Political Speeches for Barnett's "The Cuban Story"  (Lit 295) W&L

Biography

Young Ernesto Guevara

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna is born June 14, 1928 in Rosario, one of the most important cities in Argentina, in a well off family. A family with aristocratic roots but socialistic ideas.

In 1937, Ernesto is 9 years old and goes to the third grade of primary school; he follows up engagingly the Spanish Civil war. On a map he indicates the military evolution.

In 1947, Ernesto Guevara meets the young Berta Gilda Infante, also known as Tita. She is a member of the Argentine Communistic Youth. They build up a profound friendship. Together they read Marxist texts and discuss the actualities.

In 1948, Ernesto, who is 20 years old at that time, undergoes an examination at the faculty of medicine at the University of Buenos Aires. In March he passes for the examinations of the first year, in June for those of the second year and in December for those from the third year.

January 1 1950, Ernesto Guevara attempts his first voyage. He traverses the northern provinces of Argentina on a bicycle on which he adjusted a small motor. He arrives at San Francisco del Chahar, near Córdoba, where his friend Alberto Granado runs the dispensary of the leper-centre. With the patients he has long conversations about their disease.

He continues his university studies and is above all interested in the scientific research for allergies, asthma, leprosy and nutritive theory.

While he is studying, he works as a male nurse on trading and petroleum ships of the Argentine national shipping-company. Like that he travels from the south of Argentina to Brazil, Venezuela and Trinidad.

A journey through Latin-America

In October he decides to make his first trip through Latin-America. Together with Alberto Granado he leaves in January 1952 on an old « Norton » 500-cc motorbike.

In Valparaiso Chili he writes in his diary: «  We are looking for the bottom part of the town. We talk to many beggars. Our noses inhale attentively the misery. »

About Chili he writes: «  The most important effort that needs to be done is to get rid of the uncomfortable ‘Yankee-friend’. It is especially at this moment an immense task, because of the great amount of dollars they have invested here and the convenience of using economical pressure whenever they believe their interests are being threatened. »

On March 24 they arrive at the Peruvian Tacna. After a discussion about the poverty in the region, he refers in his notes to the words of José Marti: « I want to link my destiny to that of the poor of this world. »

On May 1 they arrive in Lima. Che meets doctor Hugo Pesce, a Peruvian scientist, and director of the national leprosy program and an important Marxist. They discuss several nights until the morning comes. Year’s later Che puts that these conversations were very important for the change in his attitude towards life and the society.

On May 17 he leaves for the leper-centre of San Pablo in the Peruvian Amazon forest. He arrives on June 7. During his visit to this place, he complaints about the miserable way that the people of that region and the sick have to live. There were no clothes, almost no food and no medication.

After working there for a few weeks, he leaves for Leticia, Colombia via the Amazon River.

July 17 he arrives in Caracas. There he decides to go back to Buenos Aires to finish his studies in medical science. He travels with a cargo-plane via Miami, where the technical problems with the aeroplane give him a delay of one month. To survive, he works as a waiter and he washes dishes in a bar. On regular base he is apprehended and questioned by the police. They ask him if he, his mother or father are communist. He is back in Buenos Aires on August 31.

On his way to the revolution

Che Guevara finished his studies early 1953. He gets summoned for military duty but he was rejected. On July 7 he goes by slow train to La Paz, Bolivia, 6000km further. Che arrives at Panama late October. He is indignant about the submissive attitude of the Panamese leaders towards the U.S. In Costa Rica he learns about the domination of United Fruit and the exploitation and of the misery that is the result of it. In a letter to his aunt Beatriz he writes: "In El Paso I traversed the vast domains of United Fruit. Once more I was able to convince myself how criminal the capitalistic octopuses are. On a picture of our old and bewailed comrade Stalin, I swore not to rest before these capitalistic octopuses are destroyed. In Guatemala I want to get perfect in becoming an authentic revolutionary."

Via Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, Che arrives late December at Guatemala where Jacobo Arbenz leads a revolutionary process. In a letter to his mother he writes: "I’ve finally reached my aim…. If everything goes well, I think I will stay here for about 2 years."

1954

June 14 - 15 - 16. Che sees how North American Aeroplanes fly over Guatemala and bomb down the military installations and the poor popular quarters. He writes; "This incident has united all Guatemalese with their government and with all who, just like me, were attracted by Guatemala." The U.S. chooses Castillo Armas as ‘leader’ of the coup.

June 18, 1954. He lives to see de coup d’état against the Arbenz government, planned and executed by the U.S. He transports weapons and tries to assemble some youths to fight; he helps to bring political leaders in safety. On June 20 Che writes to his mother: "These attacks, together with the lies of the international press, have woken the indifferent. A combative climate rules. I have applied as a voluntary for the medical help services and I have registered in the youth-brigade to get a military education and to go there where necessary."

On June 26 the national radio declares the resignation of president Arbenz and the exile of almost all-political leaders and their families. This causes a great commotion with the revolutionary people. Che puts it like this: "In Guatemala it was necessary to fight but almost no one fought. Resistance had to be put up and almost no one wanted to do it."

Repression breaks loose. Latin-American embassies are getting filled with political refugees. Che is indicated as a dangerous Argentine communist and may not remain in Guatemala.

1955

Early 1955 Che Guevara finds work as a doctor in the "Hospital Central" of Mexico-City.

In June he meets Raul Castro. They become friends. On July 8 Fidel Castro arrives in the Mexican capital. About their first meeting Che said: "I’ve met him during one of the cool nights in Mexico and I remember that our first conversation was about international politics.

That same night – towards morning – I was one of the future participants of the expedition with the Granma." Fidel Castro about that meeting: "he knew much about the Marxism-Leninism, self-thought, very eager to learn, he was a convinced. When we met Che he was already an educated revolutionary."

1956

On June 24, the Mexican police have arrested Che together with Cuban comrades.

On July 3 the press agency UPI notifies: "The Argentine doctor Guevara will be deported to his land of origin, because of his presumed participation of the failed conspiracy against the Cuban government of Fulgencio Batista." The Mexican ex-president Lázaro Cárdenas interferes to defend the Cuban revolutionaries. Late July the last, among them Che Guevara, are released. They continue their revolutionary activities in clandestinely.

With Fidel Castro to Cuba

November 25: the yacht Granma leaves in a stormy night with on board 82 man from the mouth of the river Tuxpán in Mexico.

On December 2 they landed in Los Cayelos, at the East Coast. The next day the Cuban and Latin-American newspapers announced about the expedition:"…Fidel Castro, Ernesto Guevara, Raul Castro and all other members of the expedition have perished…" Their arrival is noticed and they get hunted. The group splits. On December 5 in Alegría del Pino, Che gets ambushed. Later on he writes about this:" I’ve got wounded in my neck. I stayed alive thanks to my luck of a cat. A box of bullets I was carrying close to my chest stopped a bullet of a machine gun and it ricochets up to my neck.

With the help of other he could escape in the sugarcane fields. In these circumstances Che had to make the, so often told about, choice between his duty as a doctor and his duty as a revolutionary soldier. To escape he had to choose between a backpack filled with medications and a crate of bullets. It was impossible to take them both. Che takes the crate with bullets and hurries into the sugarcane. Later they leave a great deal of their cargo with a farmer. On December 21 Che’s group arrives at a coffee plantation where Fidel is already waiting for a couple of days.

1957

On January they attack the barracks of La Plata. Che: "La Plata was our first victory. It was clear to everybody that a rebel-army existed and was ready for battle. To us it was the confirmation of the chances to the final victory." The ambushes and fights increased. The army bombarded. In April he organises, in order of Fidel extended contacts with the farmers, to create points of support in the area. Year’s later Che writes: "The guerrilla and the farmers gradually became one, without anyone could tell when this unity really had performed. I only know that these contacts with the farmers in the mountains made the spontaneous decision turn quickly into a devoted and serious relation. The suffering and sincere inhabitants of the Sierra Maestra have never known how important their part was in the creation of our revolutionary ideology."

In July Che begins to alphabetise Joel, Israel and other guerrilla’s. The others also are organised in circles of study about the history of Cuba, the characteristics of the army of tyranny and the importance of the armoured battle. On July 21 Fidel nominated Che commander. About this Che writes: "In a very informal way I was nominated commander of the second colonne of the guerrilla-army (…) The dose vanity that anyone has inside of him, made me the proudest man on the world that day."

On September 17, five army-trucks fall into an ambush of the rebels.

1958

On January 6 Che writes to Fidel: "I already said that these merits would always be counted for: showing that in America the armoured battle with the support of the people is possible."

In February Che gets interviewed in front of the microphones of "Radio El Mundo" from Buenos Aires: "I’m simply here because I think that the only way to liberate America of the dictators is to defeat them. I’ll give all the help I can to make them go down, the sooner the better."

"Aren’t you afraid that your intervention will be regarded as a foreign interference?"

"First of all I don’t regard only Argentina as my native country but whole of America. For this I would like to call up to examples such as Marti, and it is exactly on his land of birth that I would make his doctrine come true. Besides you can’t call it interference if I want to give myself personally and totally – up to my blood – to a case that seems right to me and that is completely that of the people. A people that wants to get liberated of a tyranny that on itself cheers the armoured interference of a foreign power with aeroplanes, weapons and military advisors. Up to now not even one country accused the North-American interference in Cuban affairs, not one newspaper accuses the Yankees of helping Batista slaughtering his people.

On may 24 and 25 dictatorial troops attacked two mines in Sierra Maestra. It is the beginning of a big offensive. Hostile troops made a forced entry in several points in the Sierra Maestra and threaten to advance. In addition they occupy the supply and communication-lines. The next few days Che participates in a counter-attack that debouch into a defeat for the enemy, a force of over 10.000 man.

On August 21 Fidel writes: "The mission to conduct a brigade from the Sierra Maestra to the province ‘Las Villas’ and to operate there according to the strategic plan of the Rebel-army, is assigned to Commander Ernesto Che Guevara. (…) He is also appointed as head of all units of the ‘M-26 de julio’ that are operating in this province, in the cities as well as in the countryside. (…) The eight brigade has for a strategic object to attack the enemy continuously in the centre of Cuba and to intercept the hostile troop-movements over land from west to east until they are crippled completely.

On December 16 the bridge over the river Falcon by the Central Road is blown up, by that, all cities at the east of Santa Clara, were unable to be reached from Havana. On December 26 Che writes: "The war is won, the enemy has come loudly to his knees, in the east we keep 10.000 soldiers in captivity. Those of Camoguey have no longer a way out. All of this is the result of only one thing: our effort." The next day he decides to march to Santa Clara.

