The name shouted August 5, 27 years ago on the corner of Prado and Malecón emerged anew last July 11, with the same power, when I saw a group, that had just failed in its attempt to take the Capitol, back away when confronted with the image of the Comandante. In Cuba in the summer of 1994, Cuba’s economic panorama was dire, following the disappearance of trade with the Soviet Union, which eliminated the source of more than 70% of the country’s foreign currency income: power outages lasted more than 12 hours, a dwindling food supply turned a phrase from a popular soap opera, “Hey girl, say hello to your boyfriend,” into a synonym for rice and beans, the most frequently available dish, along with other Creole inventions such as soy meat and goose paste, while access to the few cafes that sold hamburgers was organized by neighborhood Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, with priority given pregnant women and the elderly. Public transportation practically disappeared, to be replaced by the massive use of bicycles, despite caloric intake that was decreasing day by day. Solitary cans of clams in shop windows were the last evidence of a state market in Cuban pesos, which had once satisfactorily complemented food made available to all via the basic supply booklet. As of July 26, 1993, the dollar had been decriminalized, and the minority with access to USD was a little better off, although the power cuts had the same impact on everyone. The workers’ parliaments, as Fidel named them with full class-based intentionality, had approved a series of measures that in the end, would devalue the Cuban peso, which at that time was trading at 150 to the dollar, and would make it possible to begin the recovery. But at the time, despair, irritation and discontent was reaching critical mass for what Miami had been awaiting for decades, and a journalist, who still has the gall to continue publishing articles in media such as El Nuevo Herald, thought he would make a name for himself by writing a book entitled The Last Hour of Fidel Castro. For several weeks the hijackings of boats encouraged by radio broadcasts from the United States had created a tense situation in neighborhoods near the port of Havana. On the morning of August 5, 1994, at the provincial headquarters of the Young Communists League (UJC), we were passionately discussing whether or not we should move from denunciation to mobilization, when reality imposed its demands and we decided to go see the National Committee of our organization, at its office located right where the Avenida del Puerto begins. The first shock came when I saw a woman shouting at someone who passed in front of us on San Lazaro Street, heading for Old Havana, in the sidecar of a motorcycle: “Take off that T-shirt, they’re going to kill you.” She apparently thought that, in those circumstances, the revolutionary words on the man’s shirt could make the difference between life and death, and I, although wearing a muted striped pullover, had often shouted the same phrase, looked at her for a moment, not without fear, thinking that the logo displayed on the vehicle in which we were traveling could mean the same fate as the one predicted by the terrified passerby for the motorcyclist, who had preceded us through the previously quiet streets of downtown Havana. Some garbage bins, I suppose placed by those who started the riot, were trying to cut off traffic, but we reached our destination. In the vicinity of the UJC National Committee, at Missiones, Prado and Avenida del Puerto, off Maximo Gomez Park, a crowd of people had formed, who obviously, based on what they shouted, were not on our side. Others, in the role of curious observers, watched silently, and a lone policeman was shooting into the air, while protecting his patrol car, parked next to the Castillo de La Punta. Those of us gathering there – cadres and workers from different branches of the UJC, including myself – began to move around shouting revolutionary slogans, the most repeated of which was “Viva Fidel!” Still in the minority, we saw how we were gaining ground, some watched in silence and others retreated. Rocks rained down around us, but no one confronted us directly, and as we reached the corner of Prado and Malecón, we saw the arrival of trucks from the Blas Roca Contingent. (We learned later that one of its members lost an eye that day, when he was hit by an object thrown from a nearby building.) Going up Prado, the situation was confusing. Thousands of people had filled the street, when comments began to be heard about Fidel coming that way. It took only a few seconds before, indeed, three olive green jeeps, covered with cloth and absolutely vulnerable to any violence, arrived in the middle of the turmoil, and the Comandante climbed out of the second. As if by magic, the rocks disappeared and an enormous roar emerged from our throats, now even more certain of victory: “Fidel, Fidel!” In the midst of that out-of-control melee, anyone could have come within a meter of him, to hurt him and trigger the hatred incited by lies and propaganda, but there he was. Serene, speaking slowly and in a low voice, asking about the situation in nearby areas, saying that it would be preferable for us to suffer the dead, surely already thinking about the counterattack he would launch against the empire, to once again turn a setback into a victory. It was there that he began the systematic offensive against U.S. policy toward Cuba, which would continue in several televised appearances and put Bill Clinton’s administration on the defensive, forcing him to sign an immigration agreement with Cuba on short order. Barely a week later, on August 13, Fidel’s birthday, the UJC organized a concert at the same corner of Prado and Malecón, in which several of the participating musicians ended their performances with the same “Viva Fidel!” that resounded days earlier during those tremendous hours. On the first anniversary of these events, speaking at the same site, the Comandante would close a demonstration that, as part of the International Solidarity Youth Festival, entitled Cuba Vive, had marched along the Havana waterfront from G Street to La Punta. He called for the resumption of World Youth and Student Festivals, to advance the struggle for peace and anti-imperialist solidarity. The young participants, like those who participated in Cuba Vive, would stay in the homes of Havana residents, and would share with them a week of political and social activities. Fidel’s counter-offensive continued to advance and, as usual, was not limited to resisting imperialism or defeating it within Cuba. The battlefield was the world, and there he would be, as always, disputing U.S. hegemony. This past July 11, I remembered that August 5, when, on the corner of Galiano and Neptuno, I saw a poster of Fidel raised by someone in the group of us defending the Revolution there, led by decorated Hero of the Republic and national coordinator of the CDRs, Gerardo Hernandez. The cheers and the name shouted 27 years earlier, on the corner of Prado and Malecón, emerged anew last July 11, with the same power. I am not lying when I say that I saw a group – that had just failed in their attempt to take the Capitol – back away, when confronted with the image of the Comandante surrounded by Cuban flags, and think better of attempting to advance along Neptuno Street. And the fact is that Fidel’s counter-offensive is still alive and accompanies us in today’s battles. I remembered it again when, at the Tokyo Olympics, boxer Julio César La Cruz shouted the same exact words worn by the unknown comrade who was warned: “They’re going to kill you.” Patria o Muerte! Venceremos! (Homeland or Death! We will win!) (Taken from Granma)

