-DATE- 19601016 -YEAR- 1960 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- SPEECH -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- TELEVISION DISCUSSION OF CASTRO WITH RODRUGUEZ -PLACE- HAVANA -SOURCE- REVOLUCION -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19601016 -TEXT- TELEVISION DISCUSSION OF CASTRO WITH RODRIGUEZ AND OTHERS Unsigned Source: Resolucion (Revolution), 16 October 1960 Prime Minister Dr Fidel Castro made some extremely important statements during his appearance, on Saturday, in a special "Meet the Press" program originating in the studios of Channel 6, television, and broadcast by all of the stations of the FIEL. The panel consisted of Ithiel Leon, art director of Revolucion; Dr Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, managing editor of Hoy Today; and Jose Pardo Llada, managing editor of La Palabra The Word, with Luis Gozez Wanguemert as moderator. Here is the transcript of this program, as taken down by the stenographers from the Office of the Prime Minister. Moderator: The FIEL Frente Independiente deEEmisoras Libres -- Independent Front of Freo Broadcasting Stations has the honor today of playing host to the Prime Minister and maximum leader of the revolution, Dr Fidel Castro, at this extraordinary "Meet the Press" show. The circumstances surrounding his appearance here today are also extraordinary because the revolutionary government has just promulgated two laws that are of enormous importance to the country: the law of the urban reform, which was approved last night by the Council of Ministers, and the law of nationalization of banks and industry and basic commerce, which enables the revolution to direct and put in order the country's economy in keeping with the true interests of the people. In addition, there are other problems, counterrevolutionary problems, which will likewise make this "Meet the Press" program tonight very interesting. The panel itself is also quite extraordinary; it is made up of Professor Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, managing editor of Hoy; Jose Pardo Llada, managing editor of La Palabra, and Ithiel Leon, from Revolucion: I would like now to welcome all of them in the name of FIEL. The first question tonight will be asked by Mr Ithiel Leon. Mr Ithiel Leon: Major, during the last 2 days, the newspaper headlines have been dealing with the two most important revolutionary laws which the Council of Ministers has taken up very recently. However, there is one point which has been more or less overshadowed by the importance and the size of these headlines and that concerns the fact that the peasant militia has wiped out the pockets of Yankee mercenaries in Escambray and Baracoa. Could you tell us something about that? Dr Castro: Well, first of all, I would like to explain why I am here at this hour -- because, usually, you all meet here on Thursdays -- isn't that right? And besides, the time is different. But this is connected with the visit of the illustrious President of the Republic of Guinea because we have been ... besides, we have been working very hard on these laws in recent days, so that we figured it would be necessary to hold this panel discussion at a rather unusual hour because, furthermore, this coincided with the beginning of the baseball championship games -- and I had a commitment to go there and inaugurate the championship competition, so to speak. This is why we had to meet here at this hour tonight. A Very Important Moment Second, it was really necessary for us to go on television because there is a series of questions that must be explained and I am going to take these issues up in such a way that the people over there on the ball field will not have to wait too long. Now, there are issues of all kinds but I think that we are going through a very important time in the life of our country, a very important period in the revolution. This moment, above all, is a very interesting moment and it will require more and more effort on our part, especially in view of all the work that we still have ahead of us. The revolution is now fighting a battle in two fields: first of all, in one field involving the struggle against the counterrevolution -- and we explained that in connection with the ceremonies for the congress of Municipal Education Councils; second, we have the struggle in the area of revolutionary work altogether. During the first few months of the revolutionary government, all of us made a tremendous effort -- and there is no doubt about that; but we were at a disadvantage in that we were less organized; we were less well prepared to push all of these tasks. However, even though we have much work left to be done in both of these areas, we are now much better prepared to do our job here; in other words, the people, the revolutionary cadres, the government. This is why we have to scatter our attention a little bit now, in other words, we have to take care of international problems and we will have to take care of counterrevolutionary problems, problems both outside and inside the country; we have to take care of economic problems and we have to take care of problems of revolutionary activities within the country as such, and this was never as true as it is this week, in other words, these two aspects of the struggle of the revolution have combined to a greater degree than ever before. Laws of Revolutionary Process Quite some time ago we tried to explain all of these problems of the revolution and the counterrevolution to the people. Why? Because all of these issues are not isolated from each other, they are not sporadic facts, nor are they anything of that nature; instead they follow the laws of the revolutionary process and it is very important for the people to understand these laws of the revolution and the counterrevolution. From that viewpoint, there is no better university, as it were, than the revolution process itself. Everything we see happening in Cuba today, everything that we can