The international press informs the world that Che had died. ‘Radio Rebelde’ on the contrary sends word: "Latest news of primary importance! Great victory for the eight brigade of Las Villas. Troops under guidance of Ernesto Che Guevara conquered a blinded train and 300 fully equipped soldiers were captured."

1959

By day-brake of New-Year dictator Batista fled the country. Che Guevara gets the Cuban nationality on February 9.

From July till August he travels as head of an official delegation to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt where he meets Nasser. The trip goes on to India, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Pakistan. They turn back via Eastern and Western Europe to close up in Morocco. On his return Che declares to be surprised for the sympathy that the Cuban revolution evoked all over the world.

On October 17 Che advises university students to: " (…) get contact with the people, not to ‘help’ them with knowledge or what so ever – like an aristocratic lady that hand out a coin of money to a beggar – but to become participants of the revolutionary forces that rule over Cuba today. To place your shoulders under the extension of the revolution and, at the same time, to get experience that might be more important than all interesting things that you learn in your lessons." On November 23 he introduces the first ‘day of voluntary labour’ in Cuba.

1960

At the end of 1960 the U.S. establishes a complete trading-embargo against Cuba. Che leads an official Cuban delegation in a tour to different socialistic countries: from the Soviet-Union and Eastern Europe to China and Northern Korea. From there, back to the Soviet-Union, Eastern-Germany and Czecho-Slovakia. Early ’61 the U.S. breaks all diplomatic relations with Cuba.

1961

On April 15 are the Cuban airports bombed by US-planes. On April 17 there is the invasions in the Bay of Pigs: 1.500 CIA-mercenaries attack Cuba supported by the American fleet and airforce. The contra’s want to cause a revolt of the people. In barely 72 hours they get completely defeated by the Cuban nation. 1.200 of them are being captured.

1964

May 17: confronted with new acts of sabotage of the imperialism in a harbour in the south he says: "We have rendezvous with history, and we simply can not permit ourselves to be afraid! We must maintain the same enthusiasm and faith. Build factories with our left hand, aim the rifle with the right hand and crush the worms with our heels."

In August he talks about the situation in Congo: "What is happening in Africa, where only two years ago the prime minister of Congo was murdered and quartered, where North-American monopolies have installed themselves and the battle to own Congo has turn loose? Why? Because there is copper and radioactive minerals in their soil, because Congo has exceptionally strategic raw materials? Therefor a leader of the people, who was so naïve to believe in justice without render himself an account of the fact that justice gets expelled by power, got murdered. That is how he became a martyr of his people."

Later on Che speaks to the general meetings of the UN in New York. He accuses in powerful terms the part of the UN in the murder of Lumumba and to help to get in the saddle, Tshombe as Congolese president, it was the same man that had tried to tear off the province Katanga of the rest of the Congolese nation. "All free people of the world must be prepared to declare to revenge the Congolese crime."

1965

Che arrives in Brazzaville on New Years day and begins with an official African journey. When he gets back in Cuba he convokes a secret conference with a hundred comrades who have great battle-experience. They are the future participants of the international mission in Congo. On February he arrives in Dar El Salaam together with different African revolutionary leaders who asked Cuba for weapons, training and finance. There he also meets Laurent Kabila and his general staff. They agree that the main African enemy is the North-American imperialism. In reply to Kabila’s question to train guerrilla’s in Cuba, Che says no. He explains the advantage of training on their proper terrain.

On March 31 Che writes a letter of goodbye to Fidel Castro. Later it will seem that Che, naturally clandestine, went to Congo. The US abuse the fact that Che does not longer appear in public to spread the rumour that he have been liquidated by Fidel because of heavy ideological conflicts in the highest leadership in Cuba. In their broadcast to China the US claim that Che was murdered because of his pro-Chinese point of view, and in the broadcasts to the East they claim the opposite.

On March 24 Che arrives from Tanzania near the harbour of Kigoma at the shore of the Lake Tanganyika. He disembarks with 14 Cubans outside the harbour to avoid the Belgian mercenaries patrol. Doing that they land in the water. From there he reaches Kibamba in Congo. On May 9 he succeeds making contact with the first group of guerrilla’s. He explains them that he has come to give them a guerrilla education, on demand of Gastón Soumaliot and Laurent Kabila to Fidel Castro. He wants to fight on their side in operations they decide. He is at their disposal. He starts with a school of warriors that gets the name "La Base".

On July 7 Che Guevara meets Laurent Kabila who promises to accompany him in a visit to several fronts on the inland. Kabila however leaves for Kigoma and the visits are getting postponed. On August 16, 7 soldiers die in an ambush of the guerrilla, among them two Belgian non-commissioned officers and three South-Africans.

In November the situation seems at the different fronts – among other things because of continuous discussions between the various revolutionary leaders – so confused that more and more guerrilla’s leave the battle. Together with the Congolese the decision is made that the Cubans will retreat. The mission took seven months in which Cubans participated in over 50 actions.

1966

In July Che travels in the greatest secrecy to Havana, were he prepares a new mission to Bolivia in consultation with Fidel.

Across Moscow, Prague and Vienna Che Guevara travels via Brazil to Bolivia were he arrives on November 3.

1967

Che writes: "As I thought the attitude of Monje (the under-secretary of the Bolivian KP) was avoiding and later traitorous. His party is already getting armed against us. I don’t know where that will take him but it will not slow us down, and maybe in long terms it will be an advantage for us, I’m almost sure of that. The most honest and competitive people will stand on our side, although they have to go true a severe crisis of their conscience. So far Guavara has reacted well. We’ll see how he and his people will line up (…) The actual phase of the guerrilla will now begin, we will test our troops. Time will tell which are the perspectives of the Bolivian revolution. Of all things that were planned the recruit of Bolivian comrades in battle was the slowest."

In March the analysis goes as followed: "This month there was no lack of incidents, but the total looks like this: phase of consolidation and purification of the guerrilla, slow development with few elements that came from Cuba – and they don’t perform badly – and elements of Guavvara’s group who were very weakly in general (two deserters, one loose-tongued whom we kept as prisoners, three that got scratches and two weaklings). Now the phase begins of actions with an exact and spectacular attack. We have to hit the road much sooner as I wanted, and with the burden of four possible talebearers. The situation is not good but a new stage of test begins for the guerrilla and it will do her good if they overcome it. The guerrilla consists of 29 Bolivians, 16 Cubans and 3 Peruvians.

In the months that follow Che and his man get more and more count off communication problems with La Paz and Cuba through which they finally have to operate completely isolated. To get connected with the farmers is much harder than they have thought. About that he writes in May: "The farmers still don’t join us, although it seems that slowly they don’t fear us anymore and they seem to admire us. It is a slow and patient process." In June he writes: "The farmers are still aloof. It is a vicious circle: to attract them we must have more actions in populated areas, but therefor we need more man. (…) The army stands nowhere in her military task, but it does dangerous work with the farmers that we may not leave without interference. If not all farmers will become tale-bearers, out of fear or because of the lies they tell them about our intentions."

In the mean time the US supplies more weapons and advisors to the Bolivian army. The land gets harassed with ever more strikes and the fame of Che’s man rises in Bolivian and world press every day: "On political field the official statement of the government is, that I’m really in Bolivia and not murdered in Cuba, the most important. They even add that the army has to deal with perfectly trained guerrilla’s, among them even Vietcong’s who had defeated the best trained American marines."

In September the guerrilla gets further isolated and the have many losses in an ambush of the army. On October 8, in the village La Higuera, Che and two comrades fall into the hands of the army. Two comrades die. A Bolivian colonel and a Cuban, who works for the CIA, come on the spot by helicopter. On higher command they decide to slaughter Che and his comrades Willy Cuba and Juan Pablo Chang immediately. A Bolivian soldier does the job, his eyes turned sidewise. While international press barons offer up to 125.000$ for the diary of Che, Bolivian revolutionaries make sure that copies of it reach Cuba the same year. Doing that the CIA-plan fails of making anti-communistic propaganda with falsifications of the original.

On July 1, 1968 the diary gets published in Cuba and distributed for free. The context causes an international scandal about the way Bolivia and the US treat prisoners of war. The example of Che inspires since then hundreds of thousands of youth al over the world.

 

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UN: Cuba's example shows that the peoples of the world can liberate themselves.

Ernesto Che Guevara represented Cuba in the 19^th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Address to General Assembly

DECEMBER 11,1964

Mr. President;

Distinguished delegates:

The Delegation of Cuba to this assembly, first of all, is pleased to fulfil the agreeable duty of welcoming the addition of three new nations to the important number of those that discuss the problems of the world here. We therefore greet, in the persons of their presidents and prime ministers, the peoples of Zambia, Malawi, and Malta, and express the hope that from the outset these countries will be added to the group of Non-aligned countries that struggle against imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism.

We also wish to convey our congratulations to the president of this assembly (Alex Quaison-Sackey of Ghana), whose elevation to so high a post is of special significance since it reflects this new historic stage of resounding triumphs for the peoples of Africa, who up until recently were subject to the colonial system of imperialism. Today, in their immense majority these peoples have become sovereign states through the legitimate exercise of their self-determination. The final hour of colonialism has struck, and millions of inhabitants of Africa, Asia, and Latin America rise to meet a new life and demand their unrestricted right to self-determination and to the independent development of their nations.

We wish you, Mr. President, the greatest success in the tasks entrusted to you by the member states.

Cuba comes here to state its position on the most important points of controversy and will do so with the full sense of responsibility that the use of this rostrum implies, while at the same time fulfilling the unavoidable duty of speaking clearly and frankly.

We would like to see this assembly shake itself out of complacency and move forward. We would like to see the committees begin their work and not stop at the first confrontation. Imperialism wants to turn this meeting into a pointless oratorical tournament, instead of solving the serious problems of the world. We must prevent it from doing so. This session of the assembly should not be remembered in the future solely by the number nineteen that identifies it. Our efforts are directed to that end.

We feel that we have the right and the obligation to do so, because our country is one of the most constant points of friction. It is one of the places where the principles upholding the right of small countries to sovereignty are put to the test day by day, minute by minute. At the same time our country is one of the trenches of freedom in the world, situated a few steps away from United States imperialism, showing by its actions, its daily example, that in the present conditions of humanity the peoples can liberate themselves and can keep themselves free.

Of course, there now exists a socialist camp that becomes stronger day by day and has more powerful weapons of struggle. But additional conditions are required for survival: the maintenance of internal unity, faith in one's own destiny, and the irrevocable decision to fight to the death for the defence of one's country and revolution. These conditions, distinguished delegates, exist in Cuba.

