in order to distinguish between primitive communism and the communism the Soviet Union is planning for. What is the difference? Simply this, the fundamental, the big and outstanding difference is that the former was a communism of poverty, an elemental life of poverty and scarcity among men which corresponded to their means of production. The means of production, techniques of production, of cultivation, the first accumulations of capital develop. This further develops, as a consequence, the private appropriation of the means of production and of land, (domestic) animals, of farming tools. A new mode of production, new relations of production consequently arise as the means of production develop.

Private owners appear on the scene: private owners of livestock and farming. implements, of land, and also, as a means of production, of men themselves.

Slavery

The second social system (in the history) of man was the system of slavery, of slave labor; very simple, very rudimentary; more advanced, much more advanced, of course, than the techniques of labors in the stage of primitive communism. So, the system of slavery spread. This is the system that characterizes that whole epoch of mankind, of the history of Greece especially, of Rome. The whole Roman Empire developed with that social system as a base. Men were then divided into slaveowners, the masters... There were classes that had no political rights, but had certain civil rights; for example, in Rome, the plebians, as well as the slaves.

Everyone knows the history of the struggles of those classes to free themselves -- the history of the slaves and their uprisings so shake off the yoke of slavery. The slaves managed to rise up, and developed a great movement all over Italy, opposed to Roman power. They placed the power of Rome in jeopardy, founded cities, even organized a nation of slaves. In the long run, their revolution was smashed.

(We have) the movements of the plebians with the Gracchi, demanding their rights from the Roman patricians who had economic rights and political rights. Eventually, the system of slavery is superceded, replaced by a system which was a little more benign, but nonetheless still cruel and still a system of exploitation, coming into being as the Roman Empire fell apart: the system of feudalism..

Under feudalism individuals were not slaves, but were semi-slaves, dependent on the feudal lords, who owned the land. They worked part of the time on their own land, part on the lands of their masters, a situation that does not really differ much from that of some peasants today, who work on the land of their landlords and have to turn over half the crop to him, and, in addition, have to supply their own tools and seed.

And that medieval system corresponded to the Middle Ages, was based on the system of serfdom. Men were dependent on a few lords, on the land; when those holdings passed to the hands of other lords of the nobility or of the feudal aristocracy, the peasants changed hands with them. Again, this is not much different from what happens in some countries, like Peru, where latifundias are still sold with the Indians on them.

The Bourgeoisie

Now a new class emerges, but who? The manufacturers, the traders, the merchants make their appearance. Where do the traders and merchants set up shop? In the towns, in the villages. As a result, they begin to develop industry, trade. But this trade finds itself bound in shackles. What shackles? I don't see any shackles... What shackles do they find? They find all the shackles of feudalism. What were these, shackles? A whole array of taxes, complete insecurity. When merchandise leaves a town, goes from one village to another, from one medieval burg to another, they have to pay a whole series of tolls. You can imagine what happened with goods from the Near East, from those countries to Italy: spices, perfumes, gold, and things like that, that had to reach France and pass through a hundred feudal lords, a hundred practically different states that did have, it is true, some fealty, some weak bonds, in the first stage of feudalism, to the power of a king, of an absolute monarch.

This new social class coming to the fore, that is, the class of traders and merchants, very rudimentary, to be sure, begins to build up the economy, to accumulate wealth, and begins to clash with the existing relations of production. That is, the existing social relations, the superstructure -- so they call it technically in Lionel's classes -- the economic structure begins to conflict with the social superstructure. The economic structure of the emerging class comes up against all that framework that was a real hindrance to its growth. That social class then begins to fight for a whole series of rights. It undertakes a long struggle. The new class kept winning such rights in the various countries of Europe. In some cases, the movement culminated in a bloody revolution, in others in less bloody revolution, in still others in a transformation, but the indisputable fact is that the problem was the same in all countries. That is, this rising social class, the bourgeoisie -- and that is where the word "bourgeoisie" stems from -- appeared everywhere, in France, in Germany, in England, in Italy. It had no political rights, it represented different interests from the interests of the nobles and the aristocracy that ruled those countries. It began the struggle against the aristocracy, and then two social classes became locked in struggle: the nobility versus the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie came out on top, as it inevitably had to.

How did it triumph? In France, through a bloody and violent struggle. First, national states were set up, developing in a way parallel with the absolute monarchy, an absolute monarchy resting on a feudal basis, as in France. The bourgeoisie had to break with the existing social system, had to destroy all those feudal shackles. It is then that the French Revolution occurred, in the course of which, this social class, having burst through all the bonds of feudalism, developed, and a new social system was established. Under new conditions, that new system began to develop all the forces it was capable of developing: an extraordinary development of technique, of production, a significant step forward from the previous system.

The Proletariat

It triumphed in other countries as well, without overthrowing the monarchy; instead, converting the absolute monarchies into monarchies resting on a bourgeois base. In other words, it was all the same to the bourgeois whether there was a republic or a monarchy. What really mattered was to eliminate the existing feudal obstacles to the development of the new system, of the new social class, of the new productive forces. Then national states were set up, the ideal of that class, a vast market it could sell to.

I have been explaining all this pretty much in my own way, without the elegance of the teachers of the School of Instruction. These were the things that Marx discovered. He discovered that a new social class arises at the same time: the proletariat.

Where does the proletariat arise from? Precisely, from the development of all the means of production. Factories arise. Textile weavers gradually disappear from the scene (cotton industry) and are now concentrated in the workshops; new techniques of production lead to a steadily increasing concentration of the means of production into few hands. The workers begin to form associations and the new class begins to take form, centered, where? Around the factory. Marx discovers that all these factories would keep on developing, and that the process of concentration of property was going to continue, , that the small proprietors or small industrialists were going to be ruined, and that an increasingly powerful working class would develop.

But at the same time that this capitalist system has given rise to the bourgeoisie, it becomes transformed -- as happened to feudalism in its time. Feudalism became an obstacle to the development of society in its opposition to the emergent class. So capitalism, in turn, becomes an obstacle. What, then, are the characteristics of the capitalist mode of production? Waste in production, lack of planning, competition, squandering, failure to utilize all the technical resources mankind has developed to produce the goods that men need.

By that time in history there were already a number of socialist thinkers who were writing that "We must have socialism." But why should there be socialism? "Because I like it and it seems good to me, and all the workers would want it." Others gave different reasons and advanced a series of hypotheses.

Scientific Socialism

What is the historical merit of Marx? Marx writes something, a correct interpretation of what was going to happen, not simply because people wanted it, but because the very laws of historical evolution predetermined it. This is the great merit of Marx, the founder of scientific socialism which gives the working class a theory.

They interpreted the laws, studied the conditions at a given moment. Marx did not claim to be a fortune-teller. Once they asked him what it would be like once communism was established. He said that he had no crystal ball. He interpreted the laws, gave the labor movement a scientific theory. The theory was developed. The first revolutionary workers' movement came to power in the Soviet Union armed with that theory, the theory continued to develop, and the Soviet Union develops a long experience. What experience?

The experience of building the world's first socialist state.
One should bear in mind that this experience is of incalculable value for humanity. When they developed, initiated and carried out the building of the first socialist state, they were taking a path entirely new to humanity, just as they are today advancing along another entirely new road: the building of communist society.

This tells us one thing: simply, that Marxism is a living science, a developing science. We have to study everything that Marx taught, but at the same time we have to study everything that Lenin taught, we have to study the entire experience derived from the building of the first communist society.

There is a question: when the Bolshevik party of the Soviet Union started out to build the first socialist state, what was involved was simply giving reality to a political theory, a revolutionary theory. Humanity stands today before the reality that this theory has been put into practice. What are the results of the application of that theory? What is it that no one can argue against today? Only the imperialists still argue against the facts and I don't think they themselves are sure of their ground.

Socialism is no longer something new to mankind. Socialism is a reality for mankind. But this reality is contained in numbers, in the statistics of the Soviet Union, in the figures comparing the difference between the old Russia of 1913 and the Soviet Union of today. The development and growth of production, the radical change in all aspects of the life of the Soviet people, and what they are today, and the foundations for further development which the Soviet Union has available today. Even during the first five-year plans of the Soviet Union, they were experimenting, just starting to learn something about planning and acquiring experience. Today, they're working at the same program, but from the perspective of 20 years, with a great deal of experience and certainty. No one can doubt that they'll carry out the program they've outlined because the men carrying the job forward have an apprenticeship of forty years in managing the economy, in planning the economy, in building socialist society. And the figures already demonstrate unequivocally the victory of socialism over capitalism and over imperialism.

This means it takes much less merit to be a socialist today, to build a socialist society, than to have been a socialist when there was no socialist state anywhere in the world yet, and the experience of life and reality had not yet taught and had not submitted the implementation of that theory to proof.

The building of socialism follows a well-beaten path by now. This doesn't mean that conditions are exactly the same in all countries, that socialism has to be built in exactly the same way in every country or that we have to copy rigidly the way it was done. Certainly not! Every country has its own peculiarities, and each country has to tailor its program, and its methods, and tactics to its own peculiar features. That is what we have to do.

But there do exist some common experiences of immense value, just as in medicine, in astronomy, in physics, there are truths already proved by historical fact, and we have the advantage of being able to rely on all this experience and all these acquired techniques as we build a socialist society.

This is, of course, easy enough to say. In practice, however, the job is somewhat difficult.

Sacrifices by the USSR

There is an enormous gap between theory and practice. It is easy to say that the Soviets built a socialist society. Well, they had to build that socialist society, to build their society at the cost of immense and titanic sacrifices. They even made mistakes, they made many mistakes, at first. Lenin himself undertook to expose some of these basic errors.

Among other things, the workers' movement, the triumphant revolution in the Soviet Union, had to face a long series of interventions. Well, one of Lenin's great merits was to see clearly the moment when it was possible for the revolutionary movement to seize power. Many felt that this movement would not be able to stay in power. He thought it could, if it took advantage of the correlation of international forces brought about by the imperialist war, and made the demand of the people for peace, bread and land its foremost demand. And he thought that while the imperialist powers were still fighting, he would set up Soviet power and consolidate it. In effect, he was-banking on the supposition that he had a certain amount of time before the imperialist war came to a close.

The imperialist war ended and all the countries agreed to intervene in the Soviet Unions Consequently, the Soviets were confronted by unbelievable hardships. First, they had to face foreign intervention. They had to deal with a powerful bourgeoisie. They had to confront the whole aristocracy and the remnants of tsarist; they even had to face petit bourgeois movement at home. But finally they won their victory, naturally under the most difficult conditions. At last, they had in their hands power over an immense country, divided, thoroughly devastated, and worse yet, a backward country; a country left with such devastation after the civil war that discontent broke out one occasion among the peasants and among the workers of Moscow and Leningrad.

Lenin himself acknowledged that one of the most trying moments for Soviet power was when the peasants and workers themselves gave vent to their discontent stemming from the extremely precarious economic situation and devastation in the Soviet Union. This was the time of the New Economic Policy: a series of measures temporarily installed to save the situation.

For a long time, the Soviet Union had to go through a period of starvation, of privation, of sacrifice. And when, after twenty years !of building socialism, the Second World War broke out, the country was invaded and lost twenty million lives. One must remember that among those twenty million lives were the finest youth of the Soviet Union, the most self-sacrificing, the bravest -- who lost their lives in the underground or at the front lines. And imperialism again, with its factories intact, its economy intact, threatens with war. Moreover, all the capitalist countries, with their arms, their atomic weapons, faced a war-ravaged Soviet Union which, in addition, had to help rebuild countries that had also suffered under the Nazi boot. To do this, it had to invest its meager resources in the reconstruction of other countries in the socialist camp.

Advantages Over Capitalism

And, surmounting all those conditions, it reached the present stage. Nobody will dare challenge the extraordinary technical, cultural and scientific progress made by the Soviet Union. I feel that it would be an absurdity and folly only of the blind, not to see that in the scientific field, the Soviet Union has completely surpassed all capitalist countries. In the technical and educational sphere, it suffices to say, for example, that three times as many engineers are studying in the Soviet Union than in the United States. In housing, the Soviet Union is at present the world leader. It has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world. And the average life span is increasing at the fastest rate in the Soviet Union. All this holds true now at this stage and in the wake of all these vicissitudes.