This is what Fidel said in 1992, on the occasion of the 39th anniversary of the September 5th uprising against the Batista dictatorship:
“Difficult times are difficult times. In difficult times the number of those who waver increases; in difficult times – and this is a law of history – there are those who become confused, there are those who become discouraged, there are those who are intimidated, there are those who become soft, there are those who betray, there are those who desert. This happens in all times and in all revolutions.

“But it is also in difficult times that men and women are really tested; it is in difficult times that those who are worth something are really tested.

“Difficult times are the best measure of all, of the character of each individual, of the courage and valor of each individual, of the consciousness of each individual, of the virtues of each individual and, above all, of the virtues of a people; and this people never lacked patriotic or revolutionary virtues, nor will they ever be lacking in this people.

“Revolutionaries, however, must be very conscious of the problems, of the difficulties.
“There are people who are not conscious, there are people who do not understand; there are people who will never understand. There are people who do not understand what the homeland is or what independence is; there are people who do not understand what history is, what the roots of a people are; there are people who do not understand what patriotic and revolutionary dignity means; there are people who do not understand political processes or what the objective problems are.

“There are those who do not understand and we must struggle against these people; they can confuse some, it is always a struggle.”
Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez recently quoted an excerpt of this categorical speech, and reaffirmed the intransigence of Cubans in the defense of their Revolution, stating, “Our people are worth something; our people are worth a great deal and will act accordingly – fearlessly, with courage and valor. This is a people that will never lack patriotic virtues.”

(Taken from Granma)

The passage of time requires new readings of Fidel’s “Words to Intellectuals.”e than a few members of younger generations are not familiar with this memorable speech by the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, delivered on June 30, 1961 at the National Library, or the circumstances in which it was presented, after many hours of conversation between the country’s leadership and representatives of Cuba’s artistic and intellectual vanguard, on the 16th and the 23rd. “Within the revolution everything, against the revolution nothing,” is the phrase that is recalled, in many cases, as the only reference to the historic comment.

Unfortunately, his other remarks have not been published, in particular those he made on the 16th and 23rd, which provide insight into the context in which Fidel presented his “Words…” which were not a speech properly speaking, but a commentary constructed from the notes he made as he patiently listened to the rest of the participants, making only brief inquiries and occasionally interupting. Many eyewitnesses, however, left to posterity their memories of the meeting and the audio of Fidel’s words is also preserved, allowing us to appreciate the climate of the event and the tone he used.

The meeting was triggered by the prohibition of screenings of the documentary PM (Past Meridian). Although the short 14-minute film had been broadcast on Cuban television, on a Monday early in the month of May, its presentation in the country’s movie theaters was canceled after Alfredo Guevara, as president of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), informed Edith Garcia Buchaca, secretary of the National Council of Culture, that Icaic’s Commission for the Study and Classification of Films was opposed to its massive screening.