Of all the burning problems to be dealt with by this assembly, one of special significance for us, and one whose solution we feel must be found first - so as to leave no doubt in the minds of anyone - is that of peaceful coexistence among states with different economic and social systems. Much progress has been made in the world in this field. But imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, has attempted to make the world believe that peaceful coexistence is the exclusive right of the earth's great powers. We say here what our president said in Cairo, and what later was expressed in the declaration of the Second Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-aligned Countries: that peaceful coexistence cannot be limited to the powerful countries if we want to ensure world peace. Peaceful coexistence must be exercised among all states, regardless of size, regardless of the previous historical relations that linked them, and regardless of the problems that may arise among some of them at a given moment.

At present, the type of peaceful coexistence to which we aspire is often violated. Merely because the Kingdom of Cambodia maintained a neutral attitude and did not bow to the machinations of United States imperialism, it has been subjected to all kinds of treacherous and brutal attacks from the Yankee bases in South Vietnam.

Laos, a divided country, has also been the object of imperialist aggression of every kind. Its people have been massacred from the air. The conventions concluded at Geneva have been violated, and part of its territory is in constant danger of cowardly attacks by imperialist forces.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam knows all these histories of aggression as do few nations on earth. It has once again seen its frontier violated, has seen enemy bombers and fighter planes attack its installations, and has seen U.S. warships, violating territorial waters, attack its naval posts. At this time, the threat hangs over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam that the U.S. war makers may openly extend into its territory the war that for many years they have been waging against the people of South Vietnam. The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China have given serious warnings to the United States. We are faced with a case in which world peace is in danger and, moreover, the lives of millions of human beings in this part of Asia are constantly threatened and subjected to the whim of the U.S. invader.

Peaceful coexistence has also been brutally put to the test in Cyprus, due to pressures from the Turkish government and NATO, compelling the people and the government of Cyprus to make a heroic and firm stand in defence of their sovereignty.

In all these parts of the world, imperialism attempts to impose its version of what coexistence should be. It is the oppressed peoples in alliance with the socialist camp that must show them what true coexistence is, and it is the obligation of the United Nations to support them.

We must also state that it is not only in relations among sovereign states that the concept of peaceful coexistence needs to be precisely defined. As Marxists we have maintained that peaceful coexistence among nations does not encompass coexistence between the exploiters and the exploited, between the oppressors and the oppressed. Furthermore, the right to full independence from all forms of colonial oppression is a fundamental principle of this organization. That is why we express our solidarity with the colonial peoples of so-called Portuguese Guinea, Angola, and Mozambique, who have been massacred for the crime of demanding their freedom. And we are prepared to help them to the extent of our ability in accordance with the Cairo declaration.

We express our solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico and their great leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, who, in another act of hypocrisy, has been set free at the age of seventy-two, almost unable to speak, paralysed, after spending a lifetime in jail. Albizu Campos is a symbol of the as yet unfree but indomitable Latin America. Years and years of prison, almost unbearable pressures in jail, mental torture, solitude, total isolation from his people and his family, the insolence of the conqueror and its lackeys in the land of his birth - nothing broke his will. The delegation of Cuba, on behalf of its people, pays a tribute of admiration and gratitude to a patriot who confers honour upon Our America.

The United States for many years has tried to convert Puerto Rico into a model of hybrid culture: the Spanish language with English inflections, the Spanish language with hinges on its backbone - the better to bow down before the Yankee soldier. Puerto Rican soldiers have been used as cannon fodder in imperialist wars, as in Korea, and have even been made to fire at their own brothers, as in the massacre perpetrated by the U.S. army a few months ago against the unarmed people of Panama - one of the most recent crimes carried out by Yankee imperialism. And yet, despite this assault on their will and their historical destiny, the people of Puerto Rico have preserved their culture, their Latin character, their national feelings, which in themselves give proof of the implacable desire for independence lying within the masses of that Latin American island.

We must also warn that the principle of peaceful coexistence does not encompass the right to mock the will of the peoples, as is happening in the case of so-called British Guiana. There the government of Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan has been the victim of every kind of pressure and manoeuvre, and independence has been delayed to gain time to find ways to flout the people's will and guarantee the docility of a new government, placed in power by covert means, in order to grant a castrated freedom to this country of the Americas. Whatever roads Guiana may be compelled to follow to obtain independence, the moral and militant support of Cuba goes to its people.

Furthermore, we must point out that the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique have been fighting for a long time for self-government without obtaining it. This state of affairs must not continue.

Once again we speak out to put the world on guard against what is happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is applied before the eyes of the nations of the world. The peoples of Africa are compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent the superiority of one race over another remains official policy, and that in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this!

I would like to refer specifically to the painful case of the Congo, unique in the history of the modern world, which shows how, with absolute impunity, with the most insolent cynicism, the rights of peoples can be flouted. The direct reason for all this is the enormous wealth of the Congo, which the imperialist countries want to keep under their control. In the speech he made during his first visit to the United Nations, Compañero Fidel Castro observed that the whole problem of coexistence among peoples boils down to the wrongful appropriation of other peoples' wealth. He made the following statement: "End the philosophy of plunder and the philosophy of war will be ended as well."

But the philosophy of plunder has not only not been ended, it is stronger than ever. And that is why those who used the name of the United Nations to commit the murder of Lumumba are today, in the name of the defence of the white race, murdering thousands of Congolese. How can we forget the betrayal of the hope that Patrice Lumumba placed in the United Nations? How can we forget the machinations and manoeuvres that followed in the wake of the occupation of that country by United Nations troops, under whose auspices the assassins of this great African patriot acted with impunity? How can we forget, distinguished delegates, that the one who flouted the authority of the UN in the Congo - and not exactly for patriotic reasons, but rather by virtue of conflicts between imperialists-was Moise Tshombe, who initiated the secession of Katanga with Belgian support? And how can one justify, how can one explain, that at the end of all the United Nations activities there, Tshombe, dislodged from Katanga, should return as lord and master of the Congo? Who can deny the sad role that the imperialists compelled the United Nations to play?

To sum up: dramatic mobilizations were carried out to avoid the secession of Katanga, but today Tshombe is in power, the wealth of the Congo is in imperialist hands - and the expenses have to be paid by the honourable nations. The merchants of war certainly do good business! That is why the government of Cuba supports the just stance of the Soviet Union in refusing to pay the expenses for this crime.

And as if this were not enough, we now have flung in our faces these latest acts that have filled the world with indignation. Who are the perpetrators? Belgian paratroopers, carried by United States planes, who took off from British bases. We remember as if it were yesterday that we saw a small country in Europe, a civilized and industrious country, the Kingdom of Belgium, invaded by Hitler's hordes. We were embittered by the knowledge that this small nation was massacred by German imperialism, and we felt affection for its people. But this other side of the imperialist coin was the one that many of us did not see. Perhaps the sons of Belgian patriots who died defending their country's liberty are now murdering in cold blood thousands of Congolese in the name of the white race, just as they suffered under the German heel because their blood was not sufficiently Aryan.

Our free eyes open now on new horizons and can see what yesterday, in our condition as colonial slaves, we could not observe: that "Western civilization" disguises behind its showy facade a picture of hyenas and jackals. That is the only name that can be applied to those who have gone to fulfil such "humanitarian" tasks in the Congo. A carnivorous animal that feeds on unarmed peoples. That is what imperialism does to men. That is what distinguishes the imperial "white man."

All free men of the world must be prepared to avenge the crime of the Congo. Perhaps many of those soldiers, who were turned into subhumans by imperialist machinery, believe in good faith that they are defending the rights of a superior race. In this assembly, however, those peoples whose skins are darkened by a different sun, coloured by different pigments, constitute the majority. And they fully and clearly understand that the difference between men does not lie in the colour of their skin, but in the forms of ownership of the means of production, in the relations of production.

The Cuban delegation extends greetings to the peoples of Southern Rhodesia and South-West Africa, oppressed by white colonialist minorities; to the peoples of Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Swaziland, French Somaliland, the Arabs of Palestine, Aden and the Protectorates, Oman; and to all peoples in conflict with imperialism and colonialism. We reaffirm our support to them.

I express also the hope that there will be a just solution to the conflict facing our sister republic of Indonesia in its relations with Malaysia.

Mr. President: One of the fundamental themes of this conference is general and complete disarmament. We express our support for general and complete disarmament. Furthermore, we advocate the complete destruction of all thermonuclear devices and we support the holding of a conference of all the nations of the world to make this aspiration of all people a reality. In his statement before this assembly, our prime minister warned that arms races have always led to war. There are new nuclear powers in the world, and the possibilities of a confrontation are growing.

We believe that such a conference is necessary to obtain the total destruction of thermonuclear weapons and, as a first step, the total prohibition of tests. At the same time, we have to establish clearly the duty of all countries to respect the present borders of other states and to refrain from engaging in any aggression, even with conventional weapons.

In adding our voice to that of all the peoples of the world who ask for general and complete disarmament, the destruction of all nuclear arsenals, the complete halt to the building of new thermonuclear devices and of nuclear tests of any kind, we believe it necessary to also stress that the territorial integrity of nations must be respected and the armed hand of imperialism held back, for it is no less dangerous when it uses only conventional weapons. Those who murdered thousands of defenceless citizens of the Congo did not use the atomic bomb. They used conventional weapons. Conventional weapons have also been used by imperialism, causing so many deaths.

Even if the measures advocated here were to become effective and make it unnecessary to mention it, we must point out that we cannot adhere to any regional pact for denuclearisation so long as the United States maintains aggressive bases on our own territory, in Puerto Rico, Panama, and in other Latin American states where it feels it has the right to place both conventional and nuclear weapons without any restrictions. We feel that we must be able to provide for our own defence in the light of the recent resolution of the Organization of American States against Cuba, on the basis of which an attack may be carried out invoking the Rio Treaty.

If the conference to which we have just referred were to achieve all these objectives - which, unfortunately, would be difficult - we believe it would be the most important one in the history of humanity. To ensure this it would be necessary for the People's Republic of China to be represented, and that is why a conference of this type must be held. But it would be much simpler for the peoples of the world to recognize the undeniable truth of the existence of the People's Republic of China, whose government is the sole representative of its people, and to give it the seat it deserves, which is, at present, usurped by the gang that controls the province of Taiwan, with United States support.

The problem of the representation of China in the United Nations cannot in any way be considered as a case of a new admission to the organization, but rather as the restoration of the legitimate rights of the People's Republic of China.

We must repudiate energetically the "two Chinas" plot. The Chiang Kai-shek gang of Taiwan cannot remain in the United Nations. What we are dealing with, we repeat, is the expulsion of the usurper and the installation of the legitimate representative of the Chinese people.

