In the midst of a scenario nuanced by the insufficiencies of the internal economy, the inhuman pressures of the US blockade and the pause imposed by COVID-19, a discourse that incorporates, along with the claims of a group of honest artists and creators , takes force. attractive symbols and fallacies aimed at distorting the reality of the island.

Is there freedom of expression within Socialism? What role do art and the artist have? For the Doctor in Philosophical Sciences, Anayansi Castellón Jiménez, dedicated for years to studies on the ideology of the Cuban Revolution and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the Central University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas, answering these questions involves analyzing the current scenario from the solid corpus of Marxist theory.

- How to read the events of the last weeks?

- A general analysis of the current scenario must start from a fundamental idea: this is an essentially political issue. Many times I notice how some people understand it only as an individual matter, given by very particular circumstances, and believe that everything will end if a group of supposed “demands” are fulfilled. I believe that this is not the case and the examination should be done in more depth.

We are talking about political positions. That is an important element. Therefore, it is a matter of class struggle and of the survival of the project of the Cuban Revolution, which is a socialist project. There is a first element to take into account.

The second question lies in the particularities of our country. We must ask ourselves what is Cuba, what does the Revolution represent and how has it been permanently subjected to a siege by the forces of imperialism.

The third issue has to do with the construction of a socialist society that is not perfect, but has proven to be better than the capitalist world, because it guarantees better justice quotas. In this sense, it is a society in permanent formation, with a group of errors – economic solutions, corruption, bureaucracy or conduction of processes – in which we revolutionaries must work permanently.

- You often hear the term “freedom of expression”. What precepts shape it and, above all, what to do with that freedom?

- Freedom will always be restricted, as its limits are determined by the class in power. The idea of ​​total freedom, like that of democracy, is a great fallacy. You always have quotas of it and limits to enjoy it. Now, socialist freedom is more freedom for a greater number of people, but that implies a responsibility with respect to the rest of the citizens and the fulfillment of social norms.

In a small sector of Cuba, a tendency is sometimes noticed, typical of the globalized world, linked to a certain petty-bourgeois spirit. It is seen above all in a group of people who are not in a position to digest or find behind these doctrines their true essence. Because the ideology that capitalism sells us, the notion of its better democracy, its multiparty system and also its freedom of expression, are fallacies.

It is pure ideology, in the Marxist sense of seeing it as false consciousness. It is about “truths” of a social class that they try to construct as the truth of many people.

That is why sometimes one sees claims that are inconsistent or that do not have a direct anchor in our reality. Not because we don’t have freedom of expression, but because our forms of freedom are different; not because we don’t have democracy, but because our democracy is different. That spirit also floats on the platform on which a group of “demands” are raised.

- There is also a lot of talk about Words to intellectuals …

- There are elements decontextualized and not read in their entirety. The best known phrase of that speech is “within the Revolution everything; against the Revolution nothing ”. There Fidel analyzes how the artist is even freer than in Capitalism, because his art is no longer an object for the market. It also establishes the limits of freedom of expression and creation in Socialism, and says that the only border is precisely the life of the Revolution.

During that speech, Fidel speaks of three types of artists or intellectuals. The revolutionary, convinced that the Revolution and Socialism are the roads. He also mentions the one who does not support the ideas of the Revolution, but who is honest and is not bought by anyone or responds to foreign interests.

Finally, it refers to those who are not revolutionaries, and also are not honest. And right there comes the “within the Revolution everything; against the Revolution nothing ”. So, from the discourse, it follows that the Revolution has the duty to include and respect both revolutionary and honest creators. That continues to be the limit of freedom in Cuba today, the survival of the Revolution. And it is precisely that element one of those that is in controversy these days.

- What is the role of art and the creator in Socialism?

- Art is a form of social consciousness. In that sense, it also means reflecting reality through other codes, and it has a strong component of criticism, but also of spirituality. In Capitalism art is produced in a more individual way. In Socialism, on the other hand, as artistic production becomes massive and culture reaches a greater number of people, it acquires a more social character, a greater responsibility.

Art also draws essentially from universal culture. Marx easily clarifies it when he says that history is nothing more than the passing of one generation that rises above the other, and receives from the previous one all the cultural heritage of humanity. Therefore, an art or artist that does not know its cultural past is inconsequential, and is incapable of appropriating it, firstly to respect it, and then to legitimize its new cultural positions.

However, this analysis goes further. It is not possible to create a political platform in Cuba if you do not respect the Cuban flag, which is part of our culture. But also, you cannot invent a model that tries to find in the United States – our historical enemy – a political and economic foothold. If you do that, you are saying that the Cuban is incapable of thinking for himself.