In other words, one thing has been definitely proved: the reality of history has fully demonstrated, has confirmed the doctrine of Marxism and Leninism. Socialist construction promotes an incomparably greater progress in society than does capitalism. The United States is growing at an annual rate of 2.3 or 2.5 percent; the Soviet Union, at an annual rate of 10 or 11 percent. So that in twenty years' time the Soviet Union will have surpassed with something to spare, total United States production, and in per capita production, will have surpassed the United States at an even earlier date.

Can the United States win in that competition? Can they compete with the socialist countries? Not at all! They would have to give up capitalism to do it. They would have to give up private ownership of the means of production, private control of the circulation of finance capital, private ownership of land, and transportation. They would simply have to set up a socialist system. They would have to tell the American millionaires: "There'll be no more throwing money around." They would have to tell all the American millionaires: "No more underutilization of capital, no more unemployment; we'll use all the means of production achieved by technology here, all the factories that have been built, and we'll manage the economy of the country, we'll plan it, and plan its development, and we'll build the plants we don't have.!' The only way they will be able to compete with the Soviet Union is with a planned economy, with rational invest ment of the entire national income -- there is no other way.

In other words, the only way out for the United States is to cease being imperialist and capitalist and become socialist. This is the truth. To understand this now, at a time when we have the opportunity to read, to study and to appreciate all these facts is of no particular merit. The absurd thing about it is that people should be so fenced in by a curtain of lies and prejudices that they are unaware of things that are basic historical truths.

It is fairly easy and quite simple for our people to understand these things today. All the more so, since the capitalist system of production has reached its highest stage, the phase of imperialism, of colonialism, of exploitation of all peoples, creating starvation and misery. Where do colonial wars take place today? In the Portuguese and French colonies. Where do we see discrimination, persecution, hunger, poverty, cultural backwardness, all this? In the colonies, in colonized countries, in countries exploited by imperialism.

Revolution at the Crossroads

Imperialism today is also the cause of starvation, of poverty, of underdevelopment of all the people. Imperialism makes it necessary to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on armaments every year.

Who alone is not interested in disarmament? Imperialism. If the manufacture of armaments were to be stopped in the United States, the immediate result would be that instead of four million unemployed, there would be perhaps ten or fifteen million unemployed.

They have been trying to resolve their problems through wars and arms races because, on the one hand, they can maintain a certain level of employment that way; on the other hand, they can keep the people in a state of hysteria -- more readily manipulated in the direction they want to take them.

Anyone who honestly analyzes the state of affairs in the world will find that it is the imperialists, the capitalists, who subject the world to the worst poverty, the worst backwardness, and they they are simply the scourge of mankind. It is enough for our people to study what is happening around the world to become even more an enemy of imperialism, an enemy of capitalism, simply because of its world policy of exploitation and extortion, its policy of war.

We didn't have to look around the world to find out what was going on, it was enough to see what was happening right here, in a nutshell. I have dwelt at some length on this topic to draw the following-conclusions. When the Revolution came to power, there were two roads for it to follow: to stay within the framework of the existing social order or to go forward; to remain within the capitalist system, within the imperialist orbit, within the criminal policy of imperialism in the Western Hemisphere, in Asia, in Africa, within the same policy which embraces a Franco in Spain, an Adenauer, a Chiang Kai-Shek, which embraces all the military dictatorships, all the French colonialists in Algeria; or to place our country where it rightfully belongs, that is, on the side of, the exploited peoples, on the side of the oppressed peoples, on the side of the colonized peoples.

Our nation, seeing things clearly, could never have accepted a place alongside France against the Algerians, at the side of Franco against the Spanish people, at the side of Chiang Kai-Shek against the great Chinese people, at the side of the imperialists against the South Vietnamese who are fighting there for their independence, at the side of Portugal against the Angolans, at the side of Romulo Betancourt against the Communist Party and against the MIR Movement of Venezuela (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, or Movement of the Revolutionary Left), an independent revolutionary leftist mass movement in Venezuela ), at the side of the Somozas, at the side of any of those regimes. For despite the fact that the propaganda of _imperialism pretends there are differences, the great truth is that the policy of imperialism was exactly the same in Spain and in Nicaragua as in Cuba -- in Cuba under Frio; in Venezuela, the same as under Perez Jimenez as under Betancourt; in Peru, the same under Odria as under Prado..

Viewing the march of world history, viewing the great efforts all people are making to free themselves from starvation, poverty, exploitation, colonialism, discrimination, such as the struggle the peoples of Asia, of Africa, of Latin America are waging, we could never in all conscience be on the side of imperialism. It is possible that some people stuffed with the. Reader's Digest, Yankee films, Life magazine, the UPI and AP news services which have told so many lies, may be led to believe that the policy of the United States was a correct, noble, and humanitarian policy, as they try to make out.

What thinking person today, what reasonable person today, what person who sees what is going on all over the world today, can honestly be on the side of the imperialist policies?

It was logical that our nation, not just from the point of view of national values and national feelings, but from the point of view of the universal interests of mankind as well, could never be on the side of those policies, but instead on the side of the policy it supports today, defending the rights of all peoples everywhere. It is possible that some people see this more clearly than they see their own economic problems.

There Are No Middle Roads

For anyone who does not see that our country had to choose between two policies: either the policy of capitalism, the policy of imperialism, or the anti-imperialist policy, the policy of socialism, we must point out that there are no middle roads between capitalism and socialism. Those who persist in thinking they can find some third positions have fallen into a really false and really utopian position. This would be equivalent to blindfolding oneself, it would mean becoming an accomplice of imperialism. It is perfectly understandable that anyone who remains indifferent to the struggle of the Algerians is an accomplice of French imperialism. Whoever remains indifferent to Yankee intervention in Santo Domingo is an accomplice of that Yankee intervention in Santo Domingo. Whoever remains aloof from the persecution unleashed by the traitor Romulo Betancourt against the workers and students of Venezuela, those same workers and students of Venezuela who are defending us, is an accomplice of that oppression. Whoever remains indifferent to Franco in Spain, to German rearmament, to the German warmongers, the Nazi officers who are today rearmed and even demanding thermonuclear weapons; whoever remains indifferent to what is happening in South Vietnam, to what is happening in the Congo, to what is happening in Angola, whoever remains indifferent and seeks to adopt some third position in the face of those facts, is not really adopting a third position, but is adopting a position of virtual complicity with imperialism.

There are some who believe, who presume themselves to be sharp thinkers, when they insist that what the Cuban Revolution should have done was to take money from the Americans and to take money from the Russians as well.

That is to say, there is no lack of people who preach such a repulsive, such a cowardly, such a cheap and vile political line. What they're saying is: sell yourself, sell the country as if it were just any piece of merchandise to the imperialists. Take handouts from imperialism while scaring them with the threat of friendship with the Soviet Union; in other words, be a blackmailer. There were those here who peddled the line of blackmail.

Ah, but how to blackmail? How would they carry out that line of blackmail? There was no room for such blackmail. To have done this would have meant to remain in the status quo prevailing in the country, to respect all the interests of imperialism here: all their thousands of acres, all their sugar mills, their electrical monopoly, their telephone company, their control of our foreign and domestic trade, of our banks. On the other hand, any country that decided to free itself from the monopoly grip of North American business, that decided to carry out agrarian reform, that decided to run its own industries, to carry on an independent policy, would have to take an anti-imperialist position.

Treason or Revolution

In other words, either the Revolution was not revolution or there had to be a betrayal. The Revolution had to choose between both these terms: betrayal or revolution.

And we who remember the men who have died for this Revolution, who remember our fallen comrades, as any revolutionary remembers those who fell, from Guiteras, from Martinez Villena -- although Martinez Villena actually did not die murdered, but died as a result of the disaster of that fight -- of Melia, all those revolutionaries. They who thought not of the revolutionaries of today, they who thought of Marti, Marti who also had a brilliant vision.

What is the merit of Marti, what makes us admire Marti? Was Marti a Marxist-Leninist? No, Marti was not a Marxist-Leninist. Marti said of Marx that since he placed himself on the side 01 the poor, he had all his sympathies.

Because the Revolution of Cuba was a revolution of national liberation against Spanish colonial power; it was not a revolution that was a social struggle; it was a struggle for national independence first. And even at that time, at that time Marti said of Marx: "Since he placed himself on the side of the poor, he deserves my respect."

And what other vision did Marti have? An equally brilliant vision in the year 1895. He had the vision of North American imperialism when North American imperialism had not yet begun to be imperialism. That's what you call having long-range political vision.

North American imperialism began to develop vigorously from the time of the intervention in Cuba, during which it practically seized the wealth of the country, seized Puerto Rico, seized the Philippines and launched the imperialist stage of North American capitalism. Marti foresaw in 1895 the development of the United States as an imperialist power. And he wrote and alerted the people against it; and spoke out against it. See how brilliant a revolutionary Marti really was to grasp the development of imperialism in 1895, when it had not yet begun to manifest itself as a world force.

And then one must think of all those who fell, all who died, all who fought. What did they fight for? So that the Electric Power Company would keep on being a Yankee company? So that the 18,000 caballerias (600,000 acres) of Atlantic Gulf would keep on being 18,000 foreign-owned cabalieries?,So that our peasants would keep on being landless, in hunger and misery? So that the banks would continue being foreign properties? So that our country would again be drained of hundreds of millions of dollars every year? So that there would continue to be a million illiterates in our country? So that the peasants would remain without schools, without hospitals, without homes, living in shacks and in slums? So that our people, fifty years after it had supposedly won independence, would continue under those conditions?

No Sacrifice in Vain

Of course, I am not talking here to the revolutionaries, and it is possible that it is unnecessary to talk to the revolutionaries about this. It is the insensitive, the indifferent, the confused who have to be spoken to, those who do not understand why this and why that.

Did all those people die so that the big landowners could continue to be the masters of thousands of caballerias of land? No. Anybody understands that this could not be; that the leaders of the Revolution would have been traitors, had they made a Revolution, led so many young men into combat and into war, sacrificed so many lives for that. So little glory would not have been worth the life of a single Cuban! For so little glory it would not have been worthwhile to raise one weapon. To raise a weapon, to fight, to struggle, to suffer what our country suffered, had to be for something much more than all that.

And some people tried to say that all were dying just so that this system of exploitation could go on, so that a thousand families could go on living like princes in our capitals and in our cities, so that this system of exploitation, of starvation, of poverty, of discrimination, of social abuses, could continue. Some tried to say that. They seemed to believe that the Revolution would do nothing to change that. There were some who, at the last minute, even bought up some bonds and did a few little things, with that in mind. How mistaken they were: How mistaken they were who thought that certain achievements our country had made and had aimed at from as far back as the war of 1895 were going to remain unfulfilled and that things would continue in the same old way.

It is obvious that this honest line, this revolutionary line, this line which marches in step with history, in harmony with the feelings and interests of underdeveloped and exploited peoples everywhere in accord with national interests and national honor, is not an easy policy to pursue. It necessarily had to be a policy of sacrifices, since, if we wanted to redeem our people from illiteracy and a low cultural level, from unemployment, from hunger and poverty, if we really wanted to develop our economy, to manage our own economy, an independent economy, and along with an independent economy, an independent policy that would wipe out unemployment and illiteracy, poverty and backwardness, misery and ignorance, sickness, and the unhappy situation in which most of our people were living, we had no other choice than to pursue a consistently revolutionary line. Had we not done so, we would not have been able to do what we have done. To do it meant that we had to brave imperialism with all its power. That is what we have done.

The Anti-Imperialist Struggle

Of course, we, leaders of the Revolution, are revolutionaries; were we not revolutionists, we would not be here making a revolution. What I mean by this is simply that the revolutionists and the people together with the revolutionists, in other words, the great exploited mass of the people, is ready to make the necessary sacrifices and pay the necessary price for all this.

A "pancista" (person concerned only with his "panza" or potbelly), one who is indifferent, one who is insensitive, one who is corrupt, would say: "It's best not to look for trouble; it's best to leave all those foreign interests alone." They could have said this, and they did.

We had to choose between remaining under the domination, under the exploitation and, furthermore, the insolence of imperialism, to go on putting up with Yankee ambassadors giving the orders here, keeping our country in the state of poverty it was in, or making an anti-imperialist revolution, making a socialist revolution.