The film, by Orlando Jimenez and Sabá Cabrera Infante, featured the extravagant nightly entertainment enjoyed by a portion of the population in Havana’s bars and nightclubs, a seemingly inconsequential topic in today’s light, but that in the context of 1961, when the country was mobilized and facing constant imperialist attacks, could lend itself to other readings, as in fact it did. The documentary, although it did not fail to garner praise and positive reviews from critics, was questioned as extemporaneous and harmful to the interests of the Cuban people and its Revolution.

In view of the disagreements that arose with the censoring of the film, a meeting was called with a group of artists and writers on May 31 at the Casa de las Americas, but after a heated discussion, no definitive conclusions were reached. It was proposed that the film be analyzed by mass organizations and that the population would have the last word, but the consultation did not take place. On June 2, the newspaper Hoy published the decision made by Icaic’s Commission for the Study and Classification of Films, making the atmosphere even more tense. Guillermo Cabrera Infante wrote a letter of protest to Nicolás Guillén, president of the Association of Writers and Artists. It then became necessary to postpone the Congress of Writers and Artists that was being prepared, and Prime Minister Fidel Castro asked the National Council of Culture to convene a broad meeting with artists and intellectuals in which all tendencies would be present.

Beyond censorship of the documentary PM, which served as a catalyst, more fundamental issues were circulating within the environment, which urgently needed to be addressed by the leadership of the Revolution – especially the issue of forging unity within the Cuban artistic and intellectual movement and incorporating this process within the dialogue that was already underway between other sectors of society and the forces that had led the struggle against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. This would be one of the most immediate accomplishments of the meetings at the National Library: The successful first Congress of Writers and Artists which led to the founding of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (Uneac), with national poet Nicolás Guillén as its first president, in August of the same year.

A few months later, the cultural supplements Lunes and Hoy Domingo, in the newpaper Revolución, were dropped, opening the way for the journal Unión and the magazine La Gaceta de Cuba, both published by Uneac.

Fidel was fully aware that an internal struggle was sharpening for control of the country’s cultural apparatus, between tendencies with different and even conflicting positions on the relationship between politics and culture, thus posing the immediate challenge of intervening to settle the disagreements without favoring one group over another, in order to clearly define a position, not in relation to what occurred around the documentary, but rather the path the Revolution should take in terms of cultural policy.

The mapping of tendencies and groups with different perspectives and visions of the relationship between state power and culture is a very complex task, but, at the risk of oversimplifying, they can be grouped into two large blocs. One group was centered around Revolución’s cultural supplement and Carlos Franqui – who had been expelled from the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), originally the Communist Party of Cuba, before joining the July 26th Movement, and, in addition to several television stations, directed the newspaper Revolución, the official voice of the July 26th Movement, which beginning in March of 1959, published Lunes, edited by Guillermo Cabrera Infante.

This group defended a militant commitment to the Revolution on the part of artists, but also political non-interference in cultural affairs and freedom without class-based or ideological formulations. They maintained a critical position toward figures they considered decadent representatives of the cultural past and the old generation, which led them to commit sectarian errors, publishing unnecessary attacks on artists and intellectuals essential to the national culture, including: José Lezama Lima, Cintio Vitier, Samuel Feijóo, Alejo Carpentier and Alicia Alonso, which far from contributing to the creation of an intergenerational bloc in support of the revolutionary process, led to the development of an unproductive generation gap and undermined unity on the cultural front.

Members of this group also published more than a few sharp criticisms of the PSP in the supplement, emphasizing its past mistakes, contrary to the goal of the Revolution’s leadership to overcome previous errors and unite the principal political forces that had fought against the Batista dictatorship, with a view toward the future.

They frequently insisted on incorporating more of the international legacy into Cuban culture, as well as experimentation and the incessant search for new paths in art. They spoke out against any hint of Stalinism, but some used this position to mask their deep anti-communism. The PM incident served as a pretext for some members of the group to incite unfounded fears that the excesses of the USSR against creators would be repeated in Cuba. Nonetheless, Revolución Lunes, as a printed publication, left an important historical legacy, recording the pulse of national and international cultural events of the time and conducted valuable informative work.

Another group, generally speaking, held a Marxist-Leninist position emphasizing political commitment, although subtle but significant differences existed among members regarding the relationship between art and politics. Included in this group were outstanding figures like Alfredo Guevara, Edith García Buchaca and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, from the Hoy newspaper and its Sunday cultural magazine: Hoy Domingo. Within this group, and especially the editors of Hoy, the recovery and re-evaluation of Cuba’s cultural past was considered a strength in the battle against U.S. imperialism, but some of its members clearly assumed or approached the tenets of “socialist realism” to promote these objectives. Of course, at the level of individuals, ideological positions were more varied.

