July 26, 2013 - No. 92
Supplement
Speech by Fidel Castro on the
50th
Anniversary of the Attack on the Moncada Barracks (Excerpts)
50 Years of Resistance and Relentless Struggle
- Fidel Castro, Santiago de Cuba, July
26,
2003 -
Fidel Castro speaking at celebration of 50th
Anniversary of Attack on Moncado Barracks. (W. Lippmann)
TML is posting
below excerpts from the text of the speech delivered by Cuban President
Fidel Castro in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 2003 at a ceremony
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada and
Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Barracks in 1953. Some 10,000 people
participated in the ceremony, which included thousands of invited
guests from 20 countries, at the site of the barracks which has been
converted into a school and museum. Since then, ten more years of
militant struggle have been added to Comrade Fidel's life and we send
him our social love and very best wishes. We reprint the speech from
that occasion because of its description by Fidel of the conditions in
which Cuba languished in 1953 when the events took place and their
significance to the generations which fought then and now. "
"Educating the people about the truth, with words and irrefutable
facts, has perhaps been the fundamental factor in the grandiose feat
that our people have achieved," Fidel said. "Those humiliating
realities have been crushed, despite blockades, threats, aggressions,
massive terrorism and the unrestrained use of the most powerful media
in history against our Revolution."
The speech follows:
***
It seems almost unreal to be here in this same place 50
years after the events we are commemorating today, which took place
that morning of July 26, 1953. I was 26 years old back then; today, 50
more years of struggle have been added to my life.
Way back then, I could not have imagined for even a
second that this evening, the few participants in that action who are
still alive would be gathered here, together with those, gathered here
or listening to us all around the country, who were influenced by or
participated directly in the Revolution; together with
those who were children or teenagers back then; with those who were not
even born yet and today are parents or even grandparents; with whole
contingents of fully fledged men and women, full of revolutionary and
internationalist glory and history, soldiers and officers in active
duty or the reserves, civilians who
have accomplished veritable feats; with a seemingly infinite number of
young combatants; with dedicated workers or enthusiastic students, as
well as some who are both at the same time; and with millions of
children who fill our imagination of eternal dreamers. And once again,
life has given me the unique privilege
of addressing all of you.
I am not speaking here on my own behalf. I am doing it
in the name of the heroic efforts of our people and the thousands of
combatants who have given their lives throughout half a century. I am
doing it too, with pride for the great work they have succeeded in
carrying out, the obstacles they have overcome,
and the impossible things they have made possible.

Fidel imprisoned in
1953.
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In the terribly sad days that followed the action, I
explained to the court where I was tried the reasons that led us to
undertake this struggle.
At that time, Cuba had a population of less than six
million people. Based on the information available back then, I gave a
harsh description, with approximate statistics, of the situation facing
our people 55 years after the U.S. intervention. That intervention came
when Spain had already been militarily defeated
by the tenacity and heroism of the Cuban patriots, and it frustrated
the goals of our long war of independence when in 1902 it established a
complete political and economic control over Cuba.
The forceful imposition on our first Constitution of the
right of the U.S. government to intervene in Cuba and the occupation of
national territory by U.S. military bases, together with the total
domination of our economy and natural resources, reduced our national
sovereignty to practically nil.
I will quote just a few brief paragraphs from my
statements at that trial on October 16, 1953
"Six hundred thousand Cubans without work."
"Five hundred thousand farm labourers who work four
months of the year and starve the rest."
"Four hundred thousand industrial workers and labourers
whose retirement funds have been embezzled, whose homes are wretched
quarters, whose salaries pass from the hands of the boss to those of
the moneylender, whose life is endless work and whose only rest is the
tomb."
"Ten thousand young professionals: medical doctors,
engineers, lawyers, veterinarians, school teachers, dentists,
pharmacists, journalists, painters, sculptors, etc., who finish school
with their degrees anxious to work and full of hopes, only to find
themselves at a dead end, with all doors closed to them."
"Eighty-five per cent of the small farmers in Cuba pay a
rent and live under constant threat of being evicted from the land they
till."

