Articles of Reflections by Fidel

I have carefully followed the Western media reaction to my Sunday reflections on the Olympic Games in China. Actually, rather sensitive events were overlooked while others were highlighted ad libitum by the advocates of world plundering and exploitation.

Si se hace una estadística sobre el número de instalaciones, campos deportivos y equipamientos sofisticados por millón de habitantes que acabamos de ver en los últimos Juegos Olímpicos: piscinas de natación, de clavados y de polo acuático; suelos artificiales para competencias de campo y pista, hockey sobre césped; instalaciones para básquet, para voleibol; de aguas rápidas para kayak; velódromos para bicicletas de velocidad, polígonos de tiro, etcétera, etcétera, podría afirmarse que no están al alcance del 80 por ciento de los países representados en Beijing, equivalente a miles de millones de personas que habitan el planeta. China, inmenso y milenario país de más de 1,200 millones de habitantes, invirtió 40 mil millones de dólares en las instalaciones olímpicas y aún requerirá tiempo para satisfacer las necesidades deportivas de una sociedad en pleno desarrollo.

Perhaps some governments are unaware of the concrete facts, and so for that reason Raúl’s message setting Cuba’s position seemed to us to be very timely. I shall be generous in the aspects that cannot be dealt with in a brief and precise official statement.

The Olympics will very soon begin in China. Some days ago I wrote about our baseball team. I said that our athletes were put through a very hard test and that if something went wrong they were not the ones who deserved the harshest criticisms. I recognized their quality and patriotism. They felt depressed after the criticisms that came from Cuba.

He returned from his trip to Europe on Friday. He was away for only four days. Flying west, he arrived at Caracas at 11 at night, at sunrise in Madrid, the point of departure. The call from Venezuela came in early on Saturday. I was told he wanted to speak to me over the phone that day. I replied that I could speak to him at 1:45 in the afternoon.

On October 19, 1950, more than 400 thousand voluntary Chinese combatants, on orders from Mao Zedong, crossed the Yalu and waylaid the US troops that were advancing towards the Chinese border. The US units, surprised by the vigorous response of the country they had underestimated, were forced to withdraw towards a region near the southern coast, pushed back by the joint action of the Chinese and North Korean forces. Stalin, who was immensely cautious, offered far less support than Mao had anticipated, though the MiG-15 aircrafts piloted by the Soviets, over a limited 42.5-miles front, proved valuable help during the initial stage of the conflict in protecting land forces during their intrepid advance. Pyongyang was again recovered and Seoul re-occupied once more, attempting to fight back the incessant onslaught of the US Air Force, the most powerful which has ever existed.

Raul was right to keep dignified silence over the statements published last Monday, July 21st, by Izvestia on the eventual installation of strategic Russian fighter-planes bases in our country. The news came up from a certain hypothesis elaborated in Russia associated with the Yankees obstinacy in setting up radars and launching pads for their nuclear shield close to the borders of that great power.

The Korean nation, with its unique culture different from its Chinese and Japanese neighbors, has existed for three thousand years. These characteristics are typical of societies in that Asian region, including those of China, Vietnam and others. There is nothing like it in Western cultures, some of which are less than 250 years old.

It would seem our country has the most educational problems in the world. All of the cables that reach us report on the many and difficult challenges we face: a deficit of over 8,000 teachers, disrespectful and ill-mannered students, lack of training, in short: problems of all sorts.

Any autobiographically tinted writing forces me to clear up any doubts about decisions I made more than half a century ago. I am talking about subtle details, since the essential points are never forgotten. This is the case of what I did in 1948, sixty years ago.