observe in Cuba directly, is something that has occurred in one or another form in all of the great revolutionary processes. This happened, for example, during the French Revolution and it happened during the Soviet revolution. (Applause) These, for example, were two classical revolutionary processes of recent times, even though in the French Revolution man did not yet have as clear and as precise an awareness of the historical development of human society. Still, it had its own theoretical base, the phase of the writers and the philosophers who came before that revolution; but there was no compact, over-all awareness of what the process of man down through history really was; this awareness did exist at the time of the Soviet revolution; at that time, man had come to understand completely the laws that governed the evolution of mankind. The first revolution, the French Revolution, represents the triumph of the bourgeoisie, that is to say, the economic, commercial and industrial classes over the nobility; this event occurred at a moment when man did not yet have an awareness of the historical process, such as he had it afterward, because the French Revolution forced the intellectuals and the historians and the sociologists and economists to look for the roots of that revolution and to try to explain that revolution. And this led to analysis, to a more profound study of the roots of the great historical events and the great social developments. When the Russian revolution broke out in 1917, it had thus been preceded by a whole series of profound studies which enabled the revolutionaries to understand that process, to have a better command of it than those who made the French Revolution. But as we study these events, we find that they contain a series of alternatives similar to those which we find here today. There is no doubt for example that the Cuban revolution is likewise a historical process and that it has taken on the outlines of a tremendous historical revolutionary process, due to a series of circumstances. This is the first country in Latin America where a great social revolution has taken place. There have been other revolutions but none of them were as profound and as far-reaching as the Cuban revolution. Second, this revolution is taking place under very difficult conditions. Why? Because we are a country that happens to be in a rather unfortunate position; while they, over there, are worried about a revolution 90 miles from that imperialist country, we here are worried about the existence of an imperialist country 90 miles away from our revolution (applause), and an imperialist country which has tremendous strength not only here but beyond its own frontiers, a country whose power is established in a large part of the world, that is, in the underdeveloped countries of the world and especially in Latin America. The Supports of Imperialism In Latin America, this process of power take-over and control by imperialism has been carried out over more than a century and this is why imperialism has had an opportunity to consolidate its power -- and, moreover, with the support of certain social sectors. What sectors? The most reactionary sectors in each one of the countries, the big landowners, the big businessmen, the big exploiters. In other words, the economic oligarchy of Latin America is the social class which, through its newspapers, through its resources and political parties, supports the influence of imperialism on this continent, a situation which is quite different from the situation in Africa, for example. Why? Because Africa is achieving its own independent life, life as part of the international community and the world, quite abruptly, at a moment when imperialism is decadent and at a moment before the imperialist countries have been able to establish their forms of control. In other words, they are now replacing their method of colonial rule, occupation by military forces, which were of course under the government of the home countries involved here, with a form of economic and political control in other words, a situation in which they do not have a direct mandate, in other words, a procedure which is quite different from the colonial method; but basically it is the same thing because it retains political and economic control over those countries -- although it has not been able to create a social class in Africa which would serve to support it. This is why the situation in Africa is much more difficult for imperialism than the situation in Latin America, although the situation here in Latin America is also quite difficult. But here, at least, they have been able to develop an economic oligarchy which serves them as a support -- this is not true in Africa. In Africa, there are minority groups, European businessmen, European owners, who in all of these recently independent countries have a degree of influence that cannot last much longer because the vast masses of the African peoples will not hesitate to eliminate the influence of those groups which will not be able to maintain themselves there and which will likewise be unable to uphold the colonialist interests in Africa. But the situation in America is different. In America they have managed to establish their control over many years, at a time when imperialism was at its apex, not at a time of decadence, as today. The result of this has been that we are surrounded, as it were, by imperialist forces, by imperialist bases, by imperialist politicians or at least by politicians who are in the service of imperialism -- all over America. This means that the Cuban revolution is developing in a rather difficult environment, that it must develop a tough struggle, but it also means that this gives historical importance to the Cuban revolution because it is a revolution that must be developed under such difficult circumstances. Favorable Factors But there are also circumstances which help the Cuban revolution along. For example, we have been able to resist