There was no alternative. We chose the only honorable road, the only loyal road that we could follow for our country, and in keeping with the tradition of our revolutionary forefathers, in keeping with the tradition of all those who fought for the good of our country. That is the path we have followed: the path of anti-imperialist struggle, the path of the socialist Revolution. Moreover, there was no room for any other position. Any other position would have been a false position, an absurd position. We will never adopt such a position, nor will we ever waver. Never!

Imperialism should know well that, for all time, we will never have anything to do with it. And imperialism must know that however great our difficulties, however hard our struggle to build our country, to build the future of our country, to write a history worthy of our country, imperialism must not harbor the slightest hope so' far as we are concerned.

Many who did not understand these things before understand them today. And they will understand them more and more. For all of us, these things become ever clearer, more evident, and more Indisputable.

There Is Only One Revolution

This is the path that the Revolution had to follow: the path of anti-imperialism and the path of socialism, that is, the path of nationalization of all the big industries, nationalization of big business, nationalization and social ownership of the basic means of production; a path of planned development of our economy at a pace that our resources permit, and that the aid we are receiving from abroad permits. Another truly favorable thing for our Revolution has been the fact that we have been able to count on the aid and solidarity which have enabled us to carry our Revolution forward without the enormous sacrifices that other peoples have had to make.

The Revolution had to be anti-imperialist and socialist. Good. There could have been only one anti-imperialist and socialist Revolution, because there is but one revolution. And that is the great dialectical truth of mankind: imperialism, and imperialism versus socialism. The result of this: the victory of socialism, the triumph of the epoch of socialism, the overcoming of the stage of capitalism and imperialism, the establishment of the era of social ism, and later on the era of communism.

No one need be scared by that; here won't be any communism -- I'm saying this for any anti-communists left out there -- there won't be any communism for at least thirty years.

Just so even our enemies will get to understand what Marxism is. In a nutshell, simply, remember that you just cannot skip over an entire historical stage. Perhaps, today, some underdeveloped countries can skip over the stage of building capitalism, that is, they can start developing the economy of a country through planning and along the path of socialism, but they cannot skip over the stage of socialism. The Soviet Union, itself, after forty years, is just beginning to build communism and hopes to have made considerable progress in this area at the end of twenty years. Thus, we are in a stage of the building of socialism.

I Am a Marxist-Leninist

What is the socialism we have to apply here? Utopian socialism? We simply have to apply scientific socialism. That is why I began by saying with complete frankness that we believe in Marxism, that we believe it is the most correct, the most scientific theory, the only truly revolutionary theory. I say that here with complete satisfaction (applaud) and with complete confidence: I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I shall be a Marxist-Leninist to the end of my life. (prolonged applause).

And what kind of a Marxist-Leninist am I? Am I a halfway one? We revolutionaries don't know how to be anything halfway. We only know how to be 100 percent something. And to that we shall dedicate our efforts, our energies, our entire selves. Moreover, it is a great satisfaction to have been illiterate at the age of eighteen and to feel revolutionary as I do now at thirty odd years -- I think the "odd years" run to thirty-six (laughter and applause). I've learned a thing or two in eighteen years, and still have a lot to learn! And that is what we are telling the people, with complete candor, with complete loyalty, with all clarity, as I have always spoken to the people, always with complete frankness.

Did I have prejudices? I believe it is good to talk about that. Did I have prejudices about the communists? Yes. Was I ever influenced by imperialist and reactionary propaganda against the communists? Yes. What did I think about the communists? Did I think they were thieves? No, never; I always regarded the communists -at the university and elsewhere -- as honorable and honest people and all that... But, well, that is no special merit, because almost everyone recognizes these qualities in them. Did I have the idea they were sectarian? Yes. Why did I have such opinions about the communists? Simply, I am absolutely convinced that the ideas I had about the communists -- not about Marxism, nor about the Communist Party -- like the ideas many people have .were the product of the propaganda and prejudices instilled in us since childhood, practically from school age, in the university, in the movies anal everywhere else. I should say so. Do I believe they could make mistakes? Yes, I believe they can make mistakes. Marx, Engels and Lenin could make mistakes, and they themselves were the first to admit that they could be wrong, that they could err, because they did not think themselves infallible.

The Merit in Being Communist

My opinion of the members of the Communist Party, the opinion they really deserve? I believe that as they were unknown for a long time and were excluded and attacked and kept on the sidelines and, whenever a committee was formed, they were left out and were left out because they were regarded as "pests" and none of their statements were printed in the newspapers, we must also recognize that it was a great merit, a very great merit to be a communist. Not today... No, today we are going to see to it that is is a merit. Of course, we are going to see that it is a merits!

It had to be a great merit to have been a communist in those days when, as Felix Torres told me, he was taken out of Santa Clara jail and was forced to walk to Yaguajay. On foot to Yaguajay And so on, along those lines, they made innumerable sacrifices and (suffered) tribulations. It is a merit to have been a communist when they were persecuted, when all doors were shut to them, all printing presses, all newspapers, all opportunities. This we have to say.

Far more merit, of course, than being one today. Today, conditions are different. I have, therefore, said that we have to strive so that socialists, Marxists, are really Marxists, in the true sense of the word, ready for all contingencies.

But, in short, I meant this: that I had prejudices against the Socialist Party, prejudices stemming fundamentally from the campaigns. I admit it with the honesty one ought to have when admitting such things. I am not going to ask anything at all of the socialists. I say this now that we are perfectly integrated -- comrades all, socialists all.

On certain occasions, on certain occasions early in the revolutionary process, there was some friction between us, probably due to different conceptions of certain things, but, basically, because we did not discuss matters.

I must also say that there were people here who fell victim to the intrigue of the early days, when, every time something happened, it was said that there were a group of communists stirring up trouble, provoking a riot. I must say that at one time I even believed that it was the communists who had provoked a riot at a certain place, when a group of people with sticks attacked a citizen there. I was led to believe it, I must admit it here. And later I discovered that it wasn't the communists who had staged the riot, but divislonist elements who had armed that whole mob with sticks to beat up some citizens.

Unity Follows Discussion

In any case, in the first stages, there was a clash between two things, in reality between prejudices and a series of things: There was a "communist" behind everything. The employment of a communist had to be almost a secret. Right off the bat, the UPI, the AP and all the North American newspapermen would be on the spot digging up ten, a dozen, fifteen or so "communists." It was strange, back in those days, they were already starting to call all the comrades communists, and there was a group of comrades who were not members of the Communist Party, but members of the July 26th Movement. Then

they were pointing the finger at them, dragging some story of previous communist activities before the public. They started with that campaign, a campaign which even found an echo in some, more or less numerous, in all areas influenced by anti-communist and imperialist propaganda. Fortunately, due to the efforts of everyone, we got through those stages.

I believe that one of the errors of those first days was the lack of any major exchange of views between the different organizations. Each of us was acting more or less on our own account. It was the revolutionary struggle itself which brought us more and more into contact, more and more into common discussion, more and more into an exchange of views, and steadily promoted our unification.

I must tell you about a terrible experience we had. Some day when the history of this stage is written down and something is said of merit of this Revolution, they might well say that we were making a socialist Revolution without socialists, because at that time anticommunist prejudice was so strong that whenever a communist functionary was appointed to a job no matter how modest, there'd be a wave of protest, followed by a squabble and a train of intrigues. Our measures were socialist measures: a people's farm, a cooperative, an industry nationalized, all these are socialist institutions. We had good comrades, honored comrades of the July 26th Revolutionary Movement; but there weren't enough of them for those tasks. Certainly, there aren't enough men now! How were we going to manage with the jobs and tasks piling up on us at the time? Carrying out a socialist revolution without socialists was one of the most difficult jobs. When the process of uniting the revolutionary forces and the revolutionary organizations began, when anti-communism began to be routed and destroyed, we reached the stage in which it was easier for a number of members of the Socialist Party to fulfill various functions without all that intrigue and all that divisiveness.

A Marxist-Leninist Program

Now, what does this union mean? What is the significance of the moment when all revolutionary organizations unite? What it means, among other things, is hundreds, thousands of cadres, thousands of cadres! of tested people, of people who had gone through sacrifices, through hard trials, through difficult trials, who had a political education. And this reminds me of the times people came and said: "When are we going to carry our the July 2bth program?" And I said: "What 26th of July program are we going to carry out unless it is a Marxist-Leninist program? Why should we carry out two Marxist-Leninist programs?" This is the reality. Anything else would mean building castles in the skies.

So then, unification meant the participation of thousands of cadres, all indispensable, basic and essential to the building of socialism. It meant the participation of all the cadres of the Revolutionary Directorate. The Revolutionary Directorate didn't have as many experienced cadres as had the Socialist Party. Yet there were people who said: No, they want to seize this, they want to seize that!" One must be completely ignorant of what a revolutionary really is, to think that a revolutionary just wants to grab a position. What we know about all revolutionaries is that they all share in the work now, and that there is so much work that there are not enough people to handle it all. So much work that some comrades, if they are in the army, would rather go to military school, and if they are civil servants, they prefer to go to a School of Revolutionary Instruction, as a vacation. In other words, some revolutionaries find studying easier than the work they have to do.

All of the Members of the Revolutionary Organizations

Today the Revolution can count on all the cadres of all the revolutionary organizations. A very important contribution of the Socialist Party has been the cadres of old members, educated in Socialism, educated by the Socialist Party; the contribution of the Directorate is its youthful cadres; the contribution the 26th of July Movement could not consist of politically educated members with long years of experience, but of many young and enthusiastic people, revolutionary by choice, with all of the experience they acquired in the struggle to attain power. In other words, we have all made our contribution in one way or another and have represented the basic forces.

Formation of the ORI

These forces were called upon to unite in a single organization, and we organized the CORI. It was not easy, it was also a lengthy process; but, in the end, we organized the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations.

Sectarian attitudes are gradually disappearing; so are the attitudes of exclusivism. In the same way, people are no longer being excluded because they are socialists, and, consequently, sectarianism and similar attitudes are disappearing. Some attitudes of extremism are also disappearing. Extremism, which is often called "the measles," should, of course, not be confused with revolutionary firmness. Extremism is another manifestation of the petit bourgeois spirit in the revolutionary movement which we must fight against just as we have to fight against sectarianism.

There are many things our people have already had time to learn. They have had time to get rid of some of the prejudices that many people had who depicted socialism as something terrible something inhuman, something harsh, something enslaving, which is exactly all that imperialism is and which it accuses socialism of being.

Well, we are in a socialist regime. How different is this socialist regime from everything that had been said about socialism So much so that even those who have had problems, like the reactionary clergy, who have had problems with the Revolution, can't blame the socialists for them, can't say the socialists tried to close the churches, prohibit and persecute religious ideas. On the contrary, Aware that religious sentiment is a part of the feelings of some people, revolutionary power must respect the religious sentiment of that part of the people. It does respect it, and gives it every facility. It was those who waged war on the revolutionary regime who said that they would be deprived of parental authority over their children. And the people have learned the truth. Who were they who took away parental rights? Saboteurs who murdered young men and women, counter-revolutionary criminals who murdered a 16-year-old teacher and deprive his mother forever of parental rights, of affection, of warmth and the hope of having her son at home again.

Not only did they murder him; they tortured him. Why did they torture him? Did they torture him, as the Batista secret police used to do, to force a secret from a revolutionary? No, they did not torture him to get any secrets out of him. They tortured him because they were sadists, because of their love of torture, because that boy was there teaching. What secret could he have had? Thus, it was not to squeeze out any. secrets. They stabbed him fourteen times. They stabbed him simply to torture him, to fill him with anguish, to make him suffer, to sow terror in the hearts of all mothers. We found out that what robbed people of their parental rights was exploitative - capitalism, which dragged peasant girls away from the countryside to put them to work as servants, to force them into a life of prostitution. We found out that it was capitalism that condemned the daughters of workers and the daughters of peasants to that fate. And it turns out to be precisely socialism that wipes out illiteracy, that educates a million Cubans, that makes plans to rehabilitate prostitutes, to teach typing and shorthand to domestics, to wipe out unemployment , to bring teachers to the remotest corner of the country, to fight and die defending the country from the claws of imperialism, to bring hospitals, to bring roads, to organize social activities, to organize children's activities, to organize youth activities, to develop culture and to struggle for the happiness of the people. That is what we have given our people.