We also warn against the United States government's insistence on presenting the problem of the legitimate representation of China in the UN as an "important question," in order to impose a requirement of a two-thirds majority of members present and voting. The admission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations is, in fact, an important question for the entire world, but not for the machinery of the United Nations, where it must constitute a mere question of procedure. In this way justice will be done. Almost as important as attaining justice, however, would be the demonstration, once and for all, that this august assembly has eyes to see, ears to hear, tongues to speak with, and sound criteria for making its decisions.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons among the member states of NATO, and especially the possession of these devices of mass destruction by the Federal Republic of Germany, would make the possibility of an agreement on disarmament even more remote, and linked to such an agreement is the problem of the peaceful reunification of Germany. So long as there is no clear understanding, the existence of two Germanys must be recognized: that of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic. The German problem can be solved only with the direct participation in negotiations of the German Democratic Republic with full rights.

We shall only touch on the questions of economic development and international trade that are broadly represented in the agenda. In this very year of 1964 the Geneva conference was held at which a multitude of matters related to these aspects of international relations were dealt with. The warnings and forecasts of our delegation were fully confirmed, to the misfortune of the economically dependent countries.

We wish only to point out that insofar as Cuba is concerned, the United States of America has not implemented the explicit recommendations of that conference, and recently the U.S. government also prohibited the sale of medicines to Cuba. By doing so it divested itself, once and for all, of the mask of humanitarianism with which it attempted to disguise the aggressive nature of its blockade against the people of Cuba.

Furthermore, we state once more that the scars left by colonialism that impede the development of the peoples are expressed not only in political relations. The so-called deterioration of the terms of trade is nothing but the result of the unequal exchange between countries producing raw materials and industrial countries, which dominate markets and impose the illusory justice of equal exchange of values.

So long as the economically dependent peoples do not free themselves from the capitalist markets and, in a firm bloc with the socialist countries, impose new relations between the exploited and the exploiters, there will be no solid economic development. In certain cases there will be retrogression, in which the weak countries will fall under the political domination of the imperialists and colonialists.

Finally, distinguished delegates, it must be made clear that in the area of the Caribbean, manoeuvres and preparations for aggression against Cuba are taking place, on the coasts of Nicaragua above all, in Costa Rica as well, in the Panama Canal Zone, on Vieques Island in Puerto Rico, in Florida, and possibly in other parts of United States territory and perhaps also in Honduras. In these places Cuban mercenaries are training, as well as mercenaries of other nationalities, with a purpose that cannot be the most peaceful one.

After a big scandal, the government of Costa Rica - it is said - has ordered the elimination of all training camps of Cuban exiles in that country. No one knows whether this position is sincere, or whether it is simply an alibi because the mercenaries training there were about to commit some misdeed. We hope that full cognisance will be taken of the real existence of bases for aggression, which we denounced long ago, and that the world will ponder the international responsibility of the government of a country that authorizes and facilitates the training of mercenaries to attack Cuba.

We should note that news of the training of mercenaries in different parts of the Caribbean and the participation of the U.S. government in such acts is presented as completely natural in the newspapers in the United States. We know of no Latin American voice that has officially protested this. This shows the cynicism with which the United States government moves its pawns.

The sharp foreign ministers of the OAS had eyes to see Cuban emblems and to find "irrefutable" proof in the weapons that the Yankees exhibited in Venezuela, but they do not see the preparations for aggression in the United States, just as they did not hear the voice of President Kennedy, who explicitly declared himself the aggressor against Cuba at Playa Girón. In some cases, it is a blindness provoked by the hatred against our revolution by the ruling classes of the Latin American countries. In others – and these are sadder and more deplorable - it is the product of the dazzling glitter of mammon.

As is well known, after the tremendous commotion of the so-called Caribbean crisis, the United States undertook certain commitments with the Soviet Union. These culminated in the withdrawal of certain types of weapons that the continued acts of aggression of the United States - such as the mercenary at tack at Playa Girón and threats of invasion against our homeland - had compelled us to install in Cuba as an act of legitimate and essential defence.

The United States, furthermore, tried to get the UN to inspect our territory. But we emphatically refuse, since Cuba does not recognize the right of the United States, or of anyone else in the world, to determine the type of weapons Cuba may have within its borders.

In this connection, we would abide only by multilateral agreements, with equal obligations for all the parties concerned. As Fidel Castro has said:

So long as the concept of sovereignty exists as the prerogative of nations and of independent peoples, as a right of all peoples, we will not accept the exclusion of our people from that right. So long as the world is governed by these principles, so long as the world is governed by those concepts that have universal validity because they are universally accepted and recognized by the peoples, we will not accept the attempt to deprive us of any of those rights, and we will renounce none of those rights.

The secretary-general of the United Nations, U Thant, understood our reasons. Nevertheless, the United States attempted to establish a new prerogative, an arbitrary and illegal one: that of violating the airspace of a small country. Thus, we see flying over our country U-2 aircraft and other types of spy planes that, with complete impunity, fly over our airspace. We have made all the necessary warnings for the violations of our airspace to cease, as

well as for a halt to the provocations of the United States Navy against our sentry posts in the zone of Guantánamo, the buzzing by aircraft of our ships or the ships of other nationalities in international waters, the pirate attacks against ships sailing under different flags, and the infiltration of spies, saboteurs, and weapons onto our island.

We want to build socialism. We have declared that we are supporters of those who strive for peace. We have declared ourselves to be within the group of Non-aligned countries, although we are Marxist-Leninists, because the Non-aligned countries, like ourselves, fight imperialism. We want peace. We want to build a better life for our people. That is why we avoid, insofar as possible, falling into the provocations manufactured by the Yankees. But we know the mentality of those who govern them. They want to make us pay a very high price for that peace. We reply that the price cannot go beyond the bounds of dignity.

And Cuba reaffirms once again the right to maintain on its territory the weapons it deems appropriate, and its refusal to recognize the right of any power on earth - no matter how powerful - to violate our soil, our territorial waters, or our airspace.

If in any assembly Cuba assumes obligations of a collective nature, it will fulfil them to the letter. So long as this does not happen, Cuba maintains all its rights, just as any other nation. In the face of the demands of imperialism, our prime minister laid out the five points necessary for the existence of a secure peace in the Caribbean.

They are:

A halt to the economic blockade and all economic and trade pressures by the United States, in all parts of the world, against our country.

A halt to all subversive activities, launching and landing of weapons and explosives by air and sea, organization of mercenary invasions, infiltration of spies and saboteurs, acts all carried out from the territory of the United States and some accomplice countries.

A halt to pirate attacks carried out from existing bases in the United States and Puerto Rico.

A halt to all the violations of our airspace and our territorial waters by United States aircraft and warships.

Withdrawal from the Guantánamo naval base and return of the Cuban territory occupied by the United States.

None of these elementary demands has been met, and our forces are still being provoked from the naval base at Guantánamo. That base has become a nest of thieves and a launching pad for them into our territory. We would tire this assembly were we to give a detailed account of the large number of provocations of all kinds. Suffice it to say that including the first days of December the number amounts to 1,323 in 1964 alone. The list covers minor provocations such as violation of the boundary line, launching of objects from the territory controlled by the United States, the commission of acts of sexual exhibitionism by U.S. personnel of both sexes, and verbal insults. It includes others that are more serious, such as shooting off small-calibre weapons, aiming weapons at our territory, and offences against our national flag. Extremely serious provocations include those of crossing the boundary line and starting fires in installations on the Cuban side, as well as rifle fire. There have been seventy-eight rifle shots this year, with the sorrowful toll of one death: that of Ramon Lopez Pefia, a soldier, killed by two shots fired from the United States post three and a half kilometres from the coast on the northern boundary. This extremely grave provocation took place at 7:07 p.m. on July 19, 1964, and the prime minister of our government publicly stated on July 26 that if the event were to recur he would give orders for our troops to repel the aggression. At the same time orders were given for the withdrawal of the forward line of Cuban forces to positions farther away from the boundary line and construction of the necessary fortified positions.

One thousand three hundred and twenty-three provocations in 340 days amount to approximately four per day. Only a perfectly disciplined army with a morale such as ours could resist so many hostile acts without losing its self-control.

Forty-seven countries meeting at the Second Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-aligned Countries in Cairo unanimously agreed:

Noting with concern that foreign military bases are in practice a means of bringing pressure on nations and retarding their emancipation and development, based on their own ideological, political, economic, and cultural ideas, the conference declares its full support to the countries which are seeking to secure the evacuation of foreign bases on their territory and calls upon all states maintaining troops and bases in other countries to remove them forthwith.

The conference considers that the maintenance at Guantánamo ( Cuba) of a military base of the United States of America, in defiance of the will of the government and people of Cuba and in defiance of the provisions embodied in the declaration of the Belgrade conference, constitutes a violation of Cuba's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Noting that the Cuban government expresses its readiness to settle its dispute over the base of Guantánamo with the United States of America on an equal footing, the conference urges the United States government to negotiate the evacuation of this base with the Cuban government. The government of the United States has not responded to this request of the Cairo conference and is attempting to maintain indefinitely by force its occupation of a piece of our territory, from which it carries out acts of aggression such as those detailed earlier.

The Organization of American States - which the people also call the United States Ministry of Colonies - condemned us "energetically," even though it had just excluded us from its midst, ordering its members to break off diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba. The OAS authorized aggression against our country at any time and under any pretext, violating the

most fundamental international laws, completely disregarding the United Nations. Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico opposed that measure, and the government of the United States of Mexico refused to comply with the sanctions that had been approved. Since then we have had no relations with any Latin American countries except Mexico, and this fulfils one of the necessary conditions for direct aggression by imperialism.

We want to make clear once again that our concern for Latin America is based on the ties that unite us: the language we speak, the culture we maintain, and the common master we had. We have no other reason for desiring the liberation of Latin America from the U.S. colonial yoke. If any of the Latin American countries here decide to re-establish relations with Cuba, we would be willing to do so on the basis of equality, and without viewing that recognition of Cuba as a free country in the world to be a gift to our government. Because we won that recognition with our blood in the days of the liberation struggle. We acquired it with our blood in the defence of our shores against the Yankee invasion.

Although we reject any accusations against us of interference in the internal affairs of other countries, we cannot deny that we sympathize with those people who strive for their freedom. We must fulfil the obligation of our government and people to state clearly and categorically to the world that we morally support and stand in solidarity with peoples who struggle anywhere in the world to make a reality of the rights of full sovereignty proclaimed in the United Nations Charter.