certain types of attacks which, at other times in history, would have been fatal to the revolution such as the petroleum boycott which was intended to deprive us of petroleum, the boycott on our sugar sales, the machinery boycott. In other words, thanks to the existence of a rather large nucleus of countries throughout the world, a powerful group of countries, the socialist countries, which are developing rapidly, our country -- in spite of the fact that it is virtually surrounded by imperialist forces -- has the possibility of getting petroleum and selling its products and procuring machinery; and if we don't have enough boats, they will send boats and they will bring the petroleum; if we do not have the raw material we need, if they do not want to sell us raw material on our usual markets, well, then, we will get these raw materials from those other countries. There is also an important group of neutralist countries which likewise play an important role in the world today and we certainly have close economic and friendly relations with them. In other words, these forces which exist in the world today certainly can be counted on as forces or as circumstances that are rather favorable and that counteract the unfavorable circumstances which we must contend with because we are a country that is virtually surrounded by imperialist political forces. However, this does not in any way detract from the merit of the Cuban revolution -- certainly not. In other words, without the work that the Cuban people is doing now, without the popular bases of the revolution, without this merit, this revolutionary spirit, this patriotism and heroism, without the virtues of the Cuban people -- none of these circumstances, which are favorable to us, would mean anything at all. Without all that, there would be no revolution; without the revolutionary Cuban people, there would be no revolution under these circumstances; it is to the credit of the Cuban revolution that it was able to maintain its position and to march forward with its own forces during a process which now is almost 2 years old; it is certainly to the credit of the Cuban revolution that it has been able to advance in that process and that it has been able to achieve what it has achieved in these 2 years. We can proudly hail the work that we have done because it is really tremendous -- even though we must not be the judges of what we have accomplished and what we are doing; but if you analyze the facts objectively, if you make a comparison of what our country has achieved in such a short time, in other words, the kind of comparison which we presented for instance in the United States, the kind of comparison that is very useful in comparing what this country has achieved in such a short time, in less than 2 years, much more so than had been achieved in almost 60 years before -- then we can certainly be extremely proud of what our people has achieved and we can certainly say with pride that the revolution has been consolidated. Now, does this mean that the Cuban revolution can be accomplished with impunity, under the circumstances in which we are carrying it out now? No, the Cuban revolution cannot be pushed with impunity. Why? Powerful, very powerful international interests are trying to destroy the Cuban revolution. The entire imperialist world which surrounded us, all of the revolutionary forces which surround us in this hemisphere, where we are nothing but a little island, they are all conspiring against our revolution; and how we do our job here, the job through which we defend the revolution, how we do all this here, will determine the triumph of the revolution, that is to say, the people of Cuba are doing a tremendous historical job here and they will have to confront all of the efforts that are going to be made in an attempt to destroy the revolution. Concrete Aspirations What is the dream of our people? What is our dream, the dream of us revolutionaries? Well, the dream of us revolutionaries is to see the culmination of the ideals of the revolution, the aspirations of the revolution, and these are very specific aspirations. And we have demonstrated that we are not just dreamers. Why? Because the facts have demonstrated that something that looked like a dream just yesterday, many things that in the by no means distant past looked like dreams, have now become realities and have been accomplished in a way in which very few things have ever been accomplished in the history of mankind, in other words, the ideals of the revolutionaries have been carried through an unparalleled fashion, (Applause) We have been fortunate in this sense; more fortunate than those who came before us in these struggles; more fortunate than those who fought for independence and who fought so hard, such as Marti, Maceo, Agramonte, Calixto Garcia, Cespedes, all of them. Almost all of them died before they could see the flag of an independent Cuba going up on the flag pole; and Maximo Gomez and others survived but they did not see the flag of an independent Cuba raised on the flag pole. Did they fight harder than we? Yes, they fought much more than we. Almost all of us here are relatively young; nevertheless, we have had the good fortune of seeing the culmination of the aspiration of several generations of Cubans, in this country here. In other words, we were not just dreamers. Some people thought that we were, we started out; and we had this dream of completely accomplishing the work of the revolution. We were sure that we would see this dream come true or, if we did not, then others would, but the people of Cuba would in the end see the fruits of that revolution, all of the fruits of that revolution. What the Enemies Want But what, on the other hand, is the dream of the enemies of this revolution, the dream of the foreign exploiter interests, of imperialism, and of reaction in America? Well, their dream is to see the revolution pulverized. What do they want? Do they want the Cuban people to keep on