Socialism behaves very generously toward its enemies -- too generously. The social system which captured over a thousand mercenary traitors -- paid by and serving the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, and who came here escorted by foreign ships -- the system that captured 500 counter-revolutionaries -- among whom were many murderers who had already committed blatant crimes against the peasants -- without even applying the maximum penalty on them, the social system that sees with anguish its calm and generous attitude repaid by the cowardly and vile murder of a 16-year-old youth -- that is socialism.

In other words, with all its power, socialism does not abuse it. It is calm. It is conscientious. It struggles to overcome all its defects. It struggles to overcome-extremism, sectarianism, abuses, injustices, simply because it is socialism, simply because it is what Marx and Engels conceived of, what Lenin and all the revolutionaries fought for -- a better life for man, a happier life for the people, a freer life for the people, that replaces the regime of class oppression, the regime of an exploiting class over the workers, with a workers' democracy. In Marxist terms, this is known as the "dictatorship of the proletariat". (applause).

But though it is called "dictatorship of the proletariat," it does not mean torture, murder, crime. Certainly not! Those are characteristics of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie -- which, indeed, means torture, murder, dipping into the public till, injustice and arbitrariness. Proletarian government means simply that the working class seizes power to develop a historic cycle, and that it exercises this power over other classes, against which it has to struggle during the entire stage of the building of socialism. What better proof of the hatred of a class displaced from power than the murder of a boy in Trinidad. Could hatred and sadism be expressed any clearer? That is, simply, a manifestation of the class struggle, the struggle of the classes thrown out of power to regain their class control. That's why they develop such hatred, a hatred which, as Marti put it, is born "drooling from the entrails of the man." That description fits this case better than any other because only a mouth-frothing hatred born from the entrails of the exploiting classes could engender a crime like the crime they perpetrated against that boy.

This rule by the working class, the dictatorship of the working class, does not mean torture, or social crimes, or arbitrariness because socialism is opposed to all that. None of those things has anything to do wit -socialism. Socialism struggles against all injustice and rectifies all injustice. It struggles against all arbitrariness and rectifies all arbitrariness. It struggles against crime and-will never tolerate crime, never tolerate torture, never tolerate cowardice, never tolerate any baseness. Of course, it's no bed of roses. The enemies of the working class, the enemies of the peasantry, the enemies of the students, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of national independence won't find the struggle a bed of roses either. These enemies will get a reply from the strong hand of the Revolution, the strong hand of the proletariat, the strong hand of the people.

This means they are not going to waltz through here; for the things that were the cause of the law which the Revolution approved -- and which it had to approve because of their behavior, for despite all the care the Revolution takes and all the effort it makes not to commit excesses, to use its power with discretion, to be generous and to keep on stressing generosity, it has been rewarded with crimes and acts as cowardly and barbarous as this (murder of a teacher) -- have taught the people to be harsh toward the enemy. We are not inhumane, and none of us can ever take pleasure in anything that involves bloodshed, that involves shooting. No, none of us likes that. None of us are cruel, but we are aware, however, we are very much aware that the enemies of the Revolution should be treated with the harshness they deserve. That in this struggle they are not going to find a proletariat that murders, tortures; but they are going to find a proletariat that is firm, hard, and will give them the punishment they deserve. This law was not made just to be proclaimed but to be carried out.

The Revolution Has Cadres

The very intensity of the struggle between the interests of the exploited classes and those of the exploiting classes compelled us to take this decision and to adopt these measures, all absolutely necessary. The Revolution has strength enough for this -- strength that comes from the union of all revolutionary social forces, from the integration of all those forces, from the union of all the revolutionary cadres, from the formation of a powerful revolutionary armed force. From all the apparatuses of the masses which the Revolution has created -- like the unions, youth organizations, peasant organizations, student organizations, Committees for the Defense-of the Revolution and women's organizations -- from these organizations the Revolution gets its cadres, gets its mass support, gets strength and the power to apply the necessary measures against its enemies. And let us repeat: We take no pleasure in being harsh out of pure fancy, in being harsh for pleasure, but we revolutionaries know how to be harsh when we have to, and we will be as harsh as necessary with the enemies of the Revolution.

I believe that this background explains the reason for the integration of the revolutionary forces and the creation of the ORI, the reason for the socialist course of the Revolution. But they are going to throw the blame for the socialist Revolution on Carlos Rafael. A Marxist would never blame Carlos Rafael for the socialist-revolution. Of course, it is logical that the non-Marxists, the utopians, the lunatics - because they are lunatics - should throw the blame on the Popular Socialist Party, on the socialist leaders. That is simply the result of their lack of political education, of revolutionary instruction. Rather, we have all contributed to this unity We feel satisfied to have contributed to this unity and we are striving to organize and create a strong, disciplined and firm vanguard political organization of the working class and of the Cuban Revolution.

A Party of Selected Members

How are we trying to do this? Do we do it like the traditional parties, by inviting everyone, opening the doors equally to everyone to join the party? No.

What did the bourgeois parties do when they were in power? They opened the doors wide, invited everyone in and suddenly, any party that came to power immediately had a million followers.

When we were novices and knew nothing about politics, the newspapers we read used to say: "As proof of what the Soviet Union is, the Communist Party has no more than five million members out of a population of two hundred million. To capitalism and imperialism this proved that it was a tiny minority! Of course, they wanted to make us look at a revolutionary Marxist party through the same prism they use on a bourgeois party. With a bourgeois party, the more people, the bigger the show. The bourgeois party has no ideology. It defends the class interests of a bunch of politicians, a conglomeration of individuals. The more people it has, well, the more the patronage, the bigger the shows. They are not at all concerned about what their party members think. So they try very carefully to hide the fact that a revolutionary Marxist party is a vanguard party, a party of leadership and a party of selected people, that if the Soviet Union had opened up recruiting centers, well, there would have been tens of millions of members; that a party of leadership directs and works through mass organizations; that mass organizations are the instruments of leadership and revolutionary work and form the basis of revolutionary work. A revolutionary party is a selective party which leads. It leads and works basically through its mass organizations, through labor unions, youth organizations, women's federations, defense committees (which, in this case, is an invention of the Cuban Revolution and is also a fantastic mass organization) peasant associations, cooperatives and the farms which are now in the unions. In other words, it leads and guides through all of these mass organizations.

Therefore, the standard that the political organization of the Cuban Revolution will have to follow will be, above all, the standard of selection and quality. It will not be a quantitative organization; it will be a qualitative organization.

It Is Better to be Selective

We must say that as this is a product of the union of different revolutionary organizations, it is logical that in this initial stage the standard shouldn't be applied too rigidly, since one of the steps, in the plan to organize this force -- the integration of this revolutionary force -- is to train revolutionary cadres. That is, in this initial stage of unification, we cannot logically set as strict requirements as they will have to be in the future, because all the comrades and cadres of the separate organizations have to be integrated into one organization and many of them are engaged in study and training.

This organization will be restricted in membership. It will not be small in number; it will be large, but not too large numerically, because we are going to be very demanding in our requirements for membership in the political organization of the Revolution. Furthermore, as we face greater demands, more conditions and more requirements will be laid down for membership in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution. We will establish a strict standard of selec for it is better to be selective before admitting, than to expel after admitting.

Because, moreover, the enthusiasm of the masses, the revolution spirit of the masses is so great, we know that a party which Lakes shape, develops, and grows strong under these conditions has he advantage of being able to recruit the best elements, the most 'positive elements from among the masses, and make them members of .hat organization. It is fundamental that precisely the best of the people, the best of the mass organizations should get the honor and it the same time, fulfill the honored role of membership in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

And the more this is so, the more every worker, every peasant, every intellectual, every citizen will appreciate it. It is necessary to point out that any citizen can become a member of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution, whether he is a worker or not. In other words, the doors are open to any true revolutionary who identifies with the Revolution and is willing to follow the standards set and to accept fully and with conviction the program of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Good. In the first place, the standard of selection will become stricter and stricter, precisely because we want the best people represented in that apparatus, which is a vanguard organization, the leadership of the Revolution.

Naturally, other comrades will talk here about certain organizational problems. We want to say a few important things: All members of the separate revolutionary organizations will have equal rights and privileges in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution. This means that there will be no special privilege for having been a member of the Socialist Party for twenty years and it means no discrimination for having been a member of the 26th of July Movement or of the Revolutionary Directorate. Everyone comes in with Absolutely equal rights! We especially have to avoid extremes and mistakes. On the one hand, we must prevent those who say "I have thirty years", or "I have twenty years", from resting on their laurels of these twenty years and believing that their revolutionary background is sufficient. On the other hand, being a new member doesn't give one the right to believe that he doesn't have to know everything he should know about the questions of socialism and the questions of revolutionary theory nor to feel that he is not obliged to follow all our standards with discipline.

The Merit of the Future

That is, we must now have...make an effort to create a fuller and deeper unity on the basis of one thing alone which is what we should all take as a basis. In the early days, there were people who used to say: "I was in the Sierra." And they drove people crazy with this "I was in the Sierra." And there were also people who had been nothing in the Sierra. There are also people now who say: "I have been a communist for fifteen years" when there has been nothing communist about them in all their lives. We definitely have to eradicate from the vocabulary and the attitudes of a true revolutionary such things as: "I have been a communist for fifteen years."

Neither the "I was a communist" nor the "I threw bombs" nor the "I was in the Sierra" has any, reason to show off.

Whatever the merits each of us may have, comrades, there is still a greater merit and that is the merit in what lies ahead. It would have been correct to say to a militiaman: "You are a boaster." What rumor, what line did the reaction try to put across? To divide the militiaman from the rebel soldier, to create animosity between them?" Some people even let themselves be carried away by that false sentiment and some let themselves be carried away by the opinion of a militiaman who had done nothing. On that basis, what should we think about the hundred militiamen who fell alongside the soldiers and the revolutionary police! What should we think when we see today the photograph of a young worker who died fighting at Giron Beach, who gave his life, who left his wife a widow, who left his children orphans! Wouldn't everyone really feel ashamed to have thrown up in someone's face that, at one time, he was a militiaman, that he was not in the Sierra? Wasn't Giron Beach a historical battle too, as glorious as any other battle, a battle that will go down in history as the great victory of the revolutionary Cuban people against Yankee imperialism? Who fell and died there? Don't we have to take off our hats today in respect for the heroes who fell there, though they may not have been in the Sierra, though they may not have been communists for fifteen years, though they may not have thrown a single bomb? So, what is the greatest merit?

In the long run, everything that has been done is done and over with. All those who have died and all those who have fallen would have done so in vain, if we don't learn how to carry the work of the Revolution forward. And so the merit is in what is not yet, in what is to come. Who knows what struggles lie ahead of us? Who could have told that sixteen-year-old boy, whose picture we saw recently as an eleven-year-old among children seated at desks, that today he was going to be a great hero of our fatherland, a symbol of the nation, a symbol of the culture of Cuba and America? Who would have had a right to look scornfully at that sixteen-year-old boy who was teaching people how to read and write, and not have to bow their heads in respect to his name and his memory?

Who knows what battles we'll have to fight, what struggles lie ahead? Why should we believe that there is merit only in what is behind us? Why don't we believe that there is some merit in what we will have to do together from now on. I wish we had been able to do it together from the very beginning. I wish we could always have done it together, like the Bolsheviks who carried out the revolution in 1917.

There Will Be No Special Privileges

Let us be enthusiastic about the tasks before us. Let us approach them with honor, starting with the honor we have spoken about here today, with what I have said here with all honor and with all candor, because the first thing a revolutionary must be is honorable and frank -- in the history we must all write together, in the history the OBI must write, and in the history the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba must write.

In that history, and that struggle, and in the task before us, we must be enthusiastic. Who belongs in the United Party of the Socialist Revolution? Everybody. Every honorable Cuban, every revolutionary Cuban does. Does anyone have special privileges? No, no one. Is there any favoritism here? No, none. For the first time in our fatherland there exists a revolutionary power in which neither influence, nor patronage, nor nepotism, nor favoritism count, but in which merit alone is indispensable. And what a beautiful thing it is that today our country has such an opportunity.

What, before anything else, will the United Party of the Socialist Revolution be? It will be a school for revolutionaries. It will be a party where one learns to be revolutionary. That is why such special emphasis has been put on the school. The party, as such, is still not officially established. It has not had its first congress yet; but it will have one. When? There's no rush, but it'll have it. But the important thing is that extraordinary progress at the base has been made in integration and unity, and that in fact a revolutionary vanguard organization exists and that hundreds of schools are functioning, and that more than 10,000 citizens are taking courses of revolutionary instruction; they are training and developing their capacities.