Founding fathers of Cuban nationality, such as José Agustín Caballero, Félix Varela or José de la Luz y Caballero, taught us that we can solve problems on our own. Cuba has enough capacity to articulate a project for an original society and that of no one else, but that is impossible looking north. Then you realize that those who defend an agenda of interference are unaware of the entire history of Cuban thought, all of its cultural heritage.

Anayansi Castellón: “Dialogue is given to Socialism, because it is more democratic as there is greater social justice.” Photo: Yunier Sifonte / Cubadebate.

- Where are the borders between art and vulgarity? Who legitimizes an artist?

- Vulgarity and marginality can never be art, as can offenses either. Cuba has excellent samples of leaders, especially from the labor sector, who were not great intellectuals or possessed a deep theoretical mastery of things, but were educated people, trained in the civic spirit necessary to interact with the world.

It is precisely there that the limit with vulgarity appears, in that domain of culture. A person who disrespects those around him, who shouts expletives or uses obscenities, is not an artist.

An artist is legitimized by his quality work, consistent with his ideas and his time. Nobody else. To the intellectuals of the Republic, key in the movement of ideas that led to the search for a new society, who legitimized them but their own creation?

- Where should the dialogue with those intellectuals who do not compromise their work with the enemies of Cuba lead?

- We must use it to draw lessons about the present and take advantage of the critical vision of young people and honest intellectuals to strengthen the country. As we ourselves have many things well done and of which we are proud, there are also elements to improve. In that we must work, especially to avoid that their permanence creates more difficulties, resentments or fuels the lack of unity. That is another essential matter.

As is the case with the idea of ​​thinking for ourselves, the theme of unity cuts across the thought of the Cuban Revolution, from 1868 to today. This unit also includes dialogue with young people who have just concerns, and together face those who pretend manipulation and have unscrupulous handling in matters of culture or other social aspects.

Along with this, we could remember Antonio Gramsci when he spoke of the construction of hegemony, that ability to build consensus from power. It is an idea to strengthen even more. We cannot be afraid to speak of our problems to solve them in function of Socialism. As Gramsci himself said in one of his newspapers, the truth is always revolutionary.

Another indispensable theorist for current times is Che Guevara, because if anyone advocated timely criticism within the Revolution, it was him. And Socialism is given dialogue, because it is more democratic as there is greater social justice. That is the summary, to put those who want to improve Cuba to talk. To the revolutionaries and those who do not share some of our ideas, but be honest. Just like Fidel said.

- In the recent debate between various creators and authorities of culture in the country, Alpidio Alonso said that “Cuba must be a parliament within a trench.” Is that one of the keys?

- It’s part of the key. We have always been a trench and in it we must ensure the greatest good: the independence of Cuba. We began to be a country on January 1, 1959. We acquired shape on the map of the economic, political and cultural life of the world on that date. But that has cost us a permanent struggle.

Socialism does not eliminate the class struggle at once. It is a present phenomenon. We must know that it is a just system and in constant danger, both from the forces within and from without. And the way of success is to fight against our imperfections and against the external enemy that always haunts us.

She wears the same eyes and sometimes the smile gives her away more than the surnames, although Guevara is Guevara and comes from the very southern cone, from the roots of a continent.

At sixty years of age, Aleida – Che’s doctor, pediatrician and daughter – says that she inherited a love for photography from the guerrilla commander and clarifies, raising her index finger, that her brother Camilo is a better photographer than she. As her father called her, Aliucha is proud of her insularity, of a country that Ernesto Guevara loved like her own, where she made a Revolution and a family. From here the commander would have to leave, leaving her loved ones, because “other lands of the world demanded the assistance of her modest efforts.”

- This October 3 marks the 55th anniversary of Che’s farewell letter . How did you feel the first time you read it, especially when he says “I don’t leave my children and my wife anything material and it doesn’t make me sad: I’m glad it is so”?

The first time I heard it, it was very small and it struck me because I also saw my mother on television with my uncle Fidel who was reading that letter. I didn’t quite understand what it was about, but my mom was crying. She always educated us in the idea that we could be children of a very special man, but for that reason we should not receive anything special. The Revolution would give us what we need to develop as human beings, period. They have asked me in Argentina and various places “what my dad left me” and they give me fits of laughter because he had nothing material to leave behind, only his example.

- At one point in the farewell letter to Fidel, Che states: “I am also proud to have followed you without hesitation, identified with your way of thinking and seeing and appreciating the dangers and principles. How similar and, at the same time, different, were Ernesto Guevara and the Commander in Chief?