(Taken from Granma)

This was the first of three meetings; the last would take place in the venue itself on June 30, a day when Fidel, summing up the series of conversations, would deliver a speech which, from that moment on, would be known as “Words to the intellectuals,” a cornerstone of revolutionary cultural policy.

Opening the gathering, Osvaldo Dorticós, then President of the Republic, shared a conviction and a desire: the historical responsibility of the protagonists of intellectual life to “put their talents, their artistic abilities and their sensitivity at the service of the people and the Revolution,” and the need for absolutely open, cordial exchanges: “Rather than directing, we come here to be directed by you, to converse in order to reach conclusions.”

Since then, permanent and fruitful dialogue between the political and intellectual vanguards has been essential in the development, implementation and successive updating of cultural policy. Even when situations and processes needed to be rectified and redirected, dialogue has been a dynamic and decisive factor.

Sixty years later, that seminal experience is strengthened and multiplied, providing principles of action for cultural institutions, creators’ organizations (Uneac and the AHS) and the current political and governmental leadership.

For both vanguards, Fidel is the compass. As stated by First Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, at the closing of the 8th Party Congress: “In the ideological battle we must turn to Fidel, who taught us not only that culture is the first thing to be saved, but that, to save it, we must be in constant interaction with our intellectuals and artists.”

(Taken from Granma)

Just when some might think that, exhausted by brutal U.S. attacks, Cuba would lose strength, here is our vanguard fighting with bare fists to make this extraordinary island a more prosperous, contented country.

Following a year of the pandemic’s pain and death, the world continues to seek solutions to control the virus that has ravaged even the most solid economies, while Cuba, “punished” by the most powerful empire on the planet, resists, having committed no other “crime” than giving back to Cubans what for centuries was denied, and rather than despairing, has mobilized to produce five candidate vaccines, the work of scientists trained by the Revolution.

As the world seems to collapse, Cuba rises to the occasion, with the light of our doctors, our hard-working population and our entire people, confident that we will put an end to the nightmare and continue our path toward prosperity, only possible with socialism as the foundation.

The confidence of our people is no accident. Another April features the most important meeting of the country’s political vanguard, the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, which began yesterday and continues through the 19th.

Cubans know well that the debates taking place these days are intended to advance collective wellbeing. And we understand that this is no easy task, as the forces of evil insist on sullying the country’s purity, living in peace and wrapped in the nobility of our leaders and people.

Time is short and none will be wasted on bemoaning. We are going for more, in our own way. Nothing will stop the course agreed upon in a vote by the majority of Cubans, with the leadership of our Communist Party. If we are Cuba, surprising and admired, it is because we can unconditionally count on our Party.

During these days, when the Bay of Pigs and the 60th anniversary of Fidel’s proclamation of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution, cannot be forgotten, April brings another victory.

(Taken from Granma)

The emancipatory work of the Cuban Revolution, in its many stages, has always been able to count on youth to sustain and continue the effort, attuned to each historical period, but never departing one iota from the essence, our genuine, unwavering principles.

It was young people, to cite just one example, those of the Centennial Generation, who lit the flame of the triumphant Revolution of 1959. They were the initiators of what has been accomplished over these 62 years, with Fidel in the lead.

Thus, responsibly identifying the forces of continuity, giving them a face and a name, or what is the same, carrying out a process of gradual and orderly renewal of cadres, especially within the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), has received permanent attention throughout the revolutionary process, attention which has been increased since the First National Conference of the organization in 2012.

Among the objectives approved at that gathering, and ratified at the 7th Party Congress, was precisely bringing new cadres into key positions, a transcendent and at the same time, natural task.

Consistent with this goal, and as a clear expression of the sensitive and strategic nature of the process, in central reports presented to the 6th and 7th Congresses, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Party Central Committee, warned of the potentially negative impact of improvisation, as well as any lack of foresight or an unsystematic approach. He also insisted on the need to prepare comrades capable of continuing the work of the Revolution and assuming the nation’s principal leadership positions.

Undoubtedly, the existence of a pool of women and men, including youth, with prospects for development and the commitment to take on a variety of tasks, has allowed progress to be made in this endeavor, the results of which have been decisive in the Party’s ability to confront and overcome challenges.