And I tell you sincerely that one thing that makes each of us more and more revolutionary every day is to see a comrade who knows practically nothing of revolution, nothing of economics, nothing of Marxism. There were even anti-communists among-them, poor people, who had been instilled with anti-communist ideas, though they owned nothing: no capital, no wealth, no property of any kind. That's the limit. There's an explanation for the anti-communism of the owner of the sugar mill, or of a bank, but it is inconceivable that a man who has absolutely nothing should not be in accord with us when we tell him that we are going to socialize big business and the big banks.

Study is Necessary

And to see comrades devote themselves to the study of economics but in such a way that, to speak the truth, if we revolutionary leaders don't study, we'll soon have people from the ranks knowing more about economics and political economy, Marxism-Leninism, and a whole lot of revolutionary things than we do. I tell you this seriously, whether you want to take it seriously or not, but we shall see. I believe, I believe that, meanwhile, we the leaders are obliged to study more than any one else.

I have seen how those comrades have changed. Why have they changed? They see themselves as comrades who have discovered something, who have found a truth, an indescribable enthusiasm, not usually found in their first studies. We have something to give the masses. We'll be lacking many material things, but there is something more, there is a whole revolutionary doctrine, scientific, profound, full of interest, which we can give to the masses. We can educate them politically, teach them, give them a revolutionary theory. We have schools, we have a press to teach the people.

There is one thing that no one should doubt, and that is that our people will become more revolutionary by the day, and as they become more revolutionary, they'll become better workers, better students, better administrators, we'll have higher production, better fighting units. The Revolution will be better defended, and the Revolution will have more prestige as the people assimilate revolutionary instruction.

Teaching, Not Indoctrination

It is not a matter of indoctrination -- we should drop that term. Why? Because the word "indoctrinate" implies instilling something in someone, filling someone's head with something. It isn't a matter of indoctrinating or instilling the people with something, but teaching them to analyze, teaching them to think. No one could have instilled Marxism-Leninism in me, and the best proof is that they tried to inculcate the very opposite of this in me, and they failed completely. They might have planted a few prejudices in me, some things, but really, no one could have instilled the reactionary, fascist, counter-revolutionary, selfish, exploitative spirit in me. And you must remember that for twelve years I was a pupil in parochial schools. And in those twelve years, they couldn't really instill the counter-revolutionary spirit in me, the conservative spirit, the spirit of the exploiter, but on my own I was reading, analyzing and thinking with honesty.

I believe that we ought to teach the citizen to think, to analyze; to search among the sources of history where there are so many lessons; to search among the sources of the universal revolutionary movement where there are so many lessons; to search among the sources of the universal workers' movement; to search among

the sources of theory and explain them. Do not say that a person can believe something he doesn't understand. You create fantasies that way. You develop mystic, dogmatic, fanatic minds that way.

And when someone doesn't understand something, don't stop discussing with him until he understands; and if he does not understand today, he'll understand tomorrow or the day after, because the truths of historic reality are so clear, so evident, and so obvious that sooner or later, every honest mind understands them. So, it isn't a matter of indoctrination.

No one goes to any revolutionary school to be indoctrinated. No one lets himself be indoctrinated, no one accepts absolutely something he doesn't understand. He goes to be educated, to learn to think, to learn to analyze, to be given the elements of wisdom so that he may understand and discuss the ideas of the bourgeoisie, the lies of the bourgeoisie, the lies of imperialism, the lies of capitalism; so that he can learn to dissect, analyze and understand and with patience get to understand Marxism-Leninism, assured that it will cost nothing to teach the people the truth.

Revolution as a Career

No one should fear he'll be indoctrinated. He who believes that he's going to be indoctrinated will not find anyone interested in giving him a "shock treatment" or a hole in the head or anything of the sort. Besides, there are people who, because of their nature, their temperament, can never be revolutionaries. They couldn't be because, above everything, a revolutionary is also a generous person, a disinterested person, a person ready to sacrifice himself.

A revolutionary is not an opportunist or a faker. He is a man who is ready to give up many comforts, and who likes it and wants it that way.

Not everyone is a revolutionary just as not everyone is a musician, or a painter just because he has to have a career. Now, we must teach the worker above all, the peasant, the student, the great masses of the exploited of yesterday. And we must do this more every month because just as it is certain that there are people who could never be revolutionaries, so are there more and more people who understand the truths of the Revolution. This is what we have to do, and this is the aim of the School of Revolutionary Instruction: to teach our people to analyze, to teach them to think.

And a revolutionary has to be, above all, a man who knows how to analyze situations objectively, not subjectively. Learning to think is learning to seek the right solutions. That is one of the important questions I wanted to bring out.

Furthermore, regarding questions of organization, any day now I imagine Anibal will also be invited to join in this program, so that he can speak of everything relating to the organizational aspect of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Program? It will be a Marxist-Leninist program conforming to the specific objective conditions of our country. That is to say, we shall adapt in our program the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism to our conditions. So, that is not nor is it going to be a secret, not at all. And our people, our working class agrees with that, our peasantry agrees, all honest intellectuals agree, the youth, all honest citizens of our country agree.

So, those were the fundamental questions. Other questions relate to discipline and a whole series of standards, but it seems to me that my duty here today is to talk about the United Party of the Socialist Revolution -- and I wish to point out that you were the ones who decided when and how the United Party of the Socialist Revolution should be discussed -- the fundamental thing, the "why" of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution, the roots of the process and the functions of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution.

Fundamental Task of the Party: to Lead and to Organize

It is known how fundamental is its task: to organize and to lead, through mass organizations, through its cells; and, at the same time, to organize the people in accordance with Marxist-Leninist standards of collective responsibility and leadership.

I am now going to say something about collective leadership which is possibly the only thing left for me to discuss). For a good part of the time revolutionary leadership was a one-man leadership. That is to say, it was not bossist, not whimsical, nothing like that, but for a good part of the time the decisions were decisions that were made in practice by virtue of the confidence bestowed in the Premier of the Revolutionary Government; and as such, the basic-decisions were so made.

I said and I say and repeat: I firmly believe this is wrong. I do not have to reproach myself for this though; it was simply the result of the revolutionary process. Well, what did we think about that? We simply thought that was wrong; in fact, for a long time there was concern here about the problems of leaders and "what would happen if we should lose a leader?" and "if the Revolution is deprived of a head?" Why? We just had to get out of that situation as soon as possible; above all, we had to create a revolutionary party leadership.

That instrument is the best guarantee and the only sound guarantee of the continuity of power and of the revolutionary line. I sincerely believe that of the many political systems man has devised throughout his history, throughout his wanderings through history, it is simply the system of government based on administration of the state by a revolutionary and democratic party with collective leadership.

Why? Since individuals play a role, there is no doubt that individuals play a role in revolutions and an important role, but individuals are, after all, just individuals. And there is nothing more fragile than the life of an individual; even the conscience of individuals is fragile. But we have absolute faith in the firmness of our consciences; however, we know that an individual is the most fragile thing there is. He dies from a bullet, an accident, a stroke, a sickness, anything.

The Idiot Kings
Monarchies, which represented the social system of the empires of the feudal era and of the first national states, are characterized by the fact that a country can be ruled by an idiot. A son of a king is an idiot and the country is condemned to having an idiot rule for forty years because unless he dies before, he can live for forty years and even more. And there are many cases in history of nations ruled by idiots.

Representative bourgeois democracy is characterized by politicking, bribery and corruption and it is a system in which only the ruling classes and the wealthy classes have access to power, aside from the accompanying anarchy of that system of government, as demonstrated by recent history, for example, in France, a country where the government changes ten times a year.

Besides the risks arising from the system -- a system of one class ruling another -- it also often happens that one man alone can deceive the masses, one man can confuse the masses. A big demagogue, a theatrical person, can under certain circumstances rise to a position of leadership in the state, far beyond his capacities and his merits.

The system of one-man government, the consequence of dictatorship, has two important drawbacks. First, if the dictator is bad, the people suffer the consequences. And secondly, there is the lack of continuity and security in the continuity of power and of revolutionary direction and program. Moreover, some individuals are weak and feeble when exposed to all kinds of risks; and this is in absolute contradiction to the sentiments of the revolutionaries, in absolute contradiction to the sentiments of men.

The Ideal System of Government is the Party System

I, therefore, believe that the ideal system, the most perfect ever devised by men to govern a country, a system moreover that does not aspire to be eternal, but transitory, as temporary as are the stages in the history of a country, is the system of government based on a revolutionary party democratically organized through collective leadership. This meant the party must exercise the functions of a leader.

Why is it the best system? (It is the best) if democratic rules work, if the rules of collective leadership work. If democratic rules do not work, if the rules of collective leadership do not work, the system can be as bad as any other system. But if the fundamental principles of internal democracy and collective leadership are maintained, it is without any doubt the most perfect method of government and, above all, of government of a country in a stage of revolutionary transitions.

What does this mean? In the first place, if that party is not a mass party, but a selective party, it will get the best citizens of the country, because of their character and their merits, to join revolutionary cells. For long years, they undergo a process of apprenticeship, of direct experience, of performance of duty.

Little by little, through merit, such a citizen can take on ever greater responsibilities. That citizen can become a member of the Regional or Central or National Leadership; he can become a leader through merit. This is not the case with the king who leaves the idiot son in power; it is not the case with the lucky military caudillo, the great soldier, because there are men with great talents as fighters and they acquire great fame and great prestige as warriors, but are perfectly stupid as rulers.

It is not a question of being a demagogue or faker or a theatrical man. In a party where discipline, principles, selectivity, internal democracy and collective leadership predominate, the fool cannot rise nor can the idiot become chief of state nor can the lucky adventurer. That school will be a school where men will be tested by learning and training.

And so the most important posts in the state will be filled by men who have ability and have risen through merit.

What citizen can get to be a leader of his country in this way, a member of the leadership of his country? Simply, all citizens through merit, all citizens through their own worth. Only those who have true political bent, who have a true spirit of sacrifice, will get ahead.

It is not the other kind of politics where positions depend upon money, upon connections, upon favoritism. Let's rid ourselves of connections, of favoritism; let's rid ourselves of all that, and we shall without a doubt have a system that guarantees that the people will be governed by the most competent, best equipped men. Put simply, collective leadership.

How can the most fundamental decisions of the country, all of the decisions vital to the life of a country be made by one man, by a single official? That is simply absurd. We have seen, as one can see every day, that in some issues he can be wrong.

Suppose the views of some leaders were not checked with those of other leaders, if one leader's evaluation of the facts were not checked with another leader's, were not discussed and that decisions were simply adopted unilaterally and without discussion.

What does this expose the people to? It exposes them to being victimized by all the whims, all the mistakes and all the errors. It is far less likely that solutions which are discussed can be wrong, than solutions that are adopted without guidance and without discussion. I believe that very strongly, I believe in collective leadership, I believe in leadership by a vanguard political party.,

And that is simply what we think and that is what every revolutionary has to think. The words of the Internationale are appropriate: "neither Caesar nor bourgeois nor God." As for the believer, well, he can leave out the other two and remain with God. But neither Caesar nor bourgeois nor, above all, Caesar. And to be truthful,. we have had no ambitions to be Caesar.

If the people are interested in our personal experience, we can say that nothing really gives more satisfaction than discussion, than looking for the best solutions through discussion. Nor is there, greater satisfaction than when everyone shares responsibility, when the Party shares it, when the people share it. I strongly believe this, I have the right to speak from having gone through this revolutionary period, from having assumed grave responsibilities in the Revolution, from never having become vain because of it, never having felt I was infallible and admitting that I can make mistakes.

People Write History

I believe that one of the most honest things any citizen, any revolutionary can do is to recognize not by words alone but sincerely that one can make mistakes; to say there are no Caesars; to say that no one is appointed by Providence; to say that one believes, strongly that it's the people who write history, and who make history.