Cuban peasants
rejoice at receiving land titles as part of
the agrarian reform in 1959.
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"There are two hundred thousand peasant families who do
not have a single acre of land to till to provide food for their
starving children."
"More than half of our most productive land is in
foreign hands."
"Nearly three hundred thousand caballerías (over
three million hectares) of arable land owned by powerful interests
remain idle."
"Two million two hundred thousand of our urban
population pay rents that take between one fifth and one third of their
incomes."
"Two million eight hundred thousand of our rural and
suburban population lack electricity."
"The little rural schoolhouses are attended by a mere
half of the school age children who go barefoot, half-naked and
undernourished."
"Ninety per cent of the children in the countryside are
sick with parasites."
"Society is indifferent to the mass murder of so many
thousands of children who die every year from lack of resources."
"From May to December over a million people are jobless
in Cuba, with a population of five and a half million."
"When the head of a family works only four months a
year, how can he purchase clothing and medicine for his children? They
will grow up with rickets, with not a single good tooth in their mouths
by the time they reach thirty; they will have heard ten million
speeches and will finally die of poverty and disillusion.
Public hospitals, which are always full, accept only patients
recommended by some powerful politician who, in return, demands the
votes of the unfortunate one and his family so that Cuba may continue
forever in the same or worse condition."
Perhaps the most important statement I made about the
economic and social situation was the following:
"The nation's future, the solutions to its problems,
cannot continue to depend on the selfish interests of a dozen big
businessmen nor on the cold calculations of profits that ten or twelve
magnates draw up in their air-conditioned offices. The country cannot
continue begging on its knees for miracles from a golden
fleece, like the one mentioned in The Old Testament destroyed by the
prophet's fury. Golden fleece cannot perform miracles of any kind....
Statesmen whose statesmanship consists of preserving the status quo and
mouthing phrases like 'absolute freedom of enterprise,' 'guarantees to
investment capital' and 'law of
supply and demand,' will not solve these problems."
"In this present-day world, social problems are not
solved by spontaneous generation."
These statements and ideas described a whole underlying
thinking regarding the capitalist economic and social system that
simply had to be eliminated. They expressed, in essence, the idea of a
new political and social system for Cuba, although it may have been
dangerous to propose such a thing in the midst
of the sea of prejudices and ideological venom spread by the ruling
classes, allied to the empire and imposed on a population where 90 per
cent of the people were illiterate or semi-literate, without even a
sixth-grade education; discontent, combative and rebellious, yet unable
to discern such an acute and profound
problem. Since then, I have held the most solid and firm conviction
that ignorance has been the most powerful and fearsome weapon of the
exploiters throughout all of history.
Educating the people about the truth, with words and
irrefutable facts, has perhaps been the fundamental factor in the
grandiose feat that our people have achieved.
Those humiliating realities have been crushed, despite
blockades, threats, aggressions, massive terrorism and the unrestrained
use of the most powerful media in history against our Revolution.
The statistics leave no room for doubt.
It has since been possible to more precisely determine
that the real population of Cuba in 1953, according to the census taken
that year, was 5,820,000. The current population, according to the
census of September 2002, now in the final phase of data processing, is
11,177,743.

A young
Pioneeer participates in Cuba's program to eliminate illiteracy in
1961, which is today world-renowned.
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The statistics tell us that in 1953, a total of 807,700
people were illiterate, meaning an illiteracy rate of 22.3 per cent, a
figure that undoubtedly grew later during the seven years of Batista's
tyranny. In the year 2002, the number was a mere 38,183, or 0.5 per
cent of the population. The Ministry of Education
estimates that the real figure is even lower, because in their thorough
search for people who have not been given literacy training in their
sectors or neighbourhoods, visiting homes, it has been very difficult
to locate them. Their estimates, based on investigative methods even
more precise than a census, reveal a total
of 18,000, for a rate of 0.2 per cent. Of course, neither figure
includes those who cannot learn to read or write because of mental or
physical disabilities.
In 1953, the number of people with junior or senior high
school education was 139,984, or 3.2 per cent of the population aged 10
and over. In 2002, the number had risen to 5,733,243, which is 41 times
greater, equivalent to 58.9 per cent of the population in the same age
group.
The number of university graduates grew from 53,490 in
1953 to 712,672 in 2002.
Unemployment, despite the fact that the 1953 census was
taken in the middle of the sugar harvest -- that is, the time of the
highest demand for labour -- was 8.4 per cent of the economically
active population. The 2002 census, taken in September, revealed that
the unemployment rate in Cuba today is a mere
3.1 per cent. And this was the case in spite of the fact that the
active labour force in 1953 was only 2,059,659 people, whereas in 2002
it had reached 4,427,028. What is most striking is that next year, when
unemployment is reduced to less than 3 per cent, Cuba will enter the
category of countries with full employment,
something that is inconceivable in any other country of Latin America
or even the so-called economically developed nations in the midst of
the current worldwide economic situation.
Without going into other areas of noteworthy social
advances, I will simply add that between 1953 and 2002, the population
almost doubled, the number of homes tripled, and the number of persons
per home was reduced from 4.46 in 1953 to 3.16 in 2002; 75.4 per cent
of these homes were built after the triumph
of the Revolution.
Eighty-five per cent of the people own the houses they
dwell and they do not pay taxes; the remaining 15 per cent pays a
rather symbolic rent.
Of the total number of homes in the country, the
percentage of huts fell from 33.3 per cent in 1953 to 5.7 per cent in
2002, while the percentage of homes with electrical power service rose
from 55.6 per cent in 1953 to 95.5 per cent in 2002.
These statistics, however, do not tell the full story.
Cold figures cannot express quality, and it is in terms of quality that
the most truly spectacular advances have been achieved by Cuba.
Today, by a wide margin, our country occupies first
place worldwide in the number of teachers, professors and educators per
capita. The country's active teaching staff accounts for the incredible
figure of 290,574.
According to studies analyzing a group of the main
educational indicators, Cuba also occupies first place, above the
developed countries. The maximum of 20 students per teacher in primary
schools already attained, and the ratio of one teacher per 15 students
in junior high school -- grades seven, eight and nine
-- that will be achieved this coming school year, are things that could
not even be dreamed of in the world's wealthiest, most developed
countries.
The number of doctors is 67,079, of which 45,599 are
specialists and 8,858 are in training. The number of nurses is 81,459,
while that of healthcare technicians is 66,339, for a total of 214,877
doctors, nurses and technicians in the healthcare sector.

