CUBA'S EXAMPLE AND THE WORLD REVOLUTION
May Day Speech by Major Juan Almeida Bosque
[The following is the full text of the speech made by Major Juan Almeida Bosque on May 1 at the Plaza de la Revolucién in Havana. Juan Almeida is a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist party of Cuba and one of the original members of the Castro tean.
(The speech, in our opinion, is of unusual interest as a summary of the achievements of the Cuban Revolution and the political attitudes of its leaders.
(Besides its vivid indication of the type of problems which the Cuban people face and are successfully solving despite the obstacles and handicaps imposed by the U.S. imperialist blockade, the speech offers a succinct picture of the thinking in Havana on how the Cuban Revolution links up with the world socialist revolution.
{The latter aspects of the speech will undoubtedly prove most attractive to revolutionary socialists in other countries but they will also find the section dealing with domestic tasks a refreshing and inspiring contrast, we think, to the demagogy that goes with such meager palliatives as the "War on Poverty" in the United States and its sad-looking replicas in the satellites of the world's biggest and most rapacious capitalist power. [The translation is the official one published in the May 7 issue of the English-language edition of Granma, organ of the Central Committee of the Communist party of Cuba. The subheadings appear in the original. ]
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Comrade delegates from foreign countries who are visiting us; comrade members of the Political Bureau and the Central Committee; comrade vanguard workers present on this tribune; ladies and gentlemen:
Eight years have passed since the triumph of our Revolution, and we are well into the ninth. Our people, and all of us, have learned much during this time. Old ideas have been dying out, and new ones have arisen and are becoming stronger in the minds of the people.
We would like to mention some of the teachings of our Revolution and of our people which we feel are very inportant to remember as we celebrate May ay.
This is the ninth May Day celebrated by Cuban workers since the triumph of the Revolution. The enemies of the people, the exploiting classes and Yankee imperialism, never thought that the Cuban Revolution would be able to commemorate International Workers' Day for nine consecutive years. (APPLAUSE) But, nevertheless, here we stand: firmer than ever, more revolutionary than ever, more proletarian, more communist than ever!
In spite of all the threats and aggressions the Yankee imperialists have committed and continue to commit against us, 90 miles from our shores, here we stand, Cuban workers alongside Fidel (AP- PLAUSE), successfully fulfilling the tasks of the Revolution, and victoriously ad-~ vancing along the road to communisn!
During these eight years and four months, our people have made one of history's profoundest and most radical revolutions. This Revolution has exerted and continues to exert extraordinary influence on the development of the antiimperialist struggle on the Latin American continent. It has had and continues to have, repercussions on the continent upon which Yankee imperialism subsists and thrives.
The Cuban Revolution has influenced and continues to influence the peoples of Latin America, whom the most retrograde and aggressive circles consider the exclusive domain of their reactionary interests. The Cuban Revolution influences the part of the world that the Yankee imperialists consider the exclusive patrimony of their voracious interests. But, nevertheless, they have not been able to destroy the Revolution, nor have they been able to keep it from forging ahead.
The Cuban workers have accomplished this singular feat only 90 miles from history's greatest imperial power, only 90 miles from the shores of the Yankee seat of empire. What does this teach us? How has this been possible? It shows us that when a people choose the revolutionary road, decide to persevere under cometent leadership, such as that of Fidel (APPLAUSE), there is no force in the world capable of detaining it.
Six years ago, a gigantic multitude like this one proclaimed in the Second Declaration of Havana that the Cuban example had shown that Revolution is possible nowadays. Six years have passed since the Second Declaration of Havana, and the Revolution has kept on advancing, become stronger, more radical. This confirms the
correctness of the principles and of the revolutionary strategy proclaimed by our people in the Second Declaration of Havana. At that time, when our people and Fidel spoke about the invincibility and the future of the Revolution, some thought that this enthusiasm was unfounded; some thought that these ideas were illusory and meaningless. The skeptics and the counterrevolutionaries never thought that history -- and now we can start speaking about the history of our Revolution -- would prove Fidel and the eople to be right, fully and totally so. USE)
The skeptics and counterrevolutionaries may well remember these things today, because when Fidel and the Cuban people assert the invincibility of the world revolutionary movement, and the final defeat of Yankee imperialism, it is neither an unfounded illusion nor an unfounded aspiration. History will show who is right. Our people and the leaders of this Revolution are convinced, are sure that once again we are right.
Some skeptics thought that the enthusiasm and vigor of the early years would be lost as time went on. Some pessimists thought that our people would, in time, lose the joy and revolutionary fervor of the early days.
Today Our Revolutionary Fervor Is Greater than Ever
I want to ask the people some questions; I want to ask the people these questions so that they themselves can answer the skeptics and enemies of the Revolution. Have we lost the joy and happiness of January 1, 1959? (SHOUTS OF No!) Have we lost the fervor and revolutionary enthusiasm of the historic days of the Agrarian Reform? (SHOUTS OF NO!) Have we lost the passion and revolutionary fervor of the historic days of Girén? (SHOUTS OF NO!) Have we lost the determination, the strength and serene courage of that sad and emotion-filled week during the October Crisis? (SHOUTS OF NO!) No, a thousand times no! Today, our revolutionary fervor is greater than ever; today our revolutionary enthusiasm is greater than ever; today our confidence and faith in the future are more profound than ever. How mistaken the skeptics were! How mistaken the pessimists were!
How has this been possible? It has been possible because our people have not stood still for a single moment; because our people have not paused for a single moment. It has been possible’ because the Revolution has undertaken new and multiple endeavors and has continued advancing, continued making progress. And as the Revolution has advanced, as revolutionary ideas have become more profound, our character has matured and our feelings and actions have become more militant, more fervent, more enthusiastic defenders of these revolutionary ideas.