It is the United States that intervenes. It has done so historically in Latin America. Since the end of the last century Cuba has experienced this truth; but it has been experienced, too, by Venezuela, Nicaragua, Central America in general, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. In recent years, apart from our people, Panama has experienced direct aggression, where the marines in the Canal Zone opened fire in cold blood against the defenceless people; the Dominican Republic, whose coast was violated by the Yankee fleet to avoid an outbreak of the just fury of the people after the death of Trujillo; and Colombia, whose

capital was taken by assault as a result of a rebellion provoked by the assassination of Gaitán.

Covert interventions are carried out through military missions that participate in internal repression, organizing forces designed for that purpose in many countries, and also in coups d'etat, which have been repeated so frequently on the Latin American continent during recent years. Concretely, United States forces intervened in the repression of the peoples of Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala, who fought with weapons for their freedom. In Venezuela, not only do U.S. forces advise the army and the police, but they also direct acts of genocide carried out from the air against the peasant population in vast insurgent areas. And the Yankee companies operating there exert pressures of every kind to increase direct interference. The imperialists are preparing to repress the peoples of the Americas and are establishing an International of Crime.

The United States intervenes in Latin America invoking the defence of free institutions. The time will come when this assembly will acquire greater maturity and demand of the United States government guarantees for the lives of the Blacks and Latin Americans who live in that country, most of them U.S. citizens by origin or adoption.

Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the colour of their skin; those who let the murderers of Blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the Black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men - how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom? We understand that today the assembly is not in a position to ask for explanations of these acts. It must be clearly established, however, that the government of the United States is not the champion of freedom, but rather the perpetuator of exploitation and oppression against the peoples of the world and against a large part of its own population.

To the ambiguous language with which some delegates have described the case of Cuba and the OAS, we reply with clear-cut words and we proclaim that the peoples of Latin America will make those servile, sell-out governments pay for their treason. Cuba, distinguished delegates, a free and sovereign state with no chains binding it to anyone, with no foreign investments on its territory, with no proconsuls directing its policy, can speak with its head held high in this assembly and can demonstrate the justice of the phrase by which it has been baptized: "Free Territory of the Americas."

Our example will bear fruit in the continent, as it is already doing to a certain extent in Guatemala, Colombia, and Venezuela.

There is no small enemy nor insignificant force, because no longer are there isolated peoples. As the Second Declaration of Havana states:

No nation in Latin America is weak - because each forms part of a family of 200 million brothers, who suffer the same miseries, who harbor the same sentiments, who have the same enemy, who dream about the same better future, and who count upon the solidarity of all honest men and women throughout the world. ...

This epic before us is going to be written by the hungry Indian masses, the peasants without land, the exploited workers. It is going to be written by the progressive masses, the honest and brilliant intellectuals, who so greatly abound in our suffering Latin American lands. A struggle of masses and of ideas. An epic that will be carried forward by our peoples, mistreated and scorned by imperialism; our people, unreckoned with until today, who are now beginning to shake off their slumber. Imperialism considered us a weak and submissive flock; and now it begins to be terrified of that flock; a gigantic flock of 200 million Latin Americans in whom Yankee monopoly capitalism now sees its gravediggers. ...

But now from one end of the continent to the other they are signalling with clarity that the hour has come - the hour of their vindication. Now this anonymous mass, this America of colour, somber, taciturn America, which all over the continent sings with the same sadness and disillusionment, now this mass is beginning to enter definitively into its own history, is beginning to write it with its own blood, is beginning to suffer and die for it.

Because now in the mountains and fields of America, on its flatlands and in its jungles, in the wilderness or in the traffic of cities, on the banks of its great oceans or rivers, this world is beginning to tremble. Anxious hands are stretched forth, ready to die for what is theirs, to win those rights that were laughed at by one and all for five hundred years. Yes, now history will have to take the poor of America into account, the exploited and spurned of America, who have decided to begin writing their history for themselves for all time. Already they can be seen on the roads, on foot, day after day, in an endless march of hundreds of kilometres to the governmental "eminences," there to obtain their rights.

Already they can be seen armed with stones, sticks, machetes, in one direction and another, each day, occupying lands, sinking hooks into the land that belongs to them and defending it with their lives. They can be seen carrying signs, slogans, flags; letting them flap in the mountain or prairie winds. And the wave of anger, of demands for justice, of claims for rights trampled underfoot, which is beginning to sweep the lands of Latin America, will not stop. That wave will swell with every passing day. For that wave is composed of the greatest number, the majorities in every respect, those whose labour amasses the wealth and turns the wheels of history. Now they are awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been subjected. For this great mass of humanity has said, "Enough!" and has begun to march. And their march of giants will not be halted until they conquer true independence - for which they have vainly died more than once. Today, however, those who die will die like the Cubans at Playa Girón. They will die for their own true and never-to-be-surrendered independence.

All this, distinguished delegates, this new will of a whole continent, of Latin America, is made manifest in the cry proclaimed daily by our masses as the irrefutable expression of their decision to fight and to paralyse the armed hand of the invader. It is a cry that has the understanding and support of all the peoples of the world and especially of the socialist camp, headed by the Soviet Union.

That cry is: Patria o muerte! (Homeland or death)

A New Old Interview

Two Chinese Communist journalists, K'ung Mai and Ping An, interviewed Che Guevara at his home on April 18, 1959, or, as they put it, on "the 108th evening after the victory of the revolution. " Though Peking radio and the New China News Agency in London gave summaries and a few direct quotations from it, the interview was not reported in any of Peking's three leading newspapers. It was, however, published in full in the lesser-known journal Shih-chieh Chih-shih (World Knowledge) of June 5, 1959. This neglected interview apparently never appeared in Cuba, nor was it translated from the Chinese into any other language until William E. Ratliff published a complete English translation, thoroughly documented and annotated, in the Hispanic American Historical Review of August, 1966.

The Agrarian Reform, which Guevara speaks about in the future tense, became law on May 17, 1959, i. e., in the interval between the granting of the interview and its publication in China.

The excerpts below are from Ratliff's translation.

Reporter: Will you please tell us how Cuba achieved her revolutionary victory?

Guevara: Certainly. Let us begin at the time I joined the 26th of July Movement in Mexico. Before the dangerous crossing on the Granma the views on society of the members of this organisation were very different. I remember, in a frank discussion within our family in Mexico, I suggested we ought to propose a revolutionary program to the Cuban people. I have never forgotten how one of the participants in the attack on the Moncada army camp responded at that time. He said to me: "Our action is very simple. What we want to do is to initiate a coup d 'etat. Batista pulled off a coup and in only one morning took over the government. We must make another coup and expel him from power… Batista has made a hundred concessions to the Americans, and we will make one hundred and one." At that time I argued with him, saying that we had to make a coup on the basis of principle and yet at the same time understand clearly what we would do after taking over the government. That was the thinking of a member of the first stage of the 26th of July Movement. Those who held the same view and did not change left our revolutionary movement later and adopted another

path.

From that time on, the small organisation that later made the crossing on the Granma encountered repeated difficulties. Besides the never-ending suppression by the Mexican authorities, there was also a series of internal problems, like those people who were adventurous in the beginning but later used this pretext and that to break away from the military expedition. Finally at the time of the crossing on the Granma there remained only eighty-two men in the organisation.

The adventurous thought of that time was the first and only catastrophe encountered within the organisation during the process of starting the uprising. We suffered from the blow. But we gathered together again in the Sierra Maestra. For many months the manner of our life in the mountains was most irregular. We climbed from one mountain peak to another, in a drought, without a drop of water. Merely to survive was extremely difficult.

The peasants who had to endure the persecution of Batista's military units gradually began to change their attitude toward us. They fled to us for refuge to participate in our guerrilla units. In this way our rank and file changed from city people to peasants. At that same time, as the peasants began to participate in the armed struggle for freedom of rights and social justice, we put forth a correct slogan -land reform. This slogan mobilised the oppressed Cuban masses to come forward and fight to seize the land. From this time on the first great social plan was determined, and it later became the banner and primary spearhead of our movement.

It was at just this time that a tragedy occurred in Santiago de Cuba; our Comrade Frank País was killed. This produced a turning point in our revolutionary movement. The enraged people of Santiago on their own poured into the streets and called for the first politically oriented general strike. Even though the strike did not have a leader , it paralysed the whole of Oriente Province. The dictatorial government suppressed the incident. This movement, however, caused us to understand that working class participation in the struggle to achieve freedom was absolutely essential! We then began to carry out secret work among the workers, in preparation for another general strike, to help the Rebel Army seize the government.

The victorious and bold secret activities of the Rebel Army shook the whole country; all of the people were stirred up, leading to the general strike on April 9 last year. But the strike failed because of a lack of contact between the leaders and the working masses. Experience taught the leaders of the 26th of .July Movement a valuable truth: the revolution must not belong to this or that specific clique, it must be the undertaking of the whole body of the Cuban people. This conclusion inspired the members of the movement to work their hardest, both on the plains and in the mountains.

At this time we began to educate our forces in revolutionary theory and doctrine. This all showed that the rebel movement had already grown and was even beginning to achieve political maturity....

Every person in the Rebel Army remembered his basic duties in the Sierra Maestra and other areas: to improve the status of the peasants, to participate in the struggle to seize land, and to build schools. Agrarian law was tried for the first time; using revolutionary methods we confiscated the extensive possessions of the officials of the dictatorial government and distributed to the peasants all of the state-held land in the area. At this time there rose up a peasant movement, closely connected to the land, with land reform as its banner....

To carry out thoroughly the law providing for the abolition of the latifundia system will be the concern of the peasant masses themselves. The present State Constitution provides for mandatory monetary compensation whenever land is taken away, and land reform under it will be both sluggish and difficult. Now after the victory of the revolution, the peasants who have achieved their freedom must rise up in collective action and democratically demand the abolition of the latifundia system and the carrying out of a true and extensive land reform.

Reporter: What problems does the Cuban Revolution now face, and what are its current responsibilities?

Guevara: The first difficulty is that our new actions must be engaged in on the old foundations. Cuba's antipeople regime and army are already destroyed, but the dictatorial social system and economic foundations have not yet been abolished. Some of the old people are still working within the national structure. In order to protect the fruits of the revolutionary victory and to enable the unending development of the revolution we need to take another step forward in our work to rectify and strengthen the government. Second, what the new government took over was a rundown mess. When Batista fled he cleaned out the national treasury, leaving serious difficulties in the national finances.... Third, Cuba's land system is one in which latifundistas hold large amounts of land, while at the same time many people are unemployed.... Fourth, there is still racial discrimination in our society which is not beneficial to efforts to achieve the internal unification of the people. Fifth, our house rents are the highest in the world; a family frequently has to pay over a third of its income for rent. To sum up, the reform of the foundations of the economy of the Cuban society is very difficult and will take a long time.