A
member of a Cuban medical detachment travels by horseback in rural
Cuba, 1970. Cuba's first rate attention to health care means that its
people have amongst the highest indices of health in the world, despite
all of the economic hardships it has faced.
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Life expectancy is 76.15 years; infant mortality is 6.5
for 1000 live births during the first year of life, lower than any
other Third World country and even some of the developed nations.
There are 35,902 physical education, sports and
recreation instructors, a great many more than the total number of
teachers and professors in all areas of education before the Revolution.
Cuba is now fully engaged in the transformation of its
own systems of education, culture and healthcare, through which it has
attained so many achievements, in order to reach new levels of
excellence never even imagined, based on the accumulated experience and
new technological possibilities.
These programs are now fully underway, and it is
estimated that the knowledge currently acquired by children, teenagers
and young people will be tripled with each school year. At the same
time, within five years at most, average life expectancy should rise to
80 years. The most developed and wealthy countries
will never attain a ratio of 20 students in a classroom in primary
school, or one teacher to 15 students in high school, or succeed in
taking university education to every municipality throughout the
country to place it within reach of the whole population, or in
offering the highest quality educational and healthcare
services to all of their citizens free of charge. Their economic and
political systems are not designed for this.
In Cuba, the social and human nightmare denounced in
1953, which gave rise to our struggle, had been left behind just a few
years after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959. Soon, there were no
longer peasants, sharecroppers or tenant farmers without land; all of
them became the owners of the land they farmed.
There were no longer undernourished, barefoot, parasite-ridden
children, without schools or teachers, even if their schooling took
place beneath the shade of a tree. They no longer died in massive
numbers from hunger, disease, from lack of resources or medical care.
No longer were the rural areas filled with unemployed
men and women. A new stage began in the creation and construction of
educational, healthcare, residential, sports and other public
facilities, as well as thousands of kilometres of highways, dams,
irrigation channels, agricultural facilities, electrical power plants
and power lines, agricultural, mechanical and construction
material industries, and everything essential for the sustained
development of the country.
One million
Cubans defiantly mark May Day 1980 with the "March of a Fighting
People" through Havana and past the offices of the U.S. Interests
Section.
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The labour demand was so great that for many years,
large contingents of men and women from the cities were mobilized to
work in agriculture, construction and industrial production, which laid
the foundations for the extraordinary social development achieved by
our country, which I mentioned earlier.
I am talking as if the country were an idyllic haven of
peace, as if there had not been over four decades of a rigorous
blockade and economic war, aggressions of all kinds, countless acts of
sabotage and terrorism, assassination plots and an endless list of
hostile actions against our country, which I do not wish
to emphasize in this speech, so as to focus on essential ideas of the
present.
Suffice it to say that defence-related tasks alone
required the permanent mobilization of hundreds of thousands of men and
women and large material resources.
This hard-fought battle served to toughen our people,
and taught them to fight simultaneously on many different fronts, to do
a lot with very little, and to never be discouraged by obstacles.
Decisive proof of this was their heroic conduct, their
tenacity and unshakably firm stance when the socialist bloc disappeared
and the USSR splintered. The feat they accomplished then, when no one
in the world would have bet a penny on the survival of the Revolution,
will go down in history as one of the greatest
ever achieved. They did it without violating a single one of the
ethical and humanitarian principles of the Revolution, despite the
shrieking and slander of our enemies.
The Moncada Program was fulfilled, and over-fulfilled.
For some time now, we have been pursuing even greater and previously
unimaginable dreams.[...]
I could repeat here something similar to what I said in
the spurious court where I was tried and sentenced for the struggle we
initiated five decades ago today, but this time it will not be me who
says it; it will be declared and foretold by a people that has carried
out a profound, transcendental and historic Revolution,
and has succeeded in defending it:
Condemn me. It does not matter. The peoples will have
the last word!
Eternal glory to those who have fallen during 50 years
of struggle! Eternal glory to the people that turned its dreams into a
reality! Venceremos!
Photos from the Relentless Struggle of the Cuban
People