What often happens is that they don't mention the people They refer to the people by the name of a leader, and millions of men die anonymously, and all the glory, all the prestige often falls on one man, on one individual, on one leader so that one attributes the merits of the people to the leader. This is wrong because a revolution is not made with the intelligence nor through the efforts of one man alone; it is made with the intelligence of many people, with the blood and sacrifice of many, with the blood and sacrifice of thousands of comrades who won the fight against the tyranny, with the blood and sacrifice of hundreds of comrades who won the fight against counter-revolution; who defeated imperialism; with the unselfish efforts and the self-sacrifice of those who go to the mountains for training, who shut themselves up in schools separated from their families for long months, of workers who cultivate the fields for hours in the sun; of workers who cut cane, of fisherman who fish, of conductors who drive trains, trucks; of workers who manage factories; of workers who get up early in the morning to milk cows, to do some chore, or perform some service. These are the ones who make history, the fighters.

Who can credit himself with all the merit of millions of men who make up a society, who make up a people? Who can think that personal vanity and pride -- however legitimate, it's still his pride only -are worth the effort and the sacrifice of millions? Whoever believes himself superior and so infallible as to feel this way is simply wrong.

There Are Many Camilos

I came here to tell the people what I believe, and I have defended it and contributed to removing all obstacles to it. Very seldom have we felt as we feel on this occasion that we have contributed something to the history of our country, to the progress of our country, and if all of us, if all the comrades with more responsibility in leadership; if we all respect these rules, if we all live by these principles, our country will enjoy a great future, our country will be spared the problems of provincialism, will be spared a thousand other problems. For one thing that nobody doubts is what was said about comrade Camilo at his death, that among the people "there are many Camilos." And nobody doubts it because Camilo worked for a tailor shop and left. Camilo would not have been Camilo without the Revolution, without a chance to fight. Give this young man the chance to fight and you will see that he is a Camilo, that he wins battles and displays courage.

The Party Must Be the Great Instrument of Merit

"There are many like Camilo among the people," we said that time. But what is valid for a military leader is also valid for everything else; it is also valid for all other responsibilities. There are thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of worthy men, of competent men among the people. Give them the chance to educate themselves, to train themselves, to learn, to lead, to work! Give them the chance and just as you'll see magnificent athletes, magnificent military leaders, magnificent students coming from the people, so will magnificent leaders, magnificent cadres, magnificent administrators, magnificent orators, magnificent writers magnificent ministers, magnificent political leaders also arise:

Let us accustom ourselves, in accordance with the times and in accordance with our Revolution, to seeing in the people the great virtues, the great minds, the great merits, knowing that there are great reserves among them and that, therefore, they cannot fail! A man can fail, because a man is one. A people cannot fail, because there are thousands, because there are hundreds of thousands of minds, hundreds of thousands of potential leaders.

Then, what must the Party of that revolutionary people do? That Party must be the great instrument of merit, the great instrument of revolutionary vocation, the great instrument of revolutionary intelligence; that Party must always be above individuals because the Party is going to embody, not the value of one mind, but the value of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of minds; not the value of one heroism, but the value of the heroism of all; not the value of one spirit of sacrifice, but the value of the spirit of sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of citizens, of the fighting spirit, of love for the Revolution.

This is what the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution must be!

[[Category:Library works by Fidel Castro]]

New Jewel Movement

2023-10-02T20:16:33Z

TDM:

{{Infobox political party|name=New Jewel Movement|logo=New JEWEL Movement logo.png|founded=11 March 1973|abbreviation=|dissolution=29 October 1983|newspaper=''The New Jewel''||political_orientation=[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Pan-Africanism]]<br>[[Anti-imperialism]]<br>[[Anti-colonialism]]}}
The '''New Jewel Movement (NJM; ''New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation'')''' was the [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] [[vanguard party]] of the [[People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada)|People's Revolutionary Government]] of [[Grenada]]. It was led by Comrade [[Maurice Bishop]]. The party gained power in a bloodless coup on March 13, 1979. Bishop was assassinated in October 1983, leading to turmoil on the island, resulting in the [[United States]] intervening; the party was disbanded soon after.

[[Category:Communist parties]]

Maurice Bishop

2023-10-02T20:15:54Z

TDM:

{{Infobox revolutionary|name=Maurice Bishop|birth_date=29 May 1944|image=File:Maurice Bishop.jpg
|birth_place=Aruba, [[Netherlands Antilles]]|death_date=19 October 1983|death_place=Saint George's, [[Grenada]]|death_cause=Firing squad|nationality=Grenadian|political_line=[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Pan-Africanism]]<br>[[Anti-imperialism]]<br>[[Anti-colonialism]]}}

'''Maurice Bishop''' (29 May 1944 — 19 October 1983) was a [[Marxist-Leninist|Marxist–Leninist]] revolutionary who served as the Prime Minister of the [[People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada)|People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada]] from 1979 until his assassination in 1983. He took power after the overthrow of [[Eric Gairy]], who had ruled for almost 30 years and believed that he had been appointed by God.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=John S. Brierley|year=1985|title=A Review of Development Strategies and Programmes of the People's Revolutionary Government in Grenada, 1979-83|title-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/633276|publisher=The Royal Geographical Society|page=40–47}}</ref>

== Pre-revolution ==
In the early 1970's, the [[Movement for the Assembly of the People]], led by Maurice Bishop, was founded. In March 1973, it merged with the [[Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education, and Liberation]] (JEWEL) to form the [[Anti-capitalism|anti-capitalist]] [[New Jewel Movement]]. In 1976, Bishop became the opposition leader of the Grenadian parliament.<ref name=":0" />

== Grenadian revolution ==
On 13 March 1979 Bishop and the New Jewel Movement overthrew Gairy's government while Gairy was absent from the island. After taking power, Bishop began a program to stop [[inflation]] of food prices and improve housing, clothing, education, health, food, and recreation. The National Importing Board was established shortly after the revolution and reduced the cost of basic commodities such as rice and sugar. Hotels and farms which had been illegally acquired by Gairy were nationalized, but most of the economy remained privately owned.

In 1980, the [[National Cooperative Development Agency]] was established to start agricultural cooperatives, mostly run by formerly unemployed people. There were also 30 state-owned farms that had been owned by Gairy's administration before the revolution. Workers at these farms were given one-third of the farm's profit and the rest was given to the state.<ref name=":0" />

== Assassination ==
Bishop was assassinated on 19 October 1983 at Fort Rupert, Grenada, by a firing squad after being broken out of house arrest by his supporters. Six days later, the United States took advantage of the resulting turmoil on the island to invade, which they had prepared for months, ending the revolutionary government.

== References ==
[[Category:Anti-imperialists]]
[[Category:Socialist rulers]]
[[Category:Communist leaders]]

Anarchy of production

2023-10-02T02:51:18Z

TDM: Created article; just a stub, feel free to expand

'''Anarchy of production''' is a [[Marxist]] concept that all [[commodity production]] under [[private property]] in volatile and chaotic, leading to crises of [[overproduction]], [[underconsumption]], and economic crashes, such as the [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s and the [[Great Recession]] of the late-2000s. This is why Marxists propose [[planned economy|planned economies]], as opposed to [[market economy|market economies]], as they are more stable.

Withering away of the state

2023-10-02T02:44:08Z

TDM: Created article; just a stub, feel free to expand

The '''withering away of the state''' is a concept in [[Marxism]] that after a certain stage in the development of [[socialism]] (under the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]), all state administration will cease to exist. Unlike [[anarchist]]s, who wish to abolish the state overnight, Marxists realize that the state cannot be "abolished", but merely that it will "wither away" when certain material conditions are met. According to [[Engels]]:
<blockquote>"The [[proletariat]] seizes state power, and then transforms the [[means of production]] into state property. But in doing this, it puts an end to itself as the proletariat, it puts an end to all class differences and class antagonisms, it puts an end also to the state as the state. Former society, moving in class antagonisms, had need of the state, that is, an organisation of the exploiting class at each period for the maintenance of its external conditions of production; therefore, in particular, for the forcible holding down of the exploited class in the conditions of oppression (slavery, bondage or serfdom, wage-labour) determined by the existing mode of production. The state was the official representative of society as a whole, its embodiment in a visible corporate body; but it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself in its epoch, represented society as a whole: in ancient times, the state of the slave-owning citizens; in the Middle Ages, of the feudal nobility; in our epoch, of the bourgeoisie. When ultimately it becomes really representative of society as a whole, it makes itself superfluous. As soon as there is no longer any class of society to be held in subjection; as soon as, along with class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the former [[anarchy of production]], the collisions and excesses arising from these have also been abolished, there is nothing more to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of society as a whole—the seizure of the means of production in the name of society—is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of a state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then becomes dormant of itself. Government over persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished," it withers away. It is from this standpoint that we must appraise the phrase "people's free state"—both its justification at times for agitational purposes, and its ultimate scientific inadequacy—and also the demand of the so-called Anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight."</blockquote>

[[Category: Marxist terminology]]

Maurice Bishop

2023-10-02T01:56:31Z

TDM: Added section on assassination

{{Infobox revolutionary|name=Maurice Bishop|birth_date=29 May 1944|image=File:Maurice Bishop.jpg
|birth_place=Aruba, [[Netherlands Antilles]]|death_date=19 October 1983|death_place=Saint George's, [[Grenada]]|death_cause=Firing squad|nationality=Grenadian|political_line=[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Anti-imperialism]]<br>[[Anti-colonialism]]<br>[[Pan-Africanism]]}}

'''Maurice Bishop''' (29 May 1944 — 19 October 1983) was a [[Marxist-Leninist|Marxist–Leninist]] revolutionary who served as the Prime Minister of the [[People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada)|People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada]] from 1979 until his assassination in 1983. He took power after the overthrow of [[Eric Gairy]], who had ruled for almost 30 years and believed that he had been appointed by God.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=John S. Brierley|year=1985|title=A Review of Development Strategies and Programmes of the People's Revolutionary Government in Grenada, 1979-83|title-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/633276|publisher=The Royal Geographical Society|page=40–47}}</ref>

== Pre-revolution ==
In the early 1970's, the [[Movement for the Assembly of the People]], led by Maurice Bishop, was founded. In March 1973, it merged with the [[Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education, and Liberation]] (JEWEL) to form the [[Anti-capitalism|anti-capitalist]] [[New Jewel Movement]]. In 1976, Bishop became the opposition leader of the Grenadian parliament.<ref name=":0" />

== Grenadian revolution ==
On 13 March 1979 Bishop and the New Jewel Movement overthrew Gairy's government while Gairy was absent from the island. After taking power, Bishop began a program to stop [[inflation]] of food prices and improve housing, clothing, education, health, food, and recreation. The National Importing Board was established shortly after the revolution and reduced the cost of basic commodities such as rice and sugar. Hotels and farms which had been illegally acquired by Gairy were nationalized, but most of the economy remained privately owned.

In 1980, the [[National Cooperative Development Agency]] was established to start agricultural cooperatives, mostly run by formerly unemployed people. There were also 30 state-owned farms that had been owned by Gairy's administration before the revolution. Workers at these farms were given one-third of the farm's profit and the rest was given to the state.<ref name=":0" />

== Assassination ==
Bishop was assassinated on 19 October 1983 at Fort Rupert, Grenada, by a firing squad after being broken out of house arrest by his supporters. Six days later, the United States took advantage of the resulting turmoil on the island to invade, which they had prepared for months, ending the revolutionary government.

== References ==
[[Category:Anti-imperialists]]
[[Category:Socialist rulers]]
[[Category:Communist leaders]]

Grenada

2023-10-02T01:55:33Z

TDM:

{{Infobox country|name=Grenada|native_name=Gwenad|image_flag=Grenada flag.png|capital=St. George's|mode_of_production=[[Capitalism]]|government_type=Parliamentary constitutional monarchy|leader_title1=Monarch|leader_name1=[[Charles the Third]]|leader_title2=Governor-General|leader_name2=[[Dame Cécile La Grenade]]|leader_title3=Prime Minister|leader_name3=[[Keith Mitchell]]|area_km2=348.5|population_estimate=111,454|population_estimate_year=2018}}

'''Grenada''' is an island country in the [[Caribbean]]. It flourished under a [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] [[People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada)|People's Revolutionary Government]] from 1979 until [[United States of America|U.S.]] invasion in 1983.

== History ==

=== Eric Gairy government ===
After independence from the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|United Kingdom]], Grenada was led by Prime Minister [[Eric Gairy]], who was supported by [[Augusto Pinochet]] and the Statesian mafia.