In establishing the order of society and in democratising the national life, the new government has adopted many positive measures. We have exerted great effort to restore the national economy. For example, the government has passed a law lowering rents by fifty percent. Yesterday a law regulating beaches was passed to cancel the privileges of a small number of people who occupy the land and the seashores....

Most important is the land reform law, which will soon be promulgated. Moreover. we will found a National Land Reform Institute. Our land reform here is not yet very penetrating; it is not as thorough as the one in China. Yet it must be considered the most progressive in Latin America....

Reporter: How will Cuba struggle against domestic and foreign reactionary enemies? What are the prospects of the revolution ?

Guevara: The Cuban Revolution is not a class revolution, but a liberation movement that has overthrown a dictatorial, tyrannical government. The people detested the American-supported Batista dictatorial government from the bottoms of their hearts and so rose up and overthrew it. The revolutionary government has received the broad support of all strata of people because its economic measures have taken care of the requirements of all and have gradually improved the livelihood of the people. The only enemies remaining in the country are the latifundistas and the reactionary bourgeoisie. They oppose the land reform that goes against their own interests. These internal reactionary forces may get in league with the developing provocation’s of the foreign reactionary forces and attack the revolutionary government.

The only foreign enemies who oppose the Cuban Revolution are the people who monopolise capital and who have representatives in the United States State Department. The victory and continuous development of the Cuban Revolution has caused these people to panic. They do not willingly accept defeat and are doing everything possible to maintain their control over the Cuban government and economy and to block the great influence of the Cuban Revolution on the people's struggles in the other Latin American countries....

Our revolution has set an example for every other country in Latin America. The experience and lessons of our revolution have caused the mere talk of the coffee houses to be dispersed like smoke. We have proved that an uprising can begin even when there is only a small group of fearless men with a resolute will; that it is only necessary to gain the support of the people who can then compete with, and in the end defeat, the regular disciplined army of the government. It is also necessary to carry out a land reform. This is another experience that our Latin American brothers ought to absorb. On the economic front and in agricultural structure they are at the same stage as we are.

The present indications are very clear that they are now preparing to intervene in Cuba and destroy the Cuban Revolution. The evil foreign enemies have an old method. First they begin a political offensive, propagandising widely and saying that the Cuban people oppose Communism. These false democratic leaders say that the United States cannot allow a Communist country on its coastline. At the same time they intensify their economic attack and cause Cuba to fall into economic difficulties. Later they will look for a pretext to create some kind of dispute and then utilise certain international organisations they control to carry out intervention against the Cuban people. We do not have to fear an attack from some small neighbouring dictatorial country, but from a certain large country, using certain international organisations and a certain kind of pretext in order to intervene and undermine the Cuban Revolution....

Cadres for the New Party

It is not necessary to dwell upon the characteristics of our revolution; upon its original form, with its dashes of spontaneity which marked the transition from a revolution of national liberation to a socialist revolution; one full of rapidly passing stages, led by the same people who participated in the initial epic of the attack on the Moncada Barracks; a revolution which proceeded through the landing from the Granma and culminated in the declaration of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution. New sympathisers, cadres, organisations joined the feeble structure to such an extent that they imparted to our revolution its present mass character, which has now placed its stamp upon our revolution.

When it became clear that a new social class had definitely taken power in Cuba, the great limitations which the exercise of state power would encounter because of the existing conditions in the state became evident: the lack of cadres to cope with the enormous tasks which had to be carried out in the state apparatus, in political organisation, and on the entire economic front.

Immediately after the taking of power, administrative assignments were made "by rule of thumb"; there were no major problems - there were none because as yet the old structure had not been shattered. The apparatus functioned in its old, slow, lifeless, broken-down way, but it had an organisation and with it sufficient co-ordination to maintain itself through inertia, disdaining the political changes which came about as a prelude to the change in the economic structure.

The 26th of July Movement, deeply impaired by the internal struggles between its right and left wings, was unable to dedicate itself to constructive tasks; and the Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist Party), because it had undergone fierce attacks, and because for years it was an illegal party, had not been able to develop intermediate cadres to cope with the newly arising responsibilities.

When the first state interventions took place in the economy, the task of finding cadres was not very complicated, and it was possible to select them from among many people who had the minimum basis for assuming positions of leadership. But with the acceleration of the process which took place after the nationalisation of the North American enterprises and later of the large Cuban enterprises, a veritable hunger for administrative technicians manifested itself. At the same time, an urgent need was felt for production technicians because of the exodus of many who were attracted by better positions offered by the imperialist companies in other parts of the Americas or in the United States itself. The political apparatus had to make an intense effort, while engaged in the tasks of building, to pay ideological attention to the masses who joined the revolution eager to learn.
We all performed our roles as well as we could, but it was not without pain and anxieties. Many errors were committed by the administrative section of the Executive; enormous mistakes were made by the new administrators of enterprises who had overwhelming responsibilities on their hands, and we committed great and costly errors in the political apparatus also, an apparatus which little by little began to fall into the hands of a contented and carefree bureaucracy, totally separated from the masses, which became recognised as a springboard for promotions and for bureaucratic posts of major or minor importance.

The main cause of our errors was our lack of a feeling for reality at a given moment; but the tool that we lacked, that which blunted our ability to perceive and which was converting the party into a bureaucratic entity and was endangering administration and production, was the lack of developed cadres at the intermediate level. It became evident that the policy of finding cadres was synonymous with the policy of going to the masses, to establish contact anew with the masses, a contact which had been closely maintained by the revolution in the first stages of its existence. But it had to be established through some type of mechanism which would afford the most beneficial results, both in feeling the pulse of the masses and in the transmission of political orientation, which in many cases was only being given through the personal intervention of Prime Minister Fidel Castro or other leaders of the revolution.

From this vantage point, we can ask ourselves what a cadre type is.

We should say that a cadre person is an individual who has achieved sufficient political development to be able to interpret the extensive directives emanating from the central power, make them his, and convey them as orientation to the masses, a person who at the same time also perceives the signs manifested by the masses of their own desires and their innermost motivations.

He is an individual of ideological and administrative discipline, who knows and practices democratic centralism and who knows how to evaluate the existing contradictions in this method and to utilise fully its many facets; who knows how to practice the principle of collective discussion and to make decisions on his own and take responsibility in production; whose loyalty is tested, and whose physical and moral courage has developed along with his ideological development in such a way that he is always willing to confront any conflict and to give his life for the good of the revolution. Also, he is an individual capable of self-analysis, which enables him to make the necessary decisions and to exercise creative initiative in such a manner that it won't conflict with discipline.
Therefore the cadre person is creative, a leader of high standing, a technician with a good political level, who by reasoning dialectically can advance his sector of production, or develop the masses from his position of political leadership.

This exemplary human being, apparently cloaked in difficult-to-achieve virtues, is nonetheless present among the people of Cuba, and we find him daily. The essential thing is to grasp all the opportunities that there are for developing him to the maximum, for educating him, for drawing from each personality the greatest usefulness and converting it into the greatest advantage for the nation.

The development of a cadre individual is achieved in performing everyday tasks; but the tasks must be undertaken in a systematic manner, in special schools where competent professors - examples in their turn to the student body - will encourage the most rapid ideological advancement.

In a regime that is beginning to build socialism, you could not imagine a cadre that does not have a high political development, but when we consider political development we must not only take into account apprenticeship to Marxist theory; we must also demand responsibility of the individual for his acts, a discipline which restrains any passing weaknesses, and which will not conflict with a big dose of initiative; and constant preoccupation with all the problems of the revolution. In order to develop him, we must begin by establishing the principles of selectivity among the masses; it is there that we must find the budding personalities, tested by sacrifice or just beginning to demonstrate their stirrings, and assign them to special schools; or when these are not available, give them greater responsibility so that they are tested in practical work.

In this way, we have been finding a multitude of new cadres who have developed during these years; but their development has not been an even one, since the young compañeros have had to face the reality of revolutionary creation without the adequate orientation of a party. Some have succeeded fully, but there were others who could not completely make it and were left midway, or were simply lost in the bureaucratic labyrinth, or in the temptations that power brings.

To assure the triumph and the total consolidation of the revolution, we have to develop different types of cadres: the political cadre who will be the base of our mass organisations, and who will orient them through the action of the Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista (United Party of the Socialist Revolution; PURS). We are already beginning to establish these bases with the national and provincial Schools of Revolutionary Instruction and with studies and study groups at all levels. We also need military cadres; to achieve that, we can utilise the selection the war made among our young combatants, since there are still many living, who are without great theoretical knowledge but were tested under fire-tested under the most difficult conditions of the struggle, with a fully proven loyalty toward the revolutionary regime with whose birth and development they have been so intimately connected since the first guerrilla fights of the Sierra. We should also develop economic cadres who will dedicate themselves specifically to the difficult tasks of planning and the tasks of the organisation of the socialist state in these moments of creation.

It is necessary to work with the professionals, urging the youth to follow one of the more important technical careers in an effort to give science that tone of ideological enthusiasm which will guarantee accelerated development. And, it is imperative to create an administrative team, which will know how to take advantage of the specific technical knowledge of others and to co-ordinate and guide the enterprises and other organisations of the state to bring them into step with the powerful rhythm of the revolution.

The common denominator for all is political clarity. This does not consist of unthinking support to the postulates of the revolution, but a reasoned support; it requires a great capacity for sacrifice and a capacity for dialectical analysis which will enhance the making of continuous contributions on all levels to the rich theory and practice of the revolution. These compañeros should be selected from the masses solely by application of the principle that the best will come to the fore and that the best should be given the greatest opportunities for development.
In all these situations, the function of the cadre, in spite of its being on different fronts, is the same. The cadre is the major part of the ideological motor which is the United Party of the Revolution. It is something that we could call the dynamic screw of this motor; a screw that in regard to the functional part will assure its correct functioning; dynamic to the extent that the cadre is not simply an upward or downward transmitter of slogans or demands, but a creator which will aid in the development of the masses and in the information of the leaders, serving as a point of contact with them. The cadre has the important mission of seeing to it that the great spirit of the revolution is not dissipated, that it will not become dormant nor let up its rhythm. It is a sensitive position; it transmits what comes from the masses and infuses in the masses the orientation of the party.

