How Far We Slaves Have Come Page 4

  So what are they going to tell us about? About the days when there were beggars? What are they going to tell us about? About the days of prostitution? [Shouts of “No!”] About the systematic plunder of the public treasury? About cheap politicking? About the merciless exploitation of the workers? About landless peasants, or peasants paying rent, a percentage of what they produced?

  What are they going to tell us about? About that society of racial discrimination? Where in some provincial capitals Whites walked on one side and Blacks on the other, on different streets, or on different paths in the park. I don’t remember whether it was in Santa Clara or Villa Clara where these things went on. I can imagine the exclusive snots here. It took different forms.

  What are they going to tell us about? About discrimination? About prostitution and all the vices of that society? About barefoot children begging and not attending school? About illiteracy? About women working as domestic servants and in open or de facto prostitution? [Shouts of “No!”] They better not come to us with stories about their capitalism, their market economies, and all that madness, because we already know about that, and I think we remember it quite well.

  What are they going to tell me about Birán, where I grew up as the son of a landowner, where I was able to see the results of capitalism in hundreds and hundreds of children there who never got past first, second, or third grade – if they went to school at all. And if someone reached sixth grade he was considered really sharp and they made him a foreman or something like that.

  I have nothing bad to say about my father as a man, since I always remember his generosity, although his social position was no longer that of the son of a humble peasant from Galicia, but rather a man who owned large plots of land.

  I learned about capitalism without having suffered from it; through observation. Later I had a lot of time to think and ponder about that society of the whip and of the Rural Guard, the Rural Guard that the US forces organised here when they disarmed the Mambí army.18 But this time they were unable to disarm the Rebel Army, and the whip and the Rural Guard were done away with. [Applause]

  What are they going to tell us about? [Shouts of “Fidel, Fidel” and “For sure, Fidel, give the Yankees hell!”] What are they going to convince us of? What are they going to tell the residents of Matanzas about? [Shouts of “We have a strong socialism!”] And what are they going to tell the women of Matanzas about? [Shouts of “Nothing!” and “Whatever is necessary, Fidel, whatever is necessary!”] Before the revolution women made up only 10 per cent of the work force and now they are 40 per cent. And not only that. But those women facing discrimination, without any future other than the one I mentioned, that of domestic work, of open or de facto prostitution – because sometimes they chose her for a particular job to serve as a lure or an attraction for shoppers – those women now constitute about 60 per cent of the technical work force of Matanzas. [Applause] Thus, the bulk of the trained minds in this province are women.

  How far we slaves have come! [Applause]

  Who wants to return to the days of the slave barracks? [Shouts of “No one!”] And how will they force us to return there? With the threat of hunger perhaps, with a tighter blockade, with imperialist triumphalism following the disasters that have occurred in Eastern Europe? [Shouts of “No!”] What can they threaten us with, we the descendants of Maceo and Marti, of Máximo Gómez and Agramonte, of Che and Camilo, of Abel Santamaria and Frank País?19 [Prolonged applause] With the threat of famine, blockades, wars? [Shouts of “No!”] We can never experience a tighter blockade and more suffering than what our ancestors suffered, because today we are owners of the land; now it belongs only to the people. Today we are owners of the factories; now they belong only to the people. The people own the means of production and everything else. And we will solve our problems, we will solve them however we must. But we will never return to the slave barracks! [Shouts and applause]

  They may threaten us with their sophisticated weapons. Perhaps they don’t believe they are dealing with a courageous and intelligent people that knows how to fight. And if we fought fourteen thousand kilometres away – however far it was – if we got into the trap at Cuito Cuanavale that the enemies had created and that turned into a trap for them, then here, on our coasts, in our countryside, in our mountains, in our cities, in our canefields, in our ricefields, in our swamps, we will fight as we fought at Cuito Cuanavale. [Applause] We will fight even harder than we fought at Cuito Cuanavale, and we will resist for more years than we resisted in Angola, until victory. [Prolonged applause]

  This is what we can say about the sophisticated weapons of imperialism. And if we weren’t among decent people, we could tell them what they should do with their weapons. [Laughter and applause]

  Our army has millions of men and women ranging from teenagers to the elderly. [Applause and shouts of “For sure, Fidel, give the Yankees hell!”]