But building continuity remains a daily exercise, assumed, despite its complexities, with confidence in the future, since, as Comandante en jefe Fidel Castro Ruz said, in his capacity as first secretary of the PCC Central Committee, during the 5th Congress closing ceremony, “The Party cannot afford the luxury of having its leadership fail one day, because the price would be unpayable.”

The process begins at the grassroots level

The evolution of the Cuban Revolution, and the complex conditions in which it is developing, allow us to foresee, as has already been said on other occasions, an even more complex and challenging scenario over the coming years.

Although having counted on the active presence, leadership and example of loyalty and consecration of the historic generation during this stage of transition has paved the way.

The approval, during the 7th Congress, of term and age limits for Party positions, and the establishment of previous work experience, of no less than five years, as a requirement to be considered for promotion to a fulltime professional cadre responsibility, laid the foundation to guarantee the essential rejuvenation of Party staff in decisive positions.

Priority has also been given to the personal values of those considered for promotion, including modesty, simplicity, humility, commitment, and loyalty to the Revolution, with no traces of elitism, ambition, arrogance or vanity.

On the basis of these premises, the leadership of the Party has conducted a systematic evaluation of the renovation process, including visits to all the country’s provinces, discussions with first secretaries, analyses of transfers projected in the short and medium term, as well as the identification of comrades who, given their characteristics and performance records, could occupy higher order responsibilities.

The work plan also includes the holding of meetings with national leaderships of the Young Communist League (UJC) and mass organizations, which will be afforded ongoing attention.

The use of these and other systematic supervisory mechanisms, as well as the implementation of the approved rejuvenation measures, have made it possible to advance in this important area, as the statistics corroborate.

At this time, almost all fulltime leaders of the Party at the municipal and provincial levels were born after the triumph of the Revolution. Thus, the average age of the organization’s professional staff is 42.5 years, indicating a trend toward a younger age. There are 1,501 cadres under the age of 40.

Another line of work has been the selective rotation of these cadres through different party, administrative and governmental responsibilities, as a complement to their comprehensive training. In addition, 76.5% of these individuals have less than five years experience in their positions, and only 6.9% have more than 10, concentrated at the national level.

Also prioritized is the search for an appropriate composition in terms of skin color, gender and age, in line with the characteristics of Cuban society today. In this regard, 54.2% of the Party’s cadres are women and 47.7% are black and mixed race. Additionally, 75 first secretaries of municipal and district committees are female, representing 42% of the total.

Likewise, it was established that all comrades coming from the UJC will engage in continuing education, along with those moving to positions of greater responsibility within the organization.

Thus, those who have the potential to assume the principal positions will have taken post graduate and/or specialty courses, as part of their training.

Currently, 81% of Party cadres have university degrees, while others take advantage of existing opportunities in provincial schools offering degrees in the Social Sciences.

Another aspect of interest has been the growing contribution of the UJC to the professional work in the Party, with 470 of these comrades assuming Party responsibilities over the last five years. In general terms, 23.5% of professional cadres come from the youth organization and several have moved to positions of greater responsibility.

The fact that 47.6% of officials who have left Party positions over the last five years have gone on to leadership positions in the state, government or mass organizations, at different levels, is also an encouraging result.

The transition from the historical generation to another, capable of leading the country into the future, is a significant responsibility, and is advancing confidently, because continuity has taken root in all that has been accomplished since 1868, and we know it will be in good hands.

(Taken From Granma)

I admire the consistency between Fidel’s words, his actions and the subsequent work of the Revolution – the possibilities Cuba has created for the development of artists and intellectuals.

One must struggle and win, one must live and love,

One must laugh and dance, one must die and create. Sara Gonzalez

If it were only a picture, it would not be worth the effort, photos fade in time, but those of us who did not live the moment are not told enough. This is why I have listened to and read, several times, the speech Fidel delivered in June of 1961, at the National Library, which has gone down in history as his “Words to Intellectuals.”

Sixty years later, I imagine that young man without the imposition of protocols of a bourgeois diplomacy, speaking casually to a large audience, full of young people like himself, as well as artists and intellectuals who saw the triumph of the Revolution arrive with long, well-established careers.

What triumphed in Cuba in 1959 was, above of all, a cultural revolution. We know that culture is not only artistic-literary creation, with much more than a cognitive dimension. Culture is the DNA of a society, its representations, its practices; its aspirations are the motivations of its subjects. Culture is the ethics of a process.

When the Revolution assumed government power, a struggle between the past and the present arose in Cuba over the construction of a different reality, a culture to uproot preconceived lifestyles, ways of understanding and functioning in society; to demystify the customs and supposed good practices based on oppressive laws, controlling an active subject who understands what is established as the only possible reality.