From a human point of view they are very similar. Che learns to respect Fidel as a true military leader, especially during his time in prison in Mexico. They all got freedom except for my father and another colleague because they are branded as communists and pro-Soviet. Fidel told me that anecdote years later: “I went to discuss with your father in jail because I had warned them not to say their political condition, but there I realized that Che did not know how to lie, not even if his life depended on him. that”. The Commander could have left on the Granma yacht without him, and he didn’t. He managed to get Daddy released and they left together for Cuba.

Che and Fidel, together with little Aleida. Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee.

–The letter is written as if Che knew that it was probable that he would never return …

All the guerrillas have to prepare this terrain and create awareness that it can happen. The bullets have no name. He says it in the letter: that the truth hit them all because in a true Revolution, either you win or you die. There is no other. His dream was a free, independent, united America, as one nation.

- When Che left Cuba, you were barely 4 and a half years old. What image with your father do you remember, do you have intact in your memory?

Two images. One is in my mom’s room. She has my brother Ernesto, a newborn, leaning on her shoulder and my dad is behind him, dressed in military clothing, with a very large hand touching the baby’s head. She is doing it with such tenderness that that moment is forever engraved on me. At that moment he had to have thought many things: “Will this little boy recognize me one day? Will he understand why I will not be by his side when he grows up? …” Perhaps in those thoughts lies the greatness of my father. Not all human beings have that strength and it must always be respected.

“And the other image is when he transforms into Ramón and welcomes us. My mother takes us to see a friend of my father, “old Ramón”, in a safe house in Pinar del Río. When we go to dinner he serves red wine on its own, but Daddy usually drank it with water. There I jumped like a spring and said: ‘you are not my father’s friend’ and I explained that Daddy drank red wine with water. I went to the end of the table where he was sitting and poured the water into his glass because ‘that’s how he was rich.’ Mommy says the man was excited about it.

“Afterwards, the four brothers continued playing and I slipped and hit my head on a marble table. Then ‘old Ramón’ took me in his arms, he felt me ​​immediately, and I felt something that was not normal for me: a strange man, who would protect me like this? Then I spoke to my mother because I had to tell her a secret and I told her in full voice: ‘Mom, I think this man is in love with me.

“A long time later my mother told me that this man was my father, but it still had to be kept a secret. I grew up with the feeling that my dad loved me, they weren’t just papers, letters, they were gestures, feelings, because a child doesn’t lie. When a child feels these things it is for real ”.

–You tell in the documentary Absence Present that Che kissed her very hard …

Daddy squeezed me while he kissed me and that made me wake up. I got a little scared of the dark because I was looking at a guy I hardly saw, at night and giving me those squeezes … On one of her trips, Mommy tells her that in a book there is a story about a little lion that accompanies a child with fear until the little one gains strength and the lion leaves because the child loses his fear. She explains to him that I have received that reading very well. So one of my dad’s few expenses is buying me a stuffed lion.

-He was an austere man …

My father? Tremendously. And with good reason. He was leaving in the name of a people that did not have, as we say, where to tie the goat. How was he going to spend money on us? That was not logical, but also, he did not have time either. He traveled with the minutes counted and participated in one activity after another. Going to a store to buy something from us was impossible. However, Daddy buys me the little lion and it was extraordinary for me because my stuffed animal always accompanied me and I gradually lost my fear of the dark. And already in her last trips she brings me a doll.

–In his farewell letter to his children, Che tells them: “Always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary ”. Has Aleida Guevara taken it with her?

Most of us Cubans have taken it with one. At this point it pains me a little that our doctors do not talk about him because generations of Cuban doctors have been educated with the example of Che. He is the first revolutionary doctor. When I was studying the last year of Medicine, Fidel brought us together and suggested that Nicaragua needed doctors, the Sandinista Revolution had just triumphed, and he asked us how many of us wanted to do the internationalist internship. A lot of boys between 22 and 23 years old went there.

“Then the threat against that country begins and Fidel decides to get all the women out of there. We discussed that at one point because I felt I was failing my teammates. We were all together. Why are we leaving? It didn’t seem fair to me. I remember saying, ‘Man, don’t hurt me. I consider myself your daughter, and when the generals send their troops the first must be their children. ‘ Then, in the few things that Fidel wrote to me, he said: ‘I can never hurt you. Do not think that. It’s just to protect them. ‘ Then I go to Moa, in Holguín ”.