marching forward, do they want the honest revolution and the victorious revolution to continue, do that want to see generous and idealistic and selfless and humble and sincere people running this country, promoting with the help of the entire nation, a historical process that has gained universal prestige? No! What they want, for example, is to see the revolution wiped out; they want to see our country once again run by the same abominable interests of yesterday, the same interests of corrupt men, corrupt politicians, politicians without scruples, dishonest men, egotistical men, exploiters, who lived at the expense of the interests of our people; they would like to see our country run once again by the colonels and the generals and the big evil-doers; they would like once again to deprive the people of hundreds of millions of which the people has every right and which the people was fully justified in taking away from them; they would like those men once again to run our country; they would like to see foreign functionaries here; they would like to see foreign companies here; they would like once again the people to be ignorant and not to have any schools, victim of all of these abuses; they would like once again to see a mercenary army in the service of the monopolies and the trust, the big foreign companies, the enemy of the peasants, the enemy of the worker; once again they would like to see our country suffering under a rent system in which rents are twice as high as what they are today; they would like to promote the businesses of those who would for a few pesos purchase a ranch and then turn it into an urban development and then this same ranch would be worth 10 or 15 or 10 or even 30 and 40 pesos per sq m; they would like to see a return of all of those interests and speculative businesses which lived by buying produce from the peasant at a very low price and selling it to the people at a high price, and that includes coffee as well as fish, the basic food items; they would like once again to see the rule of those businessmen who could buy ministers, whom they would slip a check under the table, so that they could then split up the quotas among themselves, quotas which enabled them to draw millions in dividends and profits out of the country, each year; they would like once again the rule of corruption, the rule of crime, to be returned to our country. These countries are not so much interested in the amount they lost, in terms of millions, as a result of this; they are worried much more about the significance of this example to the other peoples, in other words, the threat to the theory of those interests, to the effect that the revolution cannot win against imperialism; that the peoples cannot rid themselves of these chains; that the peoples cannot shake off this oppression; that the worker cannot aspire to becoming a man with full rights in society, a man who has esteem and respect; that the peasant could never own the fruits of this labor; that the negro and the Indian could never feel that he is a man; that the humble people could never feel that they were human beings; that a peasant child could never hope to get an education. In other words, that the peoples cannot liberate themselves from these shackles, because imperialism is too powerful, in other words, strong enough to prevent revolutions from succeeding. Imperialism Seeks Out the Worst These are the two issues which we are debating here. We, with our dream of advancing the revolution; the reactionary forces, international reaction, the imperialists, the colonialists, the exploiters, with their dream of seeing the example of the Cuban revolution destroyed. This means that we must confront all of the attacks and all of the attempts at destroying us. In our country, the revolution has a very strong force, a majority force. In our country, the counterrevolution has virtually nothing; the counterrevolution in our country will amount to absolutely nothing. The counterrevolution gets all of its support and all of its strength from abroad, outside the country, and it is quite clear that it received encouragement, publicity support, material aid, and official backing from the very first moment; in other words, the counterrevolution is directed from abroad. From abroad, they are employing all methods against our country, methods in which they have become masters; all of these are classical methods of destroying revolutions. Here, in this country, they know perfectly well what social groups they can fall back on, what interests they have here and what interests they can draw support from. This means that they are not going to go looking for the best in our country. No sincere and honest person, no truly patriotic individual, no honorable man, no sane and clean person would ever support those interests. No clean individual can be with the monopolies; no healthy individual ... certainly not anybody who has very strongly-held revolutionary ideals. By virtue of the mere fact that he is honest, personally honorable, personally healthy and clean and sane, no man would ever be with the criminals, no man would ever be with the monopolies, with the big landowners, with the Pentagon, with that group of politicians in the United States who -- as anybody can plainly see, even children, are perfect or complete imbeciles. (Applause) Imperialism is bound to look for the worst elements. What kind of people is it looking for? Is it looking for the kind of people who had 800 caballerias and whom the revolution left with 30; it is looking for the kind of people who were making 500,000 or 1 million pesos in rental income per year and whom the revolution, in the beginning, left an income of 500; now, we have reduced that a little more. It is looking for those who made 2 million or 3 million pesos a year, through the arbitrary distribution of import quotas. Did they pay taxes? No! Many of these people never paid income tax; but they paid bribes to the inspector from the Ministry of