This is how Revolution became synonymous with sovereignty, because the ethics of an underdeveloped island, without industrialization, economically and culturally dependent on another government, is subjected to the globalization of its basic practices, with a mixed identity openly moving toward annexation.

Within the homeland everything, against the homeland nothing; and at the same time, homeland is synonymous with the people.

Imagining the sociological plane of the time, without decontextualizing, I listen to Fidel’s voice, without renouncing my own subjectivity as an artist, because no one lives devoid of passions, not even the speaker who recognizes it in his own “Words.”

What I have learned in reviewing his speech is very personal, experience and knowledge influence the way we receive a message. Nevertheless, there were clear principles in Fidel’s speech to his contemporaries, the first of which is to recognize that a revolution, like the work of any artist, is not made for future generations; a revolution becomes posterity when it is made by and for the men and women of the present.

The current generation needs its own natural epic, its own words; what now seems obsolete must be re-thought, in order to remain loyal to the sense of the historical moment evident in every sentence Fidel spoke in June of 1961.

“Words to the Intellectuals” set the stage for what would become Cuban cultural policy, but it did not impose formulas for methods. Fidel proclaimed the right of a revolution to defend itself when it has emerged of necessity and the will of a people, although that does not mean that the government, acting on behalf of the people and within the law, is infallible.

The Revolution’s practice in the years following Fidel’s speech confirmed its commitment to defend freedoms, to facilitate the free exercise of creation for artists, and the means, moreover, to do so.

The Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (Uneac), founded in August of 1961, was itself a product of discussions between artists and the highest state authorities. It gave shape to the natural association of creators, bringing them together to address the problematic issues involved in making art. The organization served to facilitate permanent dialogue between the artistic community and institutions implementing the country’s cultural policy.

When, during a gray five-year period, political fanaticism and the misinterpretation of ideas took their toll on the personal lives of some artists and the ghost of defined parameters mutilated their work, lessons were also learned. In the first place, the damage that can be done by power in the hands of a bureaucrat was confirmed, but loyalty was strengthened as well, among artists who understood that censorship, persecution and immoral attempts to discredit others are anathema to revolutionaries, practices befitting only opportunists and cowards.

The Revolution never remained static; the Ministry of Culture was created to replace an ineffective entity given the new reality of Cuban art and intellectuality and, progressively, progress was made in efforts to ensure that artists had opportunities to debate, express constructive criticism and real participation in the decisions and processes related to their work.

Today, in the 21st century, I admire, more than anything, the consistency between Fidel’s words, his actions and the subsequent work of the Revolution – the spaces and possibilities that Cuba has created for the development of artists and intellectuals, the organizations in which we meet and the President of the Republic’s support of free, emancipatory art.

Nonetheless, many of the challenges of the present are much the same as the first Cuba faced. Cultural institutions cannot let discussions be repeated without finding solutions to problems, or at least making visible the work underway to solve them, and addressing not only issues in the realm of material needs and services, but especially on the qualitative and moral plane.

No just struggle can be manipulated for reactionary purposes. Artists’ organizations must keep criticism alive and subordinate themselves to the members they represent, along with the commitment to develop and promote vanguard art to expand the population’s ability to discriminate and appreciate, to contribute to the spiritual growth and human fulfillment of Cubans.

In revolutions everything happens at the same time. During Fidel’s 1961 meeting with artists and intellectuals in the National Library, echoes could be heard of mercenary shrapnel in Playa Giron, of the songs and mourning of our first victory. “Words to the intellectuals” forged consensus among the country’s artists and intellectuals, another great victory against internal enemies, sectarianism, dogma, intolerance and political fundamentalism.

In June of 1961, a revolutionary pact was established, based on a lucid understanding of the role of art, not as propaganda for a particular political line, but as service to the people. Its virtues continue to lie in consistency and coherence, in everyone doing their part, and doing it well, fulfilling the commitment we have made to society. Morality and truth are a bare wall against which any speculation fails.

(Taken from Granma)

The voice of Juan Almeida Bosque rang out in Alegría de Pío: “No one here is surrendering…!”, he shouted to the enemy, and rounded off the statement with a word (not noted here) that came from the bottom of his heart, the morning of December 5, 1956.