  What are they going to frighten us with, their so-called smart weapons? We are smarter than those weapons and smarter than those who own them. And our weapons can’t be underestimated either, above all, because behind every one of them is a patriot and a revolutionary. [Applause] We can’t say “a pair of pants”, like they just shouted over there, [Laughter] because that is male chauvinism; there can be pants or skirts, shorts or bathing suits, whatever they want. [Laughter] Behind each weapon there will be the type of patriot who can’t be fooled, confused, or frightened. So, gentlemen imperialists, with us things are different, with us it’s a horse of a different colour. We will never go back to the past! [Applause]

  Ideological battles have to be waged, great ideological battles, because it seems that imperialism may have no enemy in this world now other than little Cuba, this green Caribbean alligator, as Che once called it. [Applause]

  Already all of its propaganda and resources are no longer directed against the old socialist camp, the USSR, or anyone else, and they are making demands on everybody about Cuba. It is shameful to see how they speak to the USSR, telling it that if it wants any economic aid it has to stop all cooperation with Cuba in all spheres. But that’s not all. Recently in a Senate resolution an amendment was introduced about economic relations with China, which stated that China would no longer receive most-favoured-nation status – that is a status used in international trade, which the Chinese have and which must be renewed – if China co-operated with Cuba. They address themselves to great powers like the USSR, taking advantage of the current conjuncture to set conditions – conditions! Look at the level of hatred, the thirst for revenge, the desire for vengeance against the revolution, the political and human wretchedness. Of course, I must also say that the Soviets and the Chinese have stated they would not accept any conditions of this sort. [Applause] But the pressure is great, very great, and they are threatening not to give any kind of aid.

  I really don’t know if they can, because one cannot assume that the imperialists are swimming in gold, much less the US imperialists. The capitalists have money, but not enough money to satisfy the demand. At times their positions are humiliating, and it’s hard to conceive how they are capable of ordering great countries about with the language they employ, because it shows a lack of respect, of basic respect for the dignity of these governments and the dignity of these peoples. But since some of them are going through difficult situations, they are practically obliged to be heroic in the face of US pressure. It is unheard-of impudence. It would seem that the only place remaining in the world at which to direct their guns is Cuba.

  Well, guns rhymes with what someone over there said but I shouldn’t repeat it. [Laughter] Anyway, guns rhymes with a lot of other things. [Laughter]

  I certainly didn’t mean it that way, but I see you’re all laughing and I realise it’s true, ‘guns’ [cañones] and ‘hearts’ [corazones] rhyme perfectly, [Laughter] who can deny it? [Applause] They point their guns at us, all of their guns; that’s the truth. Look at how they have honou
red us, look at the privilege they have granted us of defending the most just ideas in human history, of defending the ideas of socialism and the ideas of Marxism-Leninism. [Applause] No group of apostles came here to teach us Marxism-Leninism. We learned it here, following universal currents, socialist thought, and the thinking of the great revolutionaries of the last century and the present one. Because the more we know imperialism and its miseries the more socialist we feel, the more communist we feel. [Applause]

  We have just returned from a historic meeting. It was truly historic because for the first time there was a meeting of Latin American leaders – in this case it included two European countries, two Iberian countries – and for the first time we met without Washington giving us the signal.20 Previously in order for Latin American leaders to meet it was not even necessary to say a word; all the president of the United States had to do was snap his fingers and everyone would run there.

  This time it was the Latin Americans who organised the meeting, the Mexicans, and they were courageous enough to invite Cuba – because you have to be courageous to invite Cuba – and the Mexicans were courageous, which the United States did not like at all. [Applause] And when they could not keep us from going, they devoted themselves to trying to sabotage the trip in a variety of ways, making all sorts of plans – as one might assume – to create problems and difficulties. But it seems all their attempts backfired.

  They mounted an enormous propaganda effort. Nevertheless, among the masses there – and not only among the masses, among famous people, political leaders in the country, everybody – and in a very special way among the people and among the people of Guadalajara, the expressions of solidarity and affection toward Cuba were extraordinary, truly extraordinary! [Applause] This shows that the peoples do not forget history, that imperialist crimes are not forgotten, that the enormous propaganda campaign against the revolution does not go over well with those who have a class instinct and realise who it is that stands with the world’s poor, as Mandela put it, evoking Marti. They know who stands with the oppressed and the exploited and they know who stands against the exploiters, the conquerors, the colonisers, the neocolonisers, and the plunderers. They know! So we felt like family there as we do here.

  We had to walk a kilometre. There were tens of thousands of people. I lagged behind because journalists and many people stopped me. I couldn’t go in front, I was practically the last. I was there alone, like a dove, [Laughter] but I was completely happy. The more plans they had prepared the happier I was and the more I liked it. [Applause] I must say in all justice, however, that the Mexican authorities organised the event very well and took the measures they considered necessary, within what was possible, because as you know, certain security measures can be taken only within the framework of what is possible.

  The rest is pleasure, because when one scorns the enemy one feels a certain pleasure. I don’t believe this to be a defect; it is something I have to thank the enemies for: the pleasure they give me when they go crazy and start inventing things and fail. [Laughter]

  I said that this was a historic meeting. In addition, I must say that in that gathering of leaders I saw many capable individuals, some of them with outstanding abilities. The United States did everything possible to try to encourage attacks against Cuba by members of that group, to encourage polemics against Cuba. The truth is that they had extremely little success in this regard. We can say that they had very, very little success, really none at all, apart from political and ideological differences, and apart from the fact that a very few of these leaders think in perfect harmony with Washington. I don’t mean Washington who founded the United States, I’m talking about the empire’s capital.