Fidel and the rebel army
in the Sierra Maestra, 1957.

The victorious
Rebel Army led by Fidel Castro was enthusiastically welcomed in Havana
on January 8, 1959.
In 1959, Camilo
Cienfuegos leads a
group of rebel fighters advancing on the immense estates of the
United Fruit Company, where, on behalf of the people of Cuba, the land
would be nationalized according to the
provisions of the Agrarian Reform
Act signed a few weeks earlier in May 1959.
The first Declaration of
Havana was approved on September 2, 1960 by more than a million Cubans
who constituted themselves into the National General Assembly of the
People. In it they refuted the Organization of American States'
San José Declaration in which the member states
sided with
the U.S. aggressive plans against Cuban sovereignty.

Commander in Chief Fidel
Castro leading the Cuban Armed Forces
at the Bay of Pigs (left) where on April 19, 1961 the
Cuban
revolutionary forces
celebrate victory in repelling an attempted invasion by the United
States.
On April 16, 1961
Fidel Castro issues historic declaration establishing the irrevocable
socialist
character
of the Cuban Revolution.
 
Fidel Castro makes his
first speech to the UN on behalf of an independent Cuba, September 26,
1962 (left). In October 1962
the Cuban people again
prepare to defend their revolution from U.S. threats during the "Cuban
Missile Crisis"
Cuban internationalist troops fight side
by side with the Angolan people, 1980. The Cubans sent many volunteers
to fight side-by-side with the peoples of southern Africa against
colonialism and the apartheid regimes.

Children from Chernobyl,
Ukraine, visit Cuba in 1989 (left). Since the 1986 nuclear
disaster in Chernobyl, some 13,600 children and 2,500 adults affected
by the
intense radiation have received treatment in Cuba. This major act of
international solidarity with the victims of Chernobyl began at the
height of the Special Period in Cuba. At
right, Fidel
visits a day care centre. Day care centres were
established in the major Cuban cities in the late 1980s
to address
political and economic issues.
A brigade of Cuba's
Territorial Troops Militia (MTT), in a 1990 photo. The MTT is a
volunteer military force
which continues
the fighting tradition of those who fought at Playa
Giron and against banditry, the latest incarnation of the citizens'
active participation in the defence of the nation. In the MTT, as in
all of Cuba's armed forces, women play an important role.

Rally in 2000 in Havana,
to demand the U.S. return the child Elian Gonzalez to Cuba.

Mass demonstration in
Havana against at the U.S. release of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles,
April 20, 2007. The monument of black flags is part of the
Anti-Imperialist Tribune located across from the office of the U.S.
Interests Section, and commemorates victims of terrorism against Cuba,
many of whose deaths Posada is responsible for.

President Raúl
Castro gives speech at celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the
victory of the Cuban Revolution in Santiago de Cuba, January 1, 2009.

Cuban
youth rally at the flag memorial to Cuban victims of terrorism in
Havana, June 18, 2009, to
demand the release of the Cuban Five. President of the Cuban Parliament
Ricardo Alarcón attends the
rally.(right)
Activists from
around the world stand with Cuba at 6th International Colloquium
to Free the Cuban Five held in
Holguín,
Cuba, November 17-21, 2010. The gathering demanded the
release of the five Cuban anti-terrorists from U.S. jails.
Cubans celebrate the 50th
anniversary of their victory over a U.S.-backed mercenary invasion
force at Playa Giron,
April 16, 2011 in José
Martí
Revolution
Square,
Havana.
The Communist Party
of Cuba held its 6th Congress from April 16-19, 2011 with the
presence of Cuban
President Raúl Castro (left) and 997 elected delegates from
every province. The Congress deliberated on the
Draft Economic and Social Policy Guidelines of the Party and the
Revolution.

The UN General Assembly
overwhelming shows its support for Cuba and opposition to the criminal
U.S. blockade
for the 21st consecutive year, November 13, 2012.

Havana, May Day 2013

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