The voice of Comandante de la Revolución Juan Almeida Bosque continued to resound as the voice of millions who have made it part of the nation’s soul,

traveling a long road through the birth of the Rebel Army, the guerrilla fronts, the heroic underground, the January triumph, the victory in Giron, the moral strength tested during the October crisis, the struggle against counterrevolutionary bandits, the people’s harvest, the urgent tasks, the development of science, the universalization of education, confronting the blockade, overcoming the crisis of the 90s, resisting Trump’s attacks…

Tomorrow, when we commemorate the 94th anniversary of the birth of the rebel fighter, political leader, poet and composer, the phrase spoken in one of the most difficult moments of the final stage of the liberation struggle, is repeated, here and now, in the enormous effort to control the pandemic, develop the economy under adverse conditions, defend the people’s conquests and consolidate our social fabric in the face of attempts to fracture our unity.

“No one here is surrendering!” was born of emotion and courage, but also of the values sowed by Almeida and the generation of Martí’s Centenary and the Granma crossing, led by Fidel, who took on the responsibility of transmitting them to those who came later. We return, again and again, to this reflection of the Comandante’s, published in Granma more than two decades ago:

“History will be always instructive. Honesty in our actions is a great virtue and also in considering the lessons that history teaches us. And not only ours, but also that which emanates from other phenomena in this world, of which we are a part and to which we are not strangers. The unity of our people around their leaders and the Revolution is one of the most powerful shields we have against our enemies.”

Like Fidel, like Raul, like the current generation of revolutionary leaders, Almeida knew that surrender is a word banished from the vocabulary, the action and the destiny of the vast majority of Cubans.

Definitively, no one here is surrendering!

Yesterday, the town of Madruga, in the province of Mayabeque, awoke to the thundering sound of horns and the energetic roar of youth, when the Freedom Caravan stopped at La Palmita, as part of the re-enactment of the Rebel Army’s journey from Santiago de Cuba to Havana.

The Freedom Caravan also passed through the Matanzas towns of Colón, Perico, Jovellanos and Limonar, along the historic route, before reaching the provincial capital, where given the COVID-19 situation in the province, the commemoration was limited to a simple but heartfelt demonstration of love and gratitude to the rebels, and especially to Fidel, always in the forefront, yesterday and today.

(Taken from Granma)

Imagining this Congress in the light of the socio-political context of current Cuban society, brings to mind several very timely questions that I would like to submit to the consideration of readers in this article:

Revolutionary Cuban men and women need to reaffirm our collective commitment to the continuity of socialism, and promote identification, articulation, and dialogue among those of us who, with a diversity of opinions on particular aspects of the revolutionary process and a critical point of view, are capable of recognizing ourselves as sharing a common goal and fundamental principles. That is, working for greater democratization and deepening of Cuban socialism and defending the continuity of the most genuine of the Revolution, assuming it critically with what have been, and continue to be, its principal contradictions.

Needed is systematic theoretical work addressing the fundamental dilemmas of our society, with a clear ideological commitment and narratives attuned to the times we are living, that serves to contain the advance of public opinion trends attempting to discredit socialism and conservative liberal tendencies with which counterrevolutionaries pressure us, looking to create the subjective conditions necessary for the restoration of capitalism. Creating culture for socialism. In this same sense, revitalizing and strengthening the socialist, popular, and revolutionary character of our organizations and institutions, the principal tools we have to face these new times.

It is not arrogance that motivates us to continue betting on the Communist Party to defend the socialist project and national sovereignty, nor are we a priori, obstinately granting the Party a leadership role that has not been legitimately won over time.

We are talking about a party that since 1975 has been key in building the unity needed to maintain continuity of a process that began by nationalizing and socializing the means of production, eliminating the fundamental basis of exploitation in contemporary societies (that is, class exploitation, the principal limitation imposed on the exercise of any right or freedom by the majority), placing the humble in power, thus making possible the promotion of effective, universal, inalienable rights over a 60 year period and sustaining them under the most ironclad blockade and all kinds of attacks, which has been and continues to be a commendable accomplishment. Who can deny this?

A path of necessary transformations awaits us, along which dialogue and debate will be critical. But in order to dialogue, there is no need to cast aside the structures of power we have chosen, which have allowed us to come this far, to move to a copy of the discredited model of liberal democracy. Capitalism, including the neoliberal social democratic version – really the only version present – promises the world nothing more than one crisis after another, as we are seeing before our very eyes.

We are no less democratic having a single party, just as they are no more democratic having many. The fact that revolutionaries are critical of the democracy with which they want to compare us and we don’t run around like robots of the system shouting about abstract “freedoms” and “plurality” – apart from any socio-historical considerations, as if the complexity of the world could be summarized in these three or four symbolic fetishes – does not mean that we reject democracy. What we reject is the anti-democratic imposition of the idea that only one single model of democracy is possible.