Finance and the customers inspector. They are looking for contrabandists; they are looking for the gangster who was involved in gambling and cheating and vice; they are looking for the big interests which the revolution - affected. Everybody knows where those who support imperialism and the counterrevolution are to be found. Anybody who drives through Havana in an automobile and who can go from district to district can bee where they live now, those counterrevolutionaries and those who support imperialism. (Applause) Distorted Mentalities What kind of people are they looking for? They are looking for the mercenary writer who sells his pen; they are looking for those gentlemen who received 10,000 and even 20,000 pesos a month in subsidies and aid, in return for defending the tyranny; they are looking for man who, in their mentality, wrote their FBI novels, the FBI short stories and the police stories; they are looking for men who read the paperbacks and who created the paperbacks, in other words, man who in the final analysis were not men, men who created cheap American paperbacks, men who could not tear themselves away from the foreign language editions of Readers Digest, Life magazine, Time magazine, etc, in other words, all of those instruments which develop reactionary brains in those who read them. They are looking for men who very often studied at their universities and who developed the kind of mentality there which today governs the individual conduct of the citizen of the United States, that is to say, they inculcated in them, from the very first moment on, an ambition for money and profit and accumulation of wealth; and they are trying to get those who went into motion pictures -- not with the independent companies, because there are some independent movie companies in the United States which make good movies -- but those other big companies -- quite in contrast to what Chaplin and other progressive movie writers in the United States did, in other words, true artists, although the monopolies tried to break them. The monopolies produce movies on a mass production basis which are then shown all over the world and which help turn out twisted minds, exalting cruelty, exalting racial hatred. Who can fail to remember all of these Tarzan movies and all of those movies about Africa? How did they depict the African? Ah! They did not depict men such as Sekou Toure, or Nkruma! (Prolonged applause) They did not depict those brilliant men whom we heard at the United Nations, men who addressed the representatives of all peoples of the world, men of talent and precision, men of political genius who, of course... by the way, these were men whom the world did not know about; the world did not know about the value of that continent and about the men of that continent. That, of course, was the continent from which they got their slaves. Now, who had slaves? Was it the poor people, was it the workers, for example, in Cuba or the United States, who had slaves? No! Who brought slaves from Africa? The slave traders who sold slaves as if they were things. Who exploited the slaves? The plantation owners at that time, the big landowners at that time, last century; the rich classes at that time were those which took all of the slaves from Africa, who bought them and sold them and exploited them and thus piled up their fortunes. And, many years after the end of slavery, a worse residue was left in the form of prejudice and hatred; in other words, there remained a kind of presumptuousness which was passed on from generation to generation in those sectors. Apologia for the Adventurer Of course, those sectors still govern those countries; the same interests still dominate in the political life of those countries; and this is why the picture the men of those continents as if they were savages, for example, in their novels and films, where they always depict the African as a member of a group of half-naked tribes, armed with a few shields and lances, attacking in bands, making frightening noises, and then there is always one heroic white man, with a rifle, or maybe 3 or 4 white men, who put up resistance and who kill many negros and in the end the negros must bow down before the prepotent man, the invincible man, the hero of all times: the white man, who was precisely the white imperialist, the white colonialist, the white man who came, wearing his sun helmet, his short trousers, with his dogs and his rifles (laughter and applause). This was the white man who went looking for mines and treasures, who went in search of adventure and who then came out with an apologia for adventurers, in other words, men who seized control over those territories through crime and pillage and treason. And those criminal conquerors had their apologists, even in the middle of the 20th century; even at that time, humanity was subjected to the influence of those prejudices and those false ideas; and people's brains were developed through this apparatus which brought out the worst in men. This, in spite of the fact that man could have done great and positive things here. And all of these negative things, all of this way of thinking is today still to be found in the oligarchy which, for example, determines the policy of the most imperialistic country, the economically most powerful country, although it is no longer the most powerful in military terms; in other words, the country which is economically powerful as a result of the plunder of more than two-thirds of the world -- because even industrially developed countries, including Germany, which have a great culture, are countries that have been colonized by the United States. West Germany -- and I hope the representative from West Germany will forgive me -- is a colony of the United States because the principal auto plants, steel mills, the most productive industries of Germany are owned by the United States imperialists who came there like swarms of locusts right after the end of the war. Of course, they came