In January 1974, a general strike began against Gairy. He responded by sending the [[Mongoose Gang]], led by the assistant Chief of Police, to attack the [[Anti-capitalism|anti-capitalist]] [[New Jewel Movement]] which was organizing against him.

In 1976, Gairy's [[Grenada United Labour Party]] won nine seats in the parliament and the New Jewel Movement's coalition won six.<ref>{{Citation|author=David Adams|year=1979|title=Workers and Peasants Topple Grenada Regime|publisher=The Burning Spear|mia=https://www.marxists.org/history/grenada/1979/regime-toppled.htm}}</ref>

[[File:First rally grenada revo.jpg|thumb|300px|First rally after the Grenadian "Revo", March 1979.]]
=== Grenadian revolution ===
On 13 March 1979, the New Jewel Movement (NJM), led by [[Maurice Bishop]], overthrew Gairy's government and took power. This was done while Gairy was visiting the United States and there was little violence. The overthrow was immensely well-received by Grenadians and others in the Caribbean, as even the Island's conservative Governor General, Sir Paul Scoon, admitted at the time. The mood was captured in the April edition of ''Caribbean Contact,'' the newspaper of the Caribbean Conference of Churches:
:Grenada's triumph over its 'long night of terror' with the creation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) was last month the cause for jollification and people's solidarity rallies throughput this region and in West Indian communities in Britain and North America. Now there's a new feeling in the air, a sense of liberation.<ref>Richard Hart, in ''The Grenada Revolution: Setting the Record Straight,'' reports on Paul Scoon's reaction, and gives the ''Carribbean Contact'' quotation; see pp. 4-5.
</ref>
The NJM formed a Peoples' Revolutionary Government (PRG) which included some non-NJM members. The new government implemented economic and social reform in areas including health care, education, housing, and women’s and children’s rights. International funding agencies observed a marked improvement in the economy.<ref>Amnesty International, 2003, p. 3.
</ref>
The PRG elicited public input into decision-making via [[Peoples' Council]]s which were held at the community level and were eagerly attended.<ref>Richard Hart, 2005. ''The Grenada Revolution: Setting the Record Straight.'' [http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Hart-grenada-3.pdf socialist history society] (A response to statements by Governor General Paul Scoon);<br/>
Bernard Coard, 1989. ''Village and Workers, Women, Farmers and Youth Assemblies during the Grenada Revolution: Their Genesis, Evoluton and Significance.'' [http://grenada-revo-full-story.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Grenada-Coard-Assemblies.pdf Grenada Revo Full Story.net]
</ref>

By 1983, however, NJM cadre were suffering seriously from overwork and the Central Committee (C.C.) of the party began searching urgently for ways to improve the efficiency of its work and to relieve the work stress on its own members as well as party cadre, many of whom were becoming disillusioned by the level of organisational disfunction. A proposal for joint leadership of the party (party leader Maurice Bishop would share leadership with former deputy leader Bernard Coard) was made on September 16, 1983 at the September 14-16 plenary meeting of the Central Committe by Cde. Liam James, a member of the C.C. and of the Political Bureau. The rationale for this proposal was that, while Bishop was a dynamic and inspirational leader, with great popularity among the masses, he was not enthusiastic or greatly skilled at organisational work, whereas Coard was the opposite, relatively uncharasmatic but a hard, systematic worker and the party's foremost theoretician and strategist. This proposal was passed by a large majority, including Bishop, at that September 16 meeting. However, there followed a two-week period when Bishop and a small number of the C.C. were away in Europe, and it appears that during this time Bishop began to change his mind about sharing power with Coard.

When he returned to Grenada, Bishop began to rally mass support around himself and against Coard, and to resist sharing the leadership. As this was a clear and serious violation of [[democratic centralism]], the C.C. had Bishop placed under house arrest on October 13. On the 19th, however, a crowd rallied around Bishop and freed him, and Bishop and his supporters proceeded to occupy Fort Rupert, the headquarters of the Army and Ministry of Defence.<ref>Committee to Free the Grenada 17 (2002), p. 49.</ref> Forces loyal to the C.C. then went to recapture Bishop; there was a struggle which ended with the execution of Bishop and some of his supporters.

Although perhaps technically justified given Bishop's behaviour, the attack on the Fort and the execution were a disaster for the Revolution because the masses were essentially followers of Bishop, not of the C.C.: it was him that they admired and trusted. Thus the prestige of the NJM was shattered by this move. The C.C. had misjudged its position: because of his popularity Bishop was the real power holder, not they.

Six days after this crisis, with the party and the government in disarray and public support for them at a low ebb, the United States invaded the island, a move which it had been preparing for months. Grenada was quickly overrun by the imperialist army, and Coard and several other NJM members who became known as the "Grenada 17" were arrested and tortured by the U.S. forces, some including Coard not being released until 2009, having been imprisoned for 26 years.

==Other works==
* Amnesty International, 2003. [https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr32/001/2003/en/"The Grenada 17: Last of the cold war prisoners?"] Report on mistreatment by U.S. forces of Bernard and Phyllis Coard and other captured members of the People's Revolutionary Government. Includes a brief historical sketch of the revolution.
* Committee to Free the Grenada 17, 2002. [http://grenada-revo-full-story.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/WhoseStruggle.pdf ''The October 1983 Grenada Tragedy: Whose Struggle for Power?''] Debunks various U.S. propaganda points including the idea that there was a conspiracy of Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard and others to remove Prime Minister Maurice Bishop from power.

== References ==
[[Category:Countries]]
[[Category:Grenada| ]]

All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

2023-10-01T21:49:26Z

TDM:

{{Infobox political party|name=All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks|native_name=Всесоюзная Коммунистическая партия большевиков|logo=[[File:Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.png|100px]]||founded=1991|abbreviation=VKPB|dissolution=|newspaper=''Serp i Molot'' (''Sickle and Hammer'')<br>''Raboche-krest'yanskaya pravda'' (''Workers' and Peasants' Truth'')<br>''Vpered'' (''Forward'')|political_orientation=[[Communism]]<br>[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Scientific socialism]]<br>[[Anti-revisionism]]<br>[[Soviet restorationism]]}}

The '''All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks''' '''(VKPB)''' is an [[anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[communist party]] that operates in [[Russia]] and throughout the former [[Soviet Union]]. It was founded in November 1991 by [[Nina Andreyeva]]. The party opposes the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]], considering it [[reformist]], and refuses to back its candidates in presidential elections. The party is outspoken against religion and is a critic of [[Vladimir Putin]]'s regime.<ref>https://www.vkpb.ru/index.php/programma-vkpb/the-programme#P7</ref> The party is critical of [[Khrushchevism]] and aims for the [[Soviet restorationism|restoration of the Soviet Union]]. The party had 22,000 members as of 2013.

==Platform==
* Overthrow of the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] and establishment of a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] in the form of [[soviet (governmental body)|soviets]].
* Abolishment of religion and separation of church and state.
* Liquidation of [[private property]].
* [[Nationalization]] of industry.
* Nationalization of all mass-media.
* [[Collectivization]] of agriculture.
* Free housing.
* Free education.
* Free [[universal healthcare]].
* Pensions for the elderly and disabled.
* Restoration of the [[USSR]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Communist parties]]

All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

2023-10-01T21:48:48Z

TDM: Added "soviet restorationism" as part of ideology

{{Infobox political party|name=All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks|native_name=Всесоюзная Коммунистическая партия большевиков|logo=[[File:Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.png|100px]]||founded=1991|abbreviation=VKPB|dissolution=|newspaper=''Serp i Molot'' (''Sickle and Hammer'')<br>''Raboche-krest'yanskaya pravda'' (''Workers' and Peasants' Truth'')<br>''Vpered'' (''Forward'')|political_orientation=[[Communism]]<br>[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Scientific socialism]]<br>[[Anti-revisionism]]<br>[[Soviet restorationism]]}}

The '''All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks''' '''(VKPB)''' is an [[anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[communist party]] that operates in [[Russia]] and throughout the former [[Soviet Union]]. It was founded in November 1991 by [[Nina Andreyeva]]. The party opposes the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]], considering it [[reformist]], and refuses to back its candidates in presidential elections. The party is outspoken against religion and is a critic of [[Vladimir Putin]]'s regime.<ref>https://www.vkpb.ru/index.php/programma-vkpb/the-programme#P7</ref> The party is critical of [[Khrushchevism]] and aims for the restoration of the Soviet Union. The party had 22,000 members as of 2013.

==Platform==
* Overthrow of the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] and establishment of a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] in the form of [[soviet (governmental body)|soviets]].
* Abolishment of religion and separation of church and state.
* Liquidation of [[private property]].
* [[Nationalization]] of industry.
* Nationalization of all mass-media.
* [[Collectivization]] of agriculture.
* Free housing.
* Free education.
* Free [[universal healthcare]].
* Pensions for the elderly and disabled.
* Restoration of the [[USSR]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Communist parties]]

Soviet restorationism

2023-10-01T21:47:20Z

TDM: Created article; just a stub, feel free to expand

'''Soviet restorationism''' is an ideology advocated by some [[communist party|communist parties]] throughout [[Russia]] and the former [[Soviet Union]] that aims to restore the Soviet Union as a [[socialist state]] adhering to [[Marxist–Leninist]] principles.

Bolshevik Platform of the CPSU

2023-10-01T21:41:57Z

TDM: Created article; just a stub, feel free to expand

{{Infobox political party|name=Bolshevik Platform of the CPSU|native_name=Большевистская платформа в КПСС|founded=1991|political_orientation=[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Anti-revisionism]]<br>[[Soviet restorationism]]}}

The '''Bolshevik Platform of the CPSU''' is a [[communist]] organization in [[Russia]], founded in 1991. It aims for the restoration of the [[Soviet Union]].

[[Category:Communist parties]]

All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

2023-10-01T21:33:28Z

TDM:

{{Infobox political party|name=All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks|native_name=Всесоюзная Коммунистическая партия большевиков|logo=[[File:Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.png|100px]]||founded=1991|abbreviation=VKPB|dissolution=|newspaper=''Serp i Molot'' (''Sickle and Hammer'')<br>''Raboche-krest'yanskaya pravda'' (''Workers' and Peasants' Truth'')<br>''Vpered'' (''Forward'')|political_orientation=[[Communism]]<br>[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Scientific socialism]]<br>[[Anti-revisionism]]}}

The '''All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks''' '''(VKPB)''' is an [[anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[communist party]] that operates in [[Russia]] and throughout the former [[Soviet Union]]. It was founded in November 1991 by [[Nina Andreyeva]]. The party opposes the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]], considering it [[reformist]], and refuses to back its candidates in presidential elections. The party is outspoken against religion and is a critic of [[Vladimir Putin]]'s regime.<ref>https://www.vkpb.ru/index.php/programma-vkpb/the-programme#P7</ref> The party is critical of [[Khrushchevism]] and aims for the restoration of the Soviet Union. The party had 22,000 members as of 2013.

==Platform==
* Overthrow of the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] and establishment of a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] in the form of [[soviet (governmental body)|soviets]].
* Abolishment of religion and separation of church and state.
* Liquidation of [[private property]].
* [[Nationalization]] of industry.
* Nationalization of all mass-media.
* [[Collectivization]] of agriculture.
* Free housing.
* Free education.
* Free [[universal healthcare]].
* Pensions for the elderly and disabled.
* Restoration of the [[USSR]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Communist parties]]

All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

2023-10-01T21:32:37Z

TDM: Minor edits

{{Infobox political party|name=All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks|native_name=Всесоюзная Коммунистическая партия большевиков|logo=[[File:Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.png|100px]]||founded=1991|abbreviation=VKPB|dissolution=|newspaper=''Serp i Molot'' (''Sickle and Hammer'')<br>
''Raboche-krest'yanskaya pravda'' (''Workers' and Peasants' Truth'')<br>''Vpered'' (''Forward'')|political_orientation=[[Communism]]<br>[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Scientific socialism]]<br>[[Anti-revisionism]]}}

The '''All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks''' '''(VKPB)''' is an [[anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[communist party]] that operates in [[Russia]] and throughout the former [[Soviet Union]]. It was founded in November 1991 by [[Nina Andreyeva]]. The party opposes the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]], considering it [[reformist]], and refuses to back its candidates in presidential elections. The party is outspoken against religion and is a critic of [[Vladimir Putin]]'s regime.<ref>https://www.vkpb.ru/index.php/programma-vkpb/the-programme#P7</ref> The party is critical of [[Khrushchevism]] and aims for the restoration of the Soviet Union. The party had 22,000 members as of 2013.