-From Managua to Moa …

Tremendous change. At that time, Moa was one of the richest cities in Cuba from an industrial point of view, but poorer in terms of social structure. This looked like an American West. I had several confrontations in Moa because, unfortunately, we as human beings tend to settle, sometimes in a certain position, to only receive the benefits, but not to give the sacrifices that a public position in this country entails. And I lived those things there, and they cost me my tears. But it is my country, and I am not silent about anything.

“After a year I return to Havana and the request for missions arrives again. I went to the Ministry of Public Health, I introduced myself as a doctor at the ‘Pedro Borrás’ hospital and they told me that Angola was where I should go. There I said: ‘No, I just left Nicaragua at war and Angola is my turn, at war!’ But I accepted. I remember I was leaving on October 6th, hear this: October 6th! When I got home my mom almost had seizures that day. She shut herself up to cry. But she had taught me to be socially useful.
Angola: “The two hardest years of my life”

“I have been working with children with tuberculosis. I remember Celson. I will never forget. He was waiting for me at the door of the tuberculosis ward and I tied the cloth around my back and gave him a walk around the perimeter of the hospital. Celson was happy with that. I remember that the director of the center, a Portuguese pichon, told me insulted that I was making fun. I replied: ‘You are wrong. Look at that kid’s face. Don’t you see her happy? For me that is the most important thing and what I need to face one day in this hospital: Celson’s smile. You can’t take it from me. ‘

“I remember another boy who slept in a naked doorway under some newspapers with which he covered himself. That day I was the guard in the building, and our boss kicked a bundle of papers and from there the boy came out. He got up, folded the newspapers, and tucked them under his arm. Look, boy, I still can’t talk about it. It was such a pain that I went upstairs and took off the olive green sweater I was wearing and it was hot. I went downstairs, called him and put it on him. That little boy looked at me and said ‘dad’.

“I tried to help him, I took him to the shelters, but he ran away again. Until he didn’t come back anymore. That is why I think that it is not possible that some people do not feel the enormous privilege we have of being Cubans and maintaining a society where the life of the human being is more important than any money in the world. That is the most beautiful thing that men like Che have left us ”.

- What would Che love today? What would make you angry?

I would be very proud of the Cuban doctors. Despite all the economic problems we have had, we have not lost the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary as he said in the letter: “to feel the injustice committed against anyone in any part of the world.” Our doctors do it every day with the Henry Reeve brigade , for example, or with the Latin American School of Medicine ( ELAM ).

“On the other hand, Che was always a very critical man, therefore, he would make us many remarks about today’s Cuba, especially regarding the self-employed. He would never understand. No way. That, in the long run, is a small cancer in our society, because people start to think only in their pockets. But sometimes you have to make decisions that, although they are not always the right ones, are the ones that are within our reach. And you have to learn to walk with them ”.

- And to you, does it not bother you that sometimes Che’s ideas are used opportunistically?

- That they put them as a slogan and don’t feel them, and don’t live them, of course it bothers me. The good thing is that at least they say them.

-But sometimes they say them without consciousness…

But he who has it listens to it. Perhaps whoever uses it did it to finish a beautiful speech, but the one who does have a conscience hears it and knows that it is not being practiced as it should be. Opportunists we can have everywhere and we must rescue many values ​​that have been lost in the special periods lived.

- At what times have you said to yourself “if my father were here”?

A lot of times! When I brought my oldest daughter into the world and she was opening her eyes after the anesthesia for the cesarean section, I saw two men next to me: they were Ramiro Valdés and Oscar Fernández Mel. “What are you doing here?” I say to them, and they reply: “Since your father is not here, we are here.” Only! And of course I miss it. I wish I could have seen Daddy with his grandchildren on his knees, talking to them and teaching them much more than I can teach my daughters. Those things happen to you like a flash to your head.

Moments of the birth of Aleida Guevara’s eldest daughter. Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee.

- In one of his speeches, Che states that the goal of the new generations is that they forget him and the Commander in Chief. But perhaps in that he was wrong. What do you think?

That was in one of the last speeches he made to the young people of the Ministry of Industries, in which he told them that their goal one day is to forget Fidel, him … At first when I read it I said “but is my dad crazy? ” But he said it in the sense that, when we surpassed everything that they preached to us with their example, then it would not be necessary to have them so present. And that’s what he’s telling us: the goal is to overcome them and be better human beings than they are. But we have not yet been able.

- What has been the greatest affront that you have experienced from the people towards Che?

When you see people who are not able to move for a child who is dying, for example. My dad said that the life of a single child was worth more than all the gold on earth. And it is what I also feel as a doctor and a human being. To see someone who does not show indignation at seeing a child die hits me a lot.