Therefore, the development of cadres is now a task which cannot be postponed. The development of the cadres has been undertaken with great eagerness by the revolutionary government with its programs of scholarships based on selective principles; with its programs of study for workers, offering various opportunities for technological development; with the development of the special technical schools; with the development of the secondary schools and the universities, opening new careers; with the development finally of our slogans of study, work and revolutionary vigilance for our entire country, fundamentally based on the Union of Young Communists from which all types of cadres should emerge, even the leading cadres in the future of the revolution.
Intimately tied to the concept of cadre is the capacity for sacrifice, for demonstrating through personal example the truths and watchwords of the revolution. The cadres, as political leaders, should gain the respect of the workers by their actions. It is absolutely imperative that they count on the respect and affection of their compañeros, whom they should guide along the vanguard paths.

Overall, there are no better cadres than those elected by the masses in the assemblies that select the exemplary workers, those that will be brought into the PURS along with the old members of the ORI (Organización Revolucionaria Integrada -Integrated Revolutionary Organisation) who pass the required selective tests. At the beginning they will constitute a small party, but with enormous influence among the workers; later it will grow when the advance of socialist consciousness begins converting the work and total devotion to the cause of the people into a necessity. With the intermediate leaders of this category, the difficult tasks that we have before us will be accomplished with fewer errors. After a period of confusion and poor methods, we have arrived at a just policy which will never be abandoned. With the ever-renewing drive of the working class, nourishing from its inexhaustible fountain the ranks of the future United Party of the Socialist Revolution, and with the leadership of our Party, we fully undertake the task of the forming of cadres which will guarantee the swift development of our revolution. We must be successful in the effort.

Camilo Guevara, son of El Che in Belgium.

Excerpts from interview in ‘HUMO’ nr 43/3032 16 October 1998

Q: You didn’t really know your father. You where five years old when he died. You probably know him like we all do: out of books.

Guevara: I have a few memories, but vaguely, things I’m not even sure off that they really happened or that I dreamed them, fantasy. I know him through the stories that my mother, family and friends of my father have told me.

Q: For believers in the free market and the Americans, he is a devil.

Guevara: That’s their problem, not mine. He is a devil for the US government and American multinationals. Not for the North-American people. I am convinced that many North-Americans admire and respect El Che, that they love him and that they fight injustice in American society under his banner. In the US there is a movement that declares its solidarity with Cuba and tries to lift the economic blockade.

Q: Your father’s live ended in controversy. He left Cuba because the Soviets came, whom he did not trust, so they say, and had problems with Fidel Castro who became more and more a pragmatic head of state.

Guevara: That isn’t true. My father left Cuba because he was an eternal revolutionary. He wrote as much in letters that might soon be published. He had no quarrel with Fidel at all. Fidel and Che stayed friends, brothers and comrades until the end. That they had problems with one another is a lie which was already launched before El Che’s death. The period he was in Congo during the sixties and the capitalist countries didn’t know where he was, the Western press wrote some crazy stories: he was dead; he was locked up in a Cuban jail. With these lies they wanted to harm the Cuban revolution and Fidel Castro as one of the international leaders of the left and of the poor in the world, still eighty percent of the world population today. On the other hand they tried to convince people that the revolutionary Guevara, this great symbol, wasn’t all that, but a man who had to flee from Cuba because he had problems with his colleague -revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Q: How is life for the son of El Che in Cuba?

Guevara: You want to know if I’m privileged? Children of ‘the symbol’ have one advantage: a great part of the Cuban people still loves El Che. I often feel awkward about it, but a lot of Cubans treat us, the children of El Che, more warmly than others. I feel that the Cubans convey their affection that they had for my father onto me and my family. In that way we are indeed privileged.

Q: How are things in Cuba today? The economic situation seems to improve gradually?

Guevara: 1994 was rock-bottom for us. After that the Cuban economy gradually began growing again, which was a miracle, really. And El Che had nothing to do with it! (Laughs) Or maybe, a little. That year made a great impression on us all. Imagine: a country which is the victim of a rigorous economic blockade all of a sudden also loses eighty percent of its trade due to the collapse of Eastern Europe. At the same time the blockade is even tightened, and the prices of Western goods, which we desperately needed just like any other Third World country, keep on rising. And still we managed to let our economy grow. That is the miracle. A very dangerous example. We achieved this without one cent from the International Monitary Fund, nor of any other international financial institution whatsoever! We have showed that you can achieve a lot without money, but with a great political will. I suspect that capitalists around the world are a bit anxious that this example might be followed in other countries. That’s why they try to destroy us with even greater vigour.

Q: El Maximo Lider Fidel will sooner or later disappear from the scene. He is 72 now. What will happen then? In Florida huge groups of Cuban exiles are waiting for the day they can reclaim Cuba.

Guevara: There are few thing of which one can be sure in this world. (Laughs) The Cubans in Florida where already convinced back in 1959 that they would re-conquer Cuba quickly. Ha! We are forty years further now, and they are still in Florida. When Eastern Europe collapsed, they knew for certain: we take Cuba back! In the meantime that’s nine years ago.
For sixty years, from the beginning of the century until the end of the fifties, Cuba was a colony of the US. We know capitalism, we have experienced its deeds. Until Fidel and a group of youngsters launched the revolution. What do you think the Cuban people are going to do after Fidel’s death? Do you think that everybody wants to go back to the period before 1959; that the people will allow the US to come and boss us around?

Q: Wouldn’t it be possible that the Cuban regime imploded? The consumption goods of capitalism are very seductive. One notices it these days in Havana.

Guevara: In the West capitalism seduces many people, yes. And maybe a few ignorant people in the Third World too…

Q: Oh come on, the Cuban youth wants Nikes and Marlboro’s, Coca-Cola and walkmans too.

Guevara: Without a doubt, without a doubt. But that isn’t the majority of youngsters. Never! The Cuban people have reached a level of political and cultural awareness that cannot easily be ignored. The Cubans have seen what has happened to Eastern Europe: before the collapse of the Berlin Wall they had promised these people heaven, but what did they get? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except chaos and exploitation. We Cubans know this, we see it and we don’t want it to happen to us. OK, there are still some people that want to sell us out to the US. But they are a minority.

Q: Wouldn’t it be wiser to completely ignore the US and tighten the economic ties with Europe?

Guevara: The Europeans aren’t philanthropists either, hey. You have to be realistic: our relationship with Europe depends on what we can earn from one another. But the US executes pressure onto Europe, a lot of pressure. Northern-Europe resists the Helm-Burton law (American law that tries to prevent non-American industry to trade with Cuba) and we are glad about that. But is that because the Europeans are in love with Cuba? No, its a question of sovereignty. How can one country accept that another country forbids it to trade with the rest of the world?

Q: Until recently Cuba was a isolated socialist ‘paradise’. Now you receive thousands of tourists and businessmen from Europe and South-America. Is that positive?

Guevara: Cuba has never been as isolated as you think. We have always had good contact with Europe. With Eastern-Europe, sure. But we have always been open to the European culture. In the past we have never promoted mass tourism from Western-Europe because we didn’t need it. Now it has become our most important source of income and a way to attract foreign investments.

Q: But mass tourism has a shadow side too: prostitution.

Guevara: For me it has more to do with the crisis of human values all over the world, than with tourists coming to Cuba.

Q: You really belief that?

Guevara: There’s prostitution in Belgium as well. I have seen it with my own eyes. People who have enough money to live on don’t prostitute themselves. People who lack money, do. Why?

Q: Because they want money?

Guevara: No! If I had no money and would go hungry every day, I would not prostitute myself! It is a question of values. So, what can we do about it? Must we throw out all tourists, or do we have to make sure that people do not only have enough money, but also have respect for the essential human values? In any case we are working hard to force back prostitution.

Q: You work for the Ministry of Fishery. Strange that you have such ministry. Cubans hardly eat fish.

Guevara: That’s true. But there is improvement. In the past, eating fish was for the poor. Or food for cats and dogs. Now we try to promote the fish consumption through fairs and feasts.

Q: Even Fidel seems to interfere?

Guevara: Yes, he once did an advertisement on TV. One saw an empty table in an empty room. Fidel entered and sat himself behind the table, looked into the camera very seriously but didn’t say a word. After a while a waiter entered and served him a plate of fish. Fidel ate the fish in silence. This took a few minutes. When only the fish-bones where left on his plate, Fidel rose up, looked imperatively into the camera, and spoke to his people the historical words " And now, YOU" And now we all eat fish.

Cuban Exceptionalism ?

The following selection is from Guevara's article "Cuba: Exceptional Case or Vanguard in the Struggle Against Colonialism? " in the April 9, 1961, issue of Verde Olivo, the magazine of Cuba's armed forces.

...Some sectors, in good faith or with axes to grind, claim to see in the Cuban Revolution a series of exceptional origins and features whose importance for this great historical event they even inflate to that of the decisive factor . They speak of the exceptionalism of the Cuban Revolution as compared with the course of other progressive parties in America and conclude therefrom that the form and road of the Cuban Revolution are unique and that in the other countries of America the historic transition of the peoples will be different.

We accept that there are exceptions which give the Cuban Revolution its peculiar characteristics. It is a clearly established fact that every revolution has this type of specific factor, but it is no less an established fact that all of them follow laws which society cannot violate. Let us analyze, then, the factors of this purported exceptionalism.

The first, perhaps the most important, the most original, is that cosmic force called Fidel Castro Ruz, a name that in a few years has attained historic proportions. The future will accord our Prime Minister's merits their exact place, but to us they appear comparable to those of the greatest historic figures of all Latin America. And what are the exceptional circumstances about the personality of Fidel Castro? There are various features of his life and character which make him stand out far above all his compañeros and followers. Fidel is a man of such tremendous personality that he would gain the leadership in whatever movement he participated in; and so it has been throughout his career from his student days to the premiership of our country and of the oppressed peoples of America. He has the qualities of a great leader, and added to these are his personal gifts of audacity, strength, courage, an extraordinary eagerness always to discern the will of the people; and these have brought him to the position of honor and sacrifice that he occupies today. But he has other important qualities, such as his ability to assimilate knowledge and experience in order to understand a situation as a whole without losing sight of the details, his immense faith in the future, and the breadth of his vision to foresee events and anticipate them in action, always seeing farther and better than his compañeros. With these great cardinal qualities, with his capacity to bring people together and unite them, opposing the division which weakens; with his ability to lead the whole people in action; with his infinite love for the people; with his faith in the future and his capacity to foresee it, Fidel Castro did more than anyone else in Cuba to construct from nothing the present formidable apparatus of the Cuban Revolution.