  In general, over and above the ideological differences, an atmosphere of amiability, cordiality, and mutual respect prevailed there. This was true even though I was aware of the moment we’re living in, and one of the distinctive features of this moment is the enormous wave of neoliberalism throughout Latin America and throughout the world. We could say that it is practically worldwide, but it is especially strong in Latin America. That is, capitalism is congratulating itself over the political disasters in the Eastern European socialist countries, which have occurred for reasons that are not appropriate for analysis here.

  We have our own thoughts about all these issues and we have had our own ideas for a very long time. And among those whose ideas have been exceedingly lucid, clearer than the waters at Varadero, was Che, [Applause] like a prophet who could predict the outcome of some of the practises employed in the construction of socialism. This is apart from historical factors and the fact that these societies were begun in the poorest countries of Europe with the aid of a country like the USSR, which had been destroyed twice in less than twenty-five years, confronting an empire that at the end of World War II had accumulated all the world’s gold and had not lost a single screw in its factories or a single atom of its economic structure during the war years.

  A serious and profound study must be made. This is not the right time to do so; everyone must be responsible for their own deeds and their own actions. And the Cuban revolution is historically responsible for its own deeds and its own actions. Note well that I said “its own”, because they were our deeds and actions, not those of others. We have our own ideas, our own concepts, and we have done things our own way.

  For example, today we do not have to invent small farmers, because we have seventy thousand small farmers, seventy thousand schools for learning about small farmers and how to work and coordinate with them.21 We do not have to start splitting up state enterprises or things like that, because in our country that would be the insanity of the century. Mazorra Mental Hospital, with all its capacity, would not be big enough to house the crazy person who would want to do such a thing. I call it Mazorra, the old name of the Havana Psychiatric Hospital, the country’s largest and one of the world’s best and most famous. So we did things our way.

  Here there was no forced collectivisation or anything similar to it. There were none of the phenomena that occurred in other places, and if there were some negative things it was because we incorrectly copied others, because the worst thing one can do is copy. This does not mean that we underrate the experience of others in any way; that is different. In addition, no one ever gave us orders and no one ever dared try to give us orders. There has not been, there is not, and there will never be anyone in the world that can give us orders. [Applause]

  With regard to these problems of socialism: socialism is very new, just out of the shell. The foundations and the essence of capitalism are thousands of years old – private property, for example. For thousands of years not only have things been objects of private property, but people as well, since the time of ancient Greece. In this regard Athens is not very symbolic, except as a historical experience or as just admiration for the art they were able to develop. But it was a slave society, where a handful of people got together in a plaza and said, “This is democracy”, and the rest of the citizens had no rights and the immense majority were slaves. If you read the writings of the Greek philosophers, some of them left wills that talk about what they bequeathed; when they drew up a document saying who they would leave their property to, they always said: “I enjoy good health, but in the event of...” In general, that is how all the wills began, and they would go on to state, “I bequeath such-and-such slave to so-and-so”. Even the philosophers, who were wise men and believed themselves to be just people, had lots of slaves. That is why we cannot present that type of democracy as an example.

  Capitalism comes from Homer’s time and even before Homer; its foundations are thousands of years old. Socialism is barely a few decades old, it’s in diapers; we can say that socialism is in the stage that maternity hospitals call perinatal. Socialism is in the perinatal phase, that is, the first six or seven days of the baby’s life, which are the most dangerous and require special care. We have set up perinatal intensive-care
units as part of our programme to protect children’s health.

  In other words, it is logical that socialism, the most just of all ideas, has to pass through various periods and difficulties. In some countries it has disappeared. There are cases like that of the former German Democratic Republic, where hair-raising stories are now coming out. Apartheid in the GDR! Perhaps the ANC will have to give political advice to the Blacks, Asians, mestizos, and others who for one reason or another wound up in the GDR. They are now pursued in the streets and there have been cases in which Vietnamese, Mozambicans and Angolans have been lynched – I don’t know if some Cuban who stayed there has met this fate. Fascist groups persecute them as an expression of xenophobia and racial hatred. This is what has come to replace that society, the rebirth of the most repugnant sentiments of racial hatred, arrogance, and the idea of fascist racial superiority. This news comes independently of other news, because they have begun to be acquainted with the kiss of the devil, the kiss of capitalism, in spite of the fact that they still do not have full-blown capitalism; they are only moving toward capitalism and these sorts of situations are occurring.

  There are some who forget that China is a socialist country that firmly maintains the principles of socialism and has 1.1 billion inhabitants – as if this were nothing in a country that has put an end to famine and the calamities that battered that nation for thousands of years. They are now suffering some major disasters, such as floods and rains unseen in a hundred years. But there is the socialist state, the party, and the government, and none of those people will be left abandoned. It is painful, because we know the enormous effort they have made constructing dams and canals, and we know the harm these rains can have for agriculture. But no one will die of hunger there, of that I am sure; and nobody will die for lack of medical attention.