there in order to put up factories. What for? Because during the war, not a single American factory was destroyed, whereas the Nazis in the Soviet Union destroyed millions of homes, for example, and tens of thousands of factories which were destroyed completely, and because the Soviet people lost between 10 and 20 million inhabitants who had to go into battle. Nobody can deny this they went out and fought against the flower and the full force of the Hitler forces. No, not a single United States factor lost even one lathe. Mangy Buzzards After the war, Soviet industry was destroyed; United States industry was intact. The monopolies had doubled their fortune because they were able to do business as usual during the war, they built ships and tanks and trucks and guns because that was their business. Just like mangy buzzards (applause) they fed on the miseries of human beings, on human pain and suffering, on human blood. And so they doubled their fortune and then they wanted to invest all of this in the countries that had been defeated. They went to invest their money in Germany and in Japan and they went to invest their money in all of those European countries. They bought factories because their industrial machinery was intact and because the buildings could be repaired. The war had been fought far from their country and they went over there to establish their complete control in terms of economics and politics, that is to say, they colonized those countries. Then came the bases and then they infringed upon the sovereignty of those countries; almost all of these countries finally lost their sovereignty because they carved out entire zones for military bases. Not only did these countries lose their sovereignty, they were also forceably converted into an atomic battlefield, in case of war. But they did not colonize only the underdeveloped countries; they even colonized the technologically most advanced countries, such as Germany. Behind all of this, there is a philosophy; behind all of this, there is a publicity machine; all of this shapes men, all of this influenced us here in our own country. With what did we confront all of this machinery? By preaching 50 years? How? By talking to the people, constantly, by explaining these things to the people, things which had never been explained to them before, through the opportunities which we, the leaders have in addressing the people, on television, on radio, talking in plain terms, telling the truth. As a matter of fact, the United States delegation required 3 days to reply to my address which I delivered at the United Nations (applause). To tell you quite frankly, I did not even need 30 minutes to reply to the imperialist delegation there. They replied in writing and it took them 30 days and then they sent a document which was supposed to be read to the assembly. They were so demoralized that they did not even turn up for a debate there. Convincing the People But we counteracted this all the time, we discussed these issues with the people and we talked to the people; and so we of course convinced the people, a long time ago; but we have not convinced the big landowners who used to have 900 caballerias of land. We have not convinced the presidents of the monopoly companies; we have not convinced the big businessmen; whom did we convince, then? Well, we convinced the people, the farmers, the workers, the humble people, in other words, the people who constitute the strength of the revolution and the power of the revolution. Imperialism counts, first of all, on all of those gentlemen whom we listed before, those gentlemen who used to make 2 million pesos or even 3 million, in business, in rent, in import quotas, in industry; imperialism, as we said before, counts on the mentalities which it has shaped here and then it also counts on the scum of society; it counts on all those who lived from gambling and politics and assassination and vice -- tens of thousands of them; this entire group of them, who very simply and plainly, became an instrument of repression; they also included men of the people, because they are guilty in relative terms although, to some extent, they were also the victims of the situation which existed at that time. In the future there will be no more cops and informers; the revolution here will not crate any cops; it cannot create the type of man who devotes himself to vice and politicking and gambling; Cuban society produced that type of man for 50 years; that type of man is the human material on which they count to conduct the fight here in this country; that type of man makes up their 5th column, their forces inside the country; and they are encouraged and economically aided from abroad; of course, they try every trick in the book in order to stir these forces up and get them involved in the struggle; these forces have suffered a crushing defeat on 1 January and they have been scattered; the military and political machine of the tyranny, which served the foreign interests here and the big domestic interests, the big privileges and the big interests, they also suffered a crushing defeat as a result of this. But they regrouped, they are trying to regroup, and they are trying to return to the attack. In other words, the entire revolutionary process is a process of revolutionary advance and counterrevolutionary offensive; that is to say, this is something which wee explained here in few days ago, the same thing that happened during the war, when we went through it stage by stage; they would launch an offensive, they would fail, they would regroup, they would bring up more resources, they would launch a second offensive, they would withdraw, and that is how it went through the entire history of this war; there were also some very difficult moments, for instance, after the defeat of the 9 April strike. At that moment, many people lost their courage; everybody remembers that many people, at that moment, thought that the revolution was still very far off, if it was