One of the most notorious aspects of the San Isidro events, and the media performance that was staged, was the unveiling of the current array of counterrevolutionary tendencies, how they differentiate themselves, and also how they are linked.

Few events reveal the articulation of different forces better than the recent release of a document in which – as Argentine philosopher and activist Néstor Kohan points out in an insightful article – the signatures of several Cuban intellectuals appear, individuals who for some time now have defined themselves as exponents of leftist, emanicipatory, progressive thought, even socialist and revolutionary.

But we cannot ignore the collaboration of some with media outlets financially supported by organizations like the NED, created by the U.S. Congress to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries, under the false pretense of promoting democracy. Nor can we ignore that they have participated in projects which have publically acknowledged that their efforts are directed toward regime change and which have ties with organizations known worldwide as responsible for soft coups. Are we going to now say that the Open Society Foundation has altruistic, disinterested intentions? We cannot conduct a dialogue about the destiny of our nation based on such double standards.

This group’s action reminds us too much of the Letter of the 77, with which a number of anti-communist intellectuals in Czechoslovakia ignited a situation that led to the Velvet Revolution, and subsequently regime change. They have joined an effort involving a series of actions meant to import and apply standard coup-plotting methods used successfully in other countries of geopolitical interest to the United States. But Cuba is not Eastern Europe.

Cuba’s revolutionary process has been intransigent in defending our right to self-determination, and toward this end has undoubtedly limited its enemies’ range of action within and beyond our borders, but it is not a dictatorship, no matter how hard they try to characterize our Revolution as such. We ourselves have chosen to place no conditions on this intransigence, and this decision has not always been easy. I wish we had been allowed to launch socialism without all the persecution.

It is no accident that they pressure us with talk of multi-party systems and political fragmentation within government structures, state administration, and legislative bodies. This is clearly unconstitutional. The Constitution cannot be a document is invoked or ignored as is convenient. This proposal is not very republican. The demand for a multi-party system is a strategic one, meant to destroy the legal framework that protects the reigning consensus in favor of the continuity of socialism in Cuba.

We are not facing a breakdown of this consensus. This is pressure from groups with very specific interests, linked to a foreign strategy, with no proven social base of support that could be described as massive, as they would like to present it. No effect on the interests of groups pushing for the restoration of capitalism can be put above national interest; they cannot arbitrarily assume the right to speak on behalf of the nation.

These groups are giving continuity, consciously or not, to the same position taken by those who, since January of 1959, nostalgically recall the destroyed bourgeois republic and resent deeply that the interests of certain classes were affected, openly oppose the Revolution, and call for the fall of the system to allow for the restoration of capitalism, on day one.

The model of democracy they defend has been discredited internationally. Multi-party systems do not guarantee that the interests of the majority are represented in the exercise of power, nor do they guarantee effective diversity in the political arena. They only guarantee that economic elites alternate taking turns in office, all with the same ideological trademark and committed to maintaining all fundamental aspects of the status quo.

In these systems, political freedoms are only effective for the elites that wield economic power and those who do not oppose them. Let us ask the Yellow Vests how they are treated in the streets of France, or the Chilean youth who have lost an eye, or the hundreds of truly independent journalists and many social leaders who have been murdered in our region over the last few years.

A multi-party system in Cuba would only serve to allow groups with class economic interests, and access to significant capital coming from the North,

to gain the political muscle needed to dismantle the system and erect one in which they could co-opt emerging judicial-political institutions to favor their interests. Following this path, we will never reach a more democratic, equitable, or just society for the majority of our people. On the contrary, it would mean the opposite.

The perversity of a right with aspirations strictly governed by the logic dictated by the accumulation of capital, and the inability of the center to contain it, have been made clear historically and scandalously on the current international scene.

Who would benefit from a right or a “center” functioning without objection in Cuba today, realistically speaking? If we have already overcome such political backwardness, would could be gained from returning to it? How much hunger, inequality, violence and death are we talking about? Do we have any idea of the figures? No matter how lovely they sound, we must leave abstractions behind: We are talking about the 21st century, Latin America, Cuba, 90 miles from a country that has besieged us for 60 years and spent millions on subversion.

Copying a bourgeois social democratic model, in the Nordic or Asian style, leaving aside the history of our region and our country, ignoring our geopolitical location and the United States’ agenda, is outrageously defending a position contrary to any realistic logic. Saying that the blockade will be eliminated when we move toward a model of bourgeois democracy is accepting outright the return of servile capitalism.

Welcome to another Congress of our Party. With its leadership, let us seek more democracy, justice and dialogue with clarity regarding the future of our nation.

(Taken from Granma)