No one doubts that in the future enthusiasm will grow, that revolutionary conviction will grow. Why? Because no one doubts that the Cuban Revolution will continue advancing and will be neither detained nor immobilized nor turned aside.
The enthusiasm, fervor and revolutionary conviction spring from the Revolution itself. And since the Revolution has not slackened, nor can it be slackened, then neither can the enthusiasn, fervor and revolutionary conviction be slackened.
Our workers are aware of the dangers that threaten them, our people are aware of the dangers engendered by maintaining a revolutionary position in this part of the world, and despite that, in the midst of those dangers and threats, they work arduously to build their future.
We will keep aloft the banner of production and work, and we will also keep aloft the banner of the universal redemption of the workers. These two slogans express the line of our Party, the line of the Revolution, the line of our people, the line of Fidel (APPLAUSE); these two slogans represent for the Revolutionary Armed Forces the watchword stressed by Rail: "In times of peace, all for production, and in times of danger, all for defense." (APPLAUSE)
Many were the slanders and lies that the capitalists hurled against the workers. However, a workers' revolution has quashed all these falsehoods, slanders and lies. The capitalists said that the workers weren't capable of running the factories or the State. They, the privileged class, considered themselves superior and, as some capitalists or people with a capitalist mentality had acquired a certain cultural level and a certain amount of knowledge, they considered that this cultural level and this knowledge were the exclusive property of a few, and that our workers were not capable of acquiring then.
We know that in the former society, in which there were not enough schools, where fifty percent of the children from a working-class background had no possibility of even receiving a first grade education; in that society, while a very insignificant number of people from the middle classes and the bourgeois could attend the university, all access to selfimprovement was closed to the great majority of the people. Furthermore, they (the ruling class) used culture and technology to exploit the people even more, closed the doors to centers of learning to broad
sectors of the people and failed to provide them with the means to study. Later, as the workers had no chance to attend a university or secondary school, they were forced to remain ignorant. And then the bourgeoisie accused the workers of being ignorant, of being uneducated. The bourgeoisie made such shameless, cynical accusations while they, with their system of exploitation, were the ones who were responsible for mass ignorance.
Nonetheless, we Cuban workers have taught the capitalists a tremendous lesson. We, Cuban workers, seized the power from the bourgeoisie and capitalists, and today we are running the factories, we are commanding the military units, we are being trained technically (APPLAUSE), we are organizing the econony. There is one example which serves as an excellent object lesson of this. Comrades of the Rebel Army, which was made up primarily of workers and farners, arrived in Havana eight years ago. At that time our Rebel Army, which had defeated the tyranny in the Sierra, had an 80 percent illiteracy rate in its ranks.
An immense cultural and technical educational program was undertaken within the armed forces, and today, comrades who were illiterate, comrades who had very low scholastic levels when they came down from the Sierra, are leaders of military units. They have acquired military and technical knowledge, they have mastered those complex skills required in military tactics and strategy. (APPLAUSE) Members of our armed forces have had to study and raise their educational level precisely because they must be ready to combat the enemy, the main enemy of all peoples: Yankee imperialism.
There Are Societies without a Bourgeoisie, But There Are No Societies without Workers!
Today in our country great advances have been made in technology, in culture, and we will continue advancing to levels never dreamed of by any member of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie claims that it is not possible for workers to operate a factory, to run an enterprise. The bourgeoisie said that it was impossible to organize a society without the preseace of owners of private property. Nonetheless, it is a fact that there are societies in existence where the bourgeoisie has disappeared or is about to disappear but there never will be, never has been, and never can be a society without workers. (APPLAUSE) For there are societies without the bourgecis class, but none without the working class! We can live without the bourgeoisie but not without workers! (APPLAUSE) For it is the workers who produce, it is they who create the riches!
Cuban capitalists, with their characteristic cynicism and lack of scruples, used to say that Cuban workers were laggards and loafers. They, of all people, they who had never lifted a finger in their lives, who had never done a day's work, hurled such insults at our workers, at those who created the riches the capitalists lived off!
In order to produce and create these riches under capitalism, workers were constantly pressured by fear of hunger, and by hunger itself. Before, those who cut the sugar cane did so under the pressure of urgent needs, of debts accumulated at company stores during the previous sugar harvest -- stores which were usually owned by foreign interests. Moreover, canecutters were seldom conmpletely out of debt because of the pitifully low wages they received. Fear of hunger, or hunger itself, kept them subjected to the owner's exploitation.
The canecutters who occupy honored places on this grandstand today, here in the Plaza de la Revolucié6n ( USE), and who worked as canecutters in that period as well, recall those times of humiliation and abuse very vividly. Today canecutters, like all other workers -for labor has dignity in our nation -- are loved and respected by everyone. Today we go out to the canefields as volunteer workers, proudly. Hundreds of thousands of men participate for the full harvest season, or on week ends, and no one is goaded on by need, except for that spiritual need of feeling that he is doing his share in the great tasks of the Revolution (APPLAUSE).
In capitalism, the workers -- especially those in the countryside --
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lived under harsh and miserable conditions. The bourgeoisie paid pitifully low wages to the great majority of the workers, wages insufficient to cover their basic needs, and those of their families.
That explains why the workers fought and struggled for higher wages, why they waged battles to force the bosses to grant wage increases, which were doled out only when it was to the owners' convenience to do so, or when they were forced to it.
This struggle of the workers, within capitalism and against capitalists, is a necessary, fair and correct struggle. It is fair for the worker in a capitalist system to refuse to work unless his demands are met and even for the worker to think only in terms of salary. In a society where the money represented by the salary is the means of livelihood, it is fair to struggle for better salaries.
JUAN