going to come at all. And we faced an enormous concentration of forces of tyranny, ready to attack the revolutionary forces at that moment. Nevertheless, at the very moment when victory seemed furthest away, it was actually closest of all. How come? Because a difficult moment had come for the revolution, for the revolutionary struggle, a moment when they launched their forces; but then they suffered a defeat and then came a difficult time for them and then, after that, came their defeat. Of course, this does not mean that the struggle was over; many people thought that the struggle was over on 1 January, I remember many people who almost cried when they remembered that they had not been in the mountains, that they had not done anything; yes, they cried. I do not know what these people were doing; I imagine that they were doing something, regardless of whether they are militia men or teachers in the Sierra Maestra. At best, there will be those who will be crying, hoping that the Americans come to attack us. (Applause) All of Us Have Been Learning All Along People who had not been able to do anything felt ashamed. Why? Because they did not understand what a revolution was. But I want to tell you that we all learn, every day of the revolution; we did understand the revolution, but we did not understand it as clearly as we understand it now. All of us have been learning through the revolutionary process. But, for example, we did know from the very beginning -- and we talked about this from the very first day onward -- that the struggle to follow would be a very long struggle in this revolution. And now, the facts prove that this is indeed so. One phase has now passed and this was the phase in which we outlined the areas that are involved in this effort; in this phase we gained increasing clarity as to the role of the foreign and imperialist interests in Cuba and we are now very specifically in one of these phases of struggle. They are on the offensive, as we said before, and we are on the defensive; but the revolution is dangerous even when it is on the defensive; I said before that we were going to counterattack, that the revolution is counterattacking. And this means that the revolution is growing stronger through this struggle and it also means that the counterrevolution offensive is not over yet. Now, why do I say this and why do I make a distinction between offensive and counteroffensive,, between offensive and counterattack? Well, because the counterattack is an operation within a broader struggle; they are on the offensive, from the moment they rally the counterrevolutionary elements here in Cuba; and they are rallying also mercenary elements, counterrevolutionaries, abroad; they are rallying the reactionary politicians all over the continent; they are maneuvering and they are preparing for an attack. And this attack can be conceived in two possible forms; the possibility of a direct attack and the possibility of attacks through groups of mercenaries, including some kind of puppet government. In the beginning, you remember, that they used Trujillo but later on difficulties sprang up between them and Trujillo. Why? Because United States policy began to resent its alliance with Trujillo and began to be more interested in the type of hypocritical American political leader who was not patterned after Trujillo; they were looking for this type of politician on the continent and they abandoned Trujillo. They Will Need an Out Right now, for example, they are using Guatemala as a base of operations, in order to train groups of invaders; and they are using Cisne Island, in other words, they are using United States territory. The possibility of a direct attack is the more difficult here. Why? First of all, because the conditions for this attack would have to be justified through a provocation; we have warned the world about that possibility. Second, because a direct attack, after the Khrushchev declaration, can mean only destruction for them; it is not the same thing to play a game in which they would wipe us out as it is to fight with all their strength against a small nation, in a struggle in which they would not only be dishing it out but in which they would also be on the receiving end. (Applause) Of course, they start out by speculating on the possibility that the Soviet Union might not support Cuba if they were to attack us; they began to speculate on that possibility and this was a dangerous thing, because they were playing with fire; it was dangerous for them to believe in this possibility. When we brought this problem up in the United Nations, Khrushchev rose and said: "Yes, they are wrong, they are wrong," and he said it with very much emphasis. (Applause) Then, what did they do? They stepped up the effort of organizing mercenary groups; this is because imperialism cannot rest for even one minute; it becomes more and more hysterical and more and more agitated and the more hysterical and the more agitated it becomes, the more crazy things it invents. Then they launched the entire series of aggressions in the economic area, which you are familiar with; in the international arena, they engaged in all of the maneuvers which you are familiar with; but they were also active in other ways, because they had officials of the United States Embassy here conspiring quite openly. FBI agents established contacts with revolutionary elements and we caught some of them in the act and we expelled them from Cuba. Others had a whole string of installations and equipment taking up a whole floor of a building, right above the offices of the China News Agency; there they had their microphones and listening devices, in other words, they had a complete espionage setup; they were establishing contact with the counterrevolutionary elements, trying to tell people to leave the country; they did this with Miro Cardona and they did it with all of these people, with Valdespino, in other words, with people of that kind. The Communist Phantom In