- And the greatest gratitude?

I work with the Landless Movement in Brazil. And they practice Che every day. When you see men and women, sometimes with a cultural level that is not high, but capable of feeling that man and putting it into practice, then you say “he is multiplying”. Che returns again, with the shield over his arm. What to tell you about the Cuban doctors who went to fight Ebola without really knowing what they were going to face, risking their lives… Che is there. As a daughter, I really appreciate it. It’s seeing your dad again. In combat.

(By: Andy Jorge Blanco/Cubadebate)

This challenging question weighs heavy in the hearts of conscious individuals, well aware of the living force of Ernesto Guevara’s impeccable example.

It is clear, first of all, that this is not a question for everyone, since he does not mean the same thing for everyone. A man becomes a symbol only for those who share his dreams, while for others he is simply an historical figure, albeit a renowned one.

Che speaks to us in many ways, as a legend, a leader, soldier, companion, father, a natural man.

Nothing in his life or work needs an explication to defend its value. He did not need it when he was alive, when his posture and acts spoke for themselves, even as a developing young man. Much less later, after his ascension from the world of the living, to that of those who live forever.

From Rosario’s boy to Bolivia’s guerrilla leader, he constantly took on colossal challenges. He responded to his asthma by climbing mountains. To heal the sick? He swam across a jungle river. To understand the pain of his people? He rode a motorcycle across the feverish continent. To help remedy this pain? He gave himself in battle, embarked on an overloaded yacht, fought, and succeeded, making the Revolution that would begin the continental rebellion, in which he already knew he would die.

His unreachable, impossible goals were as legendary as the man, but nonetheless, for mortal revolutionaries who understand him, he left an ample legacy of challenges for daily practice, a framework for the human and the virtuous.

Fidel posed the question: “What do we want our children to be?” – those who we are now, and our own. “We want them to be like Che.”

This is the issue today: Asking ourselves if we are or will be like him, is to understand that the question is not to choose today or tomorrow, but to always be frank, bold, industrious, supportive, critical, decisive, and of course, sensitive dreamers committed to the common good, because seeking individual happiness in itself is not genuine. It is only true when, like the world’s eternal guerrilla, it has a collective soul and a vocation for humanity.

(Granma)

“It is an honor to participate in an encounter dedicated to the figure of Ernesto Che Guevara, an icon of unity and example of struggle for Cubans,” stated Ronald Hidalgo Rivera, second secretary of the Young Communists League (UJC).

A delegation including 15 participants, left for Bolivia in the dawn hours today, October 5, to join some 10,000 representatives of social movements, authorities, academics, and youth from across Latin America and the world.

Hidalgo commented that he expects the event to be an extraordinary experience, “given the cultural interaction with other Latin Americans, the direct contact with history, and the opportunity to honor the heroic guerilla. All of this makes participating in the world encounter a privilege.”

Among the main activities planned are guided tours of La Higuera, including the Ernesto Che Guevara school and museum, cultural performances, and expositions.

(Granma)

The walk will begin at 4.00 pm at the Marta Abreu de Las Villas Central University, which served as Guevara’s command headquarters during the capture of the city of Santa Clara, and where he returned in December 1959 to receive the title of Doctor Honoris Causa in Pedagogy. It will conclude close to the Loma del Capiro, in areas of the Sandino Cultural and Recreational Complex, with a concert by trova artist Adrián Berazaín, as José Antonio Marimón Carrazana, vice rector of expansion, computerization and communication of the institution, told Granma.

The event will be attended by young people from all higher education centers of the territory, including those studying at the MININT (Ministry of the Interior) Independent Faculty; Brigadier General Luis Felipe Denis; as well as students from the province’s schools, who will pay tribute to Che’s example and ideas.

“Por la ruta del Che” is just one of many activities to be held in this province, which has the honor of guarding the remains of the Heroic Guerrilla and his fellow combatants, to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. Voluntary work tasks will also be undertaken in workplaces and institutions, as part of the recovery efforts of the territory following the devastation left by Hurricane Irma.

September 7 will see a cultural gala in Leoncio Vidal Park, while on October 16 students of the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School will perform the traditional guard of honor before the mausoleum to the combatants of the Las Villas Front.

A postage stamp commemorating the 20th anniversary of the arrival of the remains of Che and his comrades in arms to the city of Santa Clara will also be issued, while 50 students of the Ernesto Che Guevara semi-boarding school will be recognized as pioneers, in the act that will take place on the morning of October 8, in the square honored with his name.