==Platform==
* Overthrow of the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] and establishment of a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] in the form of [[soviet (governmental body)|soviets]].
* Abolishment of religion and separation of church and state.
* Liquidation of [[private property]].
* [[Nationalization]] of industry.
* Nationalization of all mass-media.
* [[Collectivization]] of agriculture.
* Free housing.
* Free education.
* Free [[universal healthcare]].
* Pensions for the elderly and disabled.
* Restoration of the [[USSR]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Communist parties]]

All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

2023-10-01T19:44:55Z

TDM: Created article; just a stub, feel free to expand

{{Infobox political party|name=All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks|native_name=Всесоюзная Коммунистическая партия большевиков|logo=[[File:Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.png|100px]]||founded=1991|abbreviation=VKPB|dissolution=|newspaper=''Serp i Molot'' (''Sickle and Hammer'')<br>
''Raboche-krest'yanskaya pravda'' (''Workers' and Peasants' Truth'')<br>''Vpered'' (''Forward'')|political_orientation=[[Communism]]<br>[[Marxism–Leninism]]<br>[[Scientific socialism]]<br>[[Anti-revisionism]]}}

The '''All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks''' '''(VKPB)''' is an [[anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[Marxist–Leninist]] [[communist party]] that operates in [[Russia]] and throughout the former [[Soviet Union]]. It was founded in November 1991 by [[Nina Andreyeva]]. The party opposes the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]], considering it [[reformist]], and refuses to back its candidates in presidential elections. The party is outspoken against religion and is a critic of [[Vladimir Putin]]'s regime.<ref>https://www.vkpb.ru/index.php/programma-vkpb/the-programme#P7</ref> The party is critical of [[Khrushchevism]].

==Platform==
* Overthrow of the [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] and establishment of a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] in the form of [[soviet (governmental body)|soviets]].
* Abolishment of religion and separation of church and state.
* Liquidation of [[private property]].
* [[Nationalization]] of industry.
* Nationalization of all mass-media.
* [[Collectivization]] of agriculture.
* Free housing.
* Free education.
* Free [[universal healthcare]].
* Pensions for the elderly and disabled.
* Restoration of the [[USSR]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Communist parties]]

File:Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.png

2023-10-01T19:07:55Z

TDM: Logo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, an anti-revisionist communist party in Russia.

== Summary ==
Logo of the [[All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks]], an [[anti-revisionism|anti-revisionist]] [[communist party]] in [[Russia]].

ProleWiki:Library

2023-09-30T22:02:03Z

TDM: /* Socialists */ Adding Debs to socialist category

{{#seo:
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{{Library homepage}}
Read more than 300 books and documents from [[:Category:Library works by Karl Marx|Marx]], [[:Category:Library works by Friedrich Engels|Engels]], [[:Category:Library works by Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] and more free on ProleWiki!

''Don't see a certain author? Look in Topics (near the bottom of the page)!''

== Selected authors ==
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card|name=Karl Marx|image=Marx_colorised.jpeg|category=Library works by Karl Marx|left=-30}}
{{Library card|name=Friedrich Engels|image=Engels_colorised.jpeg|category=Library works by Friedrich Engels|left=-15}}
{{Library card|name=Vladimir Lenin|image=Lenin_photograph_colorised.jpg|category=Library works by Vladimir Lenin}}
{{Library card|name=Joseph Stalin|image=Iosif_Stalin_colorised.jpeg|category=Library works by Joseph Stalin|left=9}}
</div>

== Marxist-Leninist theorists ==

=== Socialism with Chinese Characteristics ===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card|name=Mao Zedong|image=Mao_Zedong_portrait.jpg|category=Library works by Mao Zedong|left=-10}}
{{Library card|name=Deng Xiaoping|image=Deng_Portrait.jpg|category=Library works by Deng Xiaoping|left=-25}}
{{Library card|name=Xi Jinping|image=Xi Jinping waving hand.jpg|category=Library works by Xi Jinping}}
</div>

=== Juche ===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card|name=Kim Il Sung|image=Kim_Il_Sung.jpeg|category=Library works by Kim Il Sung|left=-20}}
{{Library card|name=Kim Jong Il|image=Kim Jong Il.png|category=Library works by Kim Jong Il|left=-18}}
{{Library card|name=Kim Jong Un|image=Kim_jong_un_portrait.jpg|category=Library works by Kim Jong Un|left=-25}}
</div>

===Others===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card|name=Fidel Castro|image=Fidel_Castro_colorised.webp|category=Library works by Fidel Castro|left=-120}}
{{Library card|name=Ho Chi Minh|image=Uncle Ho.jpg|category=Library works by Ho Chi Minh}}
{{Library card|name=Alexandra Kollontai|image=Alexandra-kollontai-color.jpg|category=Library works by Alexandra Kollontai|}}
</div>

==Communist and socialist authors==

===Communists===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card|name=Enver Hoxha|image=Enver_Hoxha_picture.jpg|category=Library works by Enver Hoxha|left=-45}}
{{Library card|name=Rosa Luxemburg|image=Rosa_Luxemburg_colorised.jpeg|category=Library works by Rosa Luxemburg}}
{{Library card|name=Michael Parenti|image=Michael_Parenti,_Democracy_and_the_Pathology_of_Wealth,_44m30s.jpg|category=Library works by Michael Parenti|left=-15}}
</div>

===Socialists ===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card|name=Muammar Gaddafi|image=Muammar_Gaddafi_colorised.jpeg|category=Library works by Muammar Gaddafi|}}
{{Library card|name=Martin Luther King Jr.|image=MLKJr colorised.jpg|category=Library works by Martin Luther King Jr.|left=-20}}
{{Library card|name=Eugene V. Debs|image=Eugene V. Debs.png|category=Library works by Eugene V. Debs|left=-20}}
</div>

==Works about countries==

=== Actually existing socialism ===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card mid|name=Soviet Union|image=soviet_union_at_night.jpg|category=Library works about the Soviet Union}}
{{Library card mid|name=DPRK|image=Pyongyang-monuments-juche.jpeg|category=Library works about the DPRK|scale=1.3}}
{{Library card mid|name=China|image=China_monument.jpg|category=Library works about China|scale=2.1}}
{{Library card mid|name=Cuba|image=Cuba_monument.png|category=Library works about Cuba|scale=1.2}}
{{Library card mid|name=Laos|image=Laos_monument.jpg|category=Library works about Laos|scale=1.6}}
{{Library card mid|name=Vietnam|image=Vietnam monument.png|category=Library works about Vietnam|scale=0.92}}
</div>

=== Other countries ===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card mid|name=USA|image=Lenin-statue-in-Fremont.jpg|category=Library works about the United States of America}}
</div>

==Documents from communist parties and countries==

===Ruling parties===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card mid|name=Soviet Union|image=The Motherland Is Calling Soviet WW2 poster.jpeg|category=Library documents from the Soviet Union}}
{{Library card mid|name=China|image=768ef688d7c3fbd248_Shaomin_Li_02_Red_Lantern.jpg|category=Library documents from China}}
{{Library card mid|name=Albania|image=Socialist_albania_poster.png|category=Library documents from Albania}}
{{Library card mid|name=Vietnam|image=Ho Chi Minh poster.png|category=Library documents from Vietnam|scale=1.5}}
</div>

===Non-ruling parties===
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card mid|name=Brazil|image=Map_of_brazil_from_soviet_atlas_1928.png|category=Library documents from Brazil}}
{{Library card mid|name=Russia|image=KPRF flag.png|category=Library documents from Russia|scale=1.5}}
{{Library card mid|name=USA|image=Map_of_USA_from_soviet_atlas_1928.png|category=Library documents from the United States of America|scale=1.5}}
</div>

==Other topics==
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card mid|name=Feminism|image=Soviet_feminism_poster.jpg|category=Library works about feminism}}
{{Library card mid|name=Philosophy|image=Knowledge_will_break_the_chains_of_slavery_-_Soviet_Poster.webp|category=Library works about philosophy}}
{{Library card mid|name=Economics|image=Exploitation oppression war poster.png|category=Library works about economics|scale=1.5}}
{{Library card mid|name=Geopolitics|image=Comrade_Lenin_cleans_the_Earth.png|category=Library works about geopolitics}}
{{Library card mid|name=Decolonisation|image=The_chains_are_breaking.png|category=Library works about decolonisation|scale=1.4}}
{{Library card mid|name=Military theory|image=Vietnam propaganda poster 1961.jpeg|category=Library works about military theory}}
{{Library card mid|name=Fascism|image=Soviet poster against hitler's advance 1941.jpeg|category=Library works about fascism}}
{{Library card mid|name=Revisionism|image=Chinese-soviet-propaganda-posters (10).jpg|category=Library works about revisionism|scale=0.95}}
{{Library card mid|name=Non-communist authors|image=Bourgeois_internationalism_poster.png|category=Library works by non-marxists and other authors}}
</div>

== Interviews, speeches and transcripts ==
<div class="library-container-mini">
{{Library card_mini|text=[[:Category:Interviews|Interviews]]|image=Lenin with Stalin.png|link=:Category:Interviews|name=Interviews}}
{{Library card_mini|text=[[:Category:Speeches|Speeches]]|image=Speech-of-lenin-on-the-red-square-1959.jpg|link=:Category:Speeches|name=Speeches}}
{{Library card_mini|text=[[:Category:Video Transcripts|Transcripts (video)]]|image=Vsevolod-Medvedev-1912-1985.-Lenin-reading-a-newspaper-Pravda.-Oil-on-canvas.-1965.jpg|link=:Category:Video Transcripts|name=Transcripts (video)}}
{{Library card_mini|text=[[:Category:PDF works|PDF files]]|image=kim jong un computer.jpeg|link=:Category:PDF works|name=PDF files}}
{{Library card_mini|text=[[:Category:Song lyrics|Songs]]|image=Placeholder-image.png|link=:Category:Song lyrics|name=Songs}}
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== Study guides and reading lists==
<div class="library-container-mini">
{{Library card_mini|text=[[:Category:Crit's absolute beginner reading list|Crit's absolute beginner list]]|image=Mao reading book.jpg|link=:Category:Crit's absolute beginner reading list|name=Crit's absolute beginner list}}
{{Library card_mini|text=[[:Category:Reading lists|All reading lists]]|image=Mao reading book.jpg|link=:Category:Reading lists|name=All reading lists}}
</div>

[[Category:ProleWiki official pages]]

Library:Statement to the Court Upon Being Convicted of Violating the Sedition Act

2023-09-30T21:58:50Z

TDM: Created article

{{Library work|title=Statement to the Court Upon Being Convicted of Violating the Sedition Act|author=Eugene V. Debs|published_date=1918|source=[https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/court.htm Marxists Internet Archive]}}

September 18, 1918

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I listened to all that was said in this court in support and justification of this prosecution, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon the Espionage Law as a despotic enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles and with the spirit of free institutions…

Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believe in a fundamental change—but if possible by peaceable and orderly means…

Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen I went to work in a railroad shop; at sixteen I was firing a freight engine on a railroad. I remember all the hardships and privations of that earlier day, and from that time until now my heart has been with the working class. I could have been in Congress long ago. I have preferred to go to prison…

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.

In this country—the most favored beneath the bending skies—we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child—and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity…

I believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation ought to own and control its own industries. I believe, as all Socialists do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all…

I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.

This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but, fortunately, I am not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and cooperative basis; and to this end we have organized a great economic and political movement that spreads over the face of all the earth.

There are today upwards of sixty millions of Socialists, loyal, devoted adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color, or sex. They are all making common cause. They are spreading with tireless energy the propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching, and working hopefully through all the hours of the day and the night. They are still in a minority. But they have learned how to be patient and to bide their time. The feel—they know, indeed—that the time is coming, in spite of all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will spread among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the triumphant majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest social and economic change in history.

In that day we shall have the universal commonwealth—the harmonious cooperation of every nation with every other nation on earth…

Your Honor, I ask no mercy and I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never so clearly comprehended as now the great struggle between the powers of greed and exploitation on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of industrial freedom and social justice.

I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity. The people are awakening. In due time they will and must come to their own.

When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

[[Category:Library works by Eugene V. Debs]]