However, no one could assert that there were political and social conditions in Cuba totally different from those in the other countries of America, and that precisely because of that difference the revolution took place. Nor could anyone assert, on the other hand, that Fidel Castro made the revolution despite that difference. Fidel, a great and able leader, led the revolution in Cuba, at the time and in the way he did, by interpreting the profound political disturbances that were preparing the people for the great leap onto the revolutionary road. Also certain conditions existed which were not confined to Cuba, but which it will be hard for other peoples to take advantage of again because imperialism, in contrast to some progressive groups, does learn from its errors.

The condition that we would describe as exceptional was that North American imperialism was disoriented and was never able to measure accurately the true scope of the Cuban Revolution. Here is something that explains many of the apparent contradictions in North American policy. The monopolies, as is habitual in such cases, began to think about a successor for Batista precisely because they knew that the people were not compliant and were also looking for a successor to Batista, but along revolutionary paths. What more intelligent and expert stroke then than to get rid of the now unserviceable little dictator and to replace him with the new "boys" who could in their turn serve the interests of imperialism very well? The empire gambled on this card from its continental deck for a while, and lost miserably. Prior to our military victory they were suspicious, but not afraid of us; rather, with all their experience at this game, which they were accustomed to winning, they played with two decks. On various occasions, emissaries of the State Department, disguised as newspapermen, came to investigate our rustic revolution, but they never found any trace of imminent danger in it. When imperialism wanted to react, when the imperialists discovered that the group of inexperienced young men, who were marching in triumph through the streets of Havana, had a clear awareness of their political duty and an iron determination to carry out that duty, it was already too late. And thus in January, 1959, dawned the first social revolution of the Caribbean zone and the most profound of the revolutions in America.

We don't believe that it could be considered exceptional that the bourgeoisie, or at least a good part of it, showed itself favorable to the revolutionary war against the tyranny at the same time that it was supporting and promoting movements seeking for negotiated solutions which would permit them to substitute for the Batista regime elements disposed to curb the revolution.

Considering the conditions in which the revolutionary war took place and the complexity of the political tendencies which opposed the tyranny, it was not at all exceptional that some latifundist elements adopted a neutral, or at least non-belligerent, attitude toward the insurrectionary forces. It is understandable that the national bourgeoisie, struck down by imperialism and the tyranny, whose troops sacked small properties and made extortion a daily way of life, felt a certain sympathy when they saw those young rebels from the mountains punish the military arm of imperialism, which is what the mercenary army was.

So non-revolutionary forces indeed helped smooth the road for the advent of revolutionary power .

Going further, we can add as a new factor of exceptionalism the fact that in most places in Cuba the peasants had been proletarianized by the needs of big semimechanized capitalist agriculture, and had reached a stage of organization which gave them greater class-consciousness. We can admit this. But we should point out, in the interest of truth, that the first area where the Rebel Army, made up of the survivors of the defeated band that had made the voyage on the Granma, operated, was an area inhabited by peasants whose social and cultural roots were different from those of the peasants found in the areas of large-scale semi-mechanized agriculture. In fact, the Sierra Maestra, locale of the first revolutionary beehive, is a place where peasants struggling barehanded against latifundism took refuge. They went there seeking a new piece of land, somehow overlooked by the state or the voracious latifundists, on which to create a modest fortune. They constantly had to struggle against the exactions of the soldiers, who were always allied to the latifundists; and their ambition extended no farther than a property deed. Concretely, the soldiers who belonged to our first peasant-type guerrilla armies came from the section of this social class which shows most strongly love for the land and the possession of it; that is to say, which shows most perfectly what we can define as the petty-bourgeois spirit. The peasant fought because he wanted land for himself, for his children, to manage it, sell it, and get rich by his work.

Despite his petty bourgois spirit, the peasant soon learned that he could not satisfy his land hunger without breaking up the system of latifundist property. Radical agrarian reform, the only kind that could give land to the peasants, clashed directly with the interests of the imperialists, latifundists and sugar and cattle magnates. The bourgeoisie was afraid to clash with those interests. But the proletariat wasn't. In this way the revolution's course itself brought together the workers and peasants. The workers supported the demands against the latifundists. The poor peasant, rewarded with ownership of the land, loyally supported the revolutionary power and defended it against its imperialist and counter-revolutionary enemies.

In our opinion no further factors of exceptionalism can be claimed. We have been generous in stating those listed in their strongest form. Now we shall examine the permanent roots of all social phenomena in America, the contradictions which, ripening in the womb of present societies, produce changes that can attain the scope of a revolution like Cuba's.

First in chronological order, though not in the order of importance at present, is latifundism. Latifundism was the economic power base of the ruling class throughout the entire period which followed the great liberating anticolonialist revolution of the last century. But that latifundist social class, which is found in all of the countries, generally lags behind the social developments that move the world. In some places, however, the most alert and clear-sighted members of the latifundist class are aware of the dangers and begin to change the investment form of their capital, at times going in for mechanized agriculture, transferring some of their wealth to industrial investment, or becoming commercial agents of the monopolies. In any case, the first liberating revolution never destroyed the latifundist bases which always constituted a reactionary force and upheld the principle of servitude on the land. This is the phenomenon that shows up in all the American countries without exception and has been the substratum of all the injustices committed since the era when the King of Spain gave huge grants of land to his most noble conquistadores, leaving, in the case of Cuba, for the natives, creoles and mestizos, only the realengos, that is,

the scraps left between where three circular grants touched each other.

In most countries the latifundist realized he couldn't survive alone and promptly entered into alliances with the monopolies, that is, with the strongest and cruelest oppressor of the American peoples. North American capital arrived on the scene to make the virgin lands fruitful, so that later it could carry off unnoticed all the funds so "generously" given, plus several times the amounts originally invested in the "beneficiary" country.

America was a field of inter-imperialist struggle and the "wars" between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, the separation of Panama from Colombia, the infamy committed against Ecuador in its dispute with Peru, the fight between Paraguay and Bolivia, are nothing but manifestations of the gigantic battle between the world's great monopolistic combines, a battle decided almost completely in favor of the North American monopolies following World War II. From that point on, the empire dedicated itself to strengthening its grip on its colonial possessions and perfecting the whole structure to prevent the intrusion of old or new competitors from other imperialist countries. All this resuIted in a monstrously distorted economy which has been described by the shamefaced economists of the imperialist regime in an innocuous term which reveals the deep compassion they feel for us inferior beings (they call our miserably exploited Indians, persecuted and reduced to utter wretchedness, 'little Indians"; all Negroes and mulattos, disinherited and discriminated against, are called "colored"; individually they are used as instruments, collectively, as a means of dividing the working masses in their struggle for a better economic future). For us, the peoples of America, they have another polite and refined term: "underdeveloped."

What is "underdeveloped"?

A dwarf with an enormus head and a swollen chest is "underdeveloped," inasmuch as his weak legs or short arms do not match the rest of his anatomy. He is the product of an abnormal formation that distorted his development. That is really what we are, we, who are politely referred to as "underdeveloped," but in truth are colonial, semi-colonial or dependent countries. We are countries whose economies have been twisted by imperialism, which has abnormally developed in us those branches of industry or agriculture needed to complement its complex economy. "Underdevelopment," or distorted development, brings dangerous specialization in raw materials, inherent in which is the threat of hunger for all our peopIes. We, the underdeveloped, are also those with monoculture, with the single product, with the single market. A single product whose uncertain sale depends on a single market that imposes and fixes conditions, that is the great formula for imperialist economic domination. It should be added to the old, but eternally young, Roman slogan Divide and Conquer!

Latifundism, then, through its connections with imperialism, completely shapes the so-called underdevelopment, whose results are low wages and unemployment. This phenomenon of low wages and unemployment is a vicious circle which produces ever lower wages and ever more unemployment, as the great contradictions of the system sharpen and, constantly at the mercy of the cyclical fluctuations of its own economy, provides the common denominator of all the peoples of America, from the Rio Bravo, (The Latin American name for the river called the Rio Grande in the United States) to the South Pole. This common denominator, which we shall print in capital letters and which serves as the starting point for analysis by all who think about these social phenomena, is called THE PEOPLE'S HUNGER; weary of being oppressed, persecuted, exploited to the limit; weary of the wretched selling of their laborpower day after day (faced with the fear of swelling the enormous mass of unemployed) so that the greatest profit can be wrung from each human body, profits that are later squandered in the orgies of the masters of capital.

We see, then, that there are great and inescapable common denominators in Latin America, and that we cannot say we were exempt from any of those leading to the most terrible and permanent of all: the people's hunger. Latifundism, whether as a primitive form of exploitation or as a form of capitalist monopoly of the land, adjusts to the new conditions and becomes an ally of imperialism, the exploitative form finance and monopoly capitalism takes outside its national borders, in order to create economic colonialism, euphemistically called "underdevelopment," which results in low wages, underemployment, unemployment: the people's hunger. It all existed in Cuba. Here, too, there was hunger. Here the percentage of unemployed was one of the highest in Latin America. Here imperialism was crueler than in many countries of America. And here latifundism was as strong as in any brother country.

What did we do to free ourselves from the vast imperialist system with its train of puppet rulers in each country and mercenary armies to protect the puppets and the whole complex social system of the exploitation of man by man? We applied certain formulas, which on some previous occasions we have given out as discoveries of our empirical medicine for the great evils of our beloved Latin America, empirical medicine which was soon adopted into the expositions of scientific truth.

The objective conditions for struggle are provided by the people's hunger, their reaction to that hunger, the terror unleashed to crush the people's reaction, and the wave of hatred that the repression creates. America lacked the subjective conditions, the most important of which is awareness of the possibility of victory through violent struggle against the imperialist powers and their internal allies. These conditions were created through the armed struggle which made clearer the need for change (and permitted it to be foreseen) and the defeat and subsequent annihilation of the army by the people's forces ( an absolutely necessary condition for every true revolution ).

Having already shown that these conditions are created through the armed struggle, we have to explain once more that the scene of the struggle should be the countryside. A peasant army, pursuing the great objectives for which the peasantry should fight (the first of which is the just distribution of the land ), will capture the cities from the countryside. The peasant class of America, basing itself on the ideology of the working class, whose great thinkers discovered the social laws governing us, will provide the great liberating army of the future, as it has already done in Cuba. This army, created in the countryside, where the subjective conditions keep ripening for the taking of power, proceeds to take the cities, uniting with the workers and enriching itself ideologically from contributions of the working class. It can and must defeat the oppressor army, at first in skirmishes, engagements, surprises; and in big battles at the end, when the army will have grown from its small-scale guerrilla footing to the proportions of a great popular army of liberation. One stage in the consolidation of the revolutionary power, as we indicated above, will be the liquidation of the old army....