other words, they were engaging in proselyting activities in order to get to many of the ambassadors, whom they bought and subverted; they offered them mansions and palaces if they would go over there; they promised that they would indemnify them and they tried to create a counterrevolutionary environment, they tried to plant the seeds of doubt and they tried to create a division, they tried to create a lack of confidence; but at the same time they were trying to organize counterrevolutionary groups and terrorist groups and they were also trying to organize counterrevolutionary fronts. Was that the only way in which they were fighting? No, they also fought in the ideological arena. They thought that their anti-Communist campaigns, the phantom of Communism which they had been building up for so many years, would to the trick and they talked to many people about Communism. They tried to frighten people with that word -- although they never knew how many people were really frightened by it. Let me give you an example of how they did this. Are you in agreement with this law? "All right, if not, then you are a Communist." (Laughter) And, so, many people who did not even know what Communism was, 500,000 times repeated that Communism... You know, the funny thing is that everything was Communism; this is really very odd. In other words, Communism is a phase which the Soviet Union today, after 40 years of socialism, is beginning to achieve. They said that the revolutionary government was Communist and I simply cannot figure out for myself how we could possible have nationalized 382 big enterprises in that short time. (Applause) This little campaign began from the very first day; this little campaign began when we still did not have a single revolutionary law; in those days, they went around saying that Hart was a Communist and that Yeye was a Communist and that Franqui was a communist; everybody was a Communist. (Laughter) They began to put lists in all the newspapers and they had all kinds of questions to ask. I remember that when I went to the United States all of these questions were in the nature of an inquisition; nobody can imagine to what extent they pry into your life; but all of this was part of their espionage method. Of course, this campaign did influence some people; the only way some people could feel calm was to think that not a single revolutionary law had been promulgated. And so they demanded that they be left in control of everything, all of the big estates of 800 caballerias, of the 10,000 caballerias of the United Fruit Company, of the 15,000 caballeria plantations, they suggested that we leave rents the way they were, that we not put up any schools at all, that we had better not promote industry because the best thing would be to give money to the millionaries so that they could put up factories (laughter); in other words, we were supposed to give them money and that was supposed to be good; but if the government put a factory, that was bad; that was Communism; everything was Communism. More or Less the Same Thing I remember that, one day, I was talking to a United States newspaperman and I told him: I believe that you are a Communist. (Laughter) I said to him: "Look, let me explain what I mean -- during the war, you suppressed free enterprise; you did not let people make automobiles, not even automobile tires; instead, you told all the factories -- you have to make tanks and guns and aircraft and you cannot produce certain articles, in other words, you forced a plan on private enterprise; you had government planning and the United States government even built a factory, the Nicaro factory at Lengua de Pajara; and so the United States government came to be the owner of a factory, in other words, the state owned the factory. In New York, for instance, I have seen blocks of buildings which belong to the state of New York; the state builds apartment houses and then collects the rent. Now, if we put up an industry, then we are supposed to be Communists; if we draw up a plan, then we are supposed to be Communists. Of course! But if you, for example, have a corporation with headquarters on Wall Street, in New York, in New Jersey, in Manhattan, or in Boston, in Brooklyn or Philadelphia, then 5,000 individuals are the owners of 10,000 caballerias of land; and you might have one shareholder who holds a majority of the shares; we might assume that tone shareholder might hold 3/4 of the shares and 2,000 or 3,000 individuals would sell him their shares; when any of the shareholders speculates with stocks, when he needed money, then he sold; 10,000 people in Brooklyn, or 5,000 maybe, or 10,000 here and 200 there and a hundred over there -- they are the owners of 10,000 caballerias of land belonging to the United Fruit Company. Now, that is very good! They do not soil their shirts with sweat; they do not work; but each year, they get a dividend. We, on the other hand, instead of having 5,000 or just a hundred stockholders living in Brooklyn, in other words, stockholders who own that wealth, we put 5,000 poor farmers to work here. (Applause) Instead of a hundred United States stockholders, we have a hundred poor Cubans, farmers who work here; these are the hundred stockholders in the cooperative, the one hundred owners of that cooperative and they work the land and they produce and they share the dividends; when you do this sort of thing, it is good but when we do it it is bad. Now, when you in the United States set up a chain of stores, a thousand or 2,000 stores, and when these stores belong to Mr So and So, that is good! It is all right for a man to have 2,000 stores, to have a chain of stores. But when the chain is owned -- instead of by Mr So and So -- when it is owned by the INRA -- so that the peasants can buy cheaply and so that the peasants will not be exploited and so that nobody can give an opportunity to exploit the peasants -- then what you do is good and what we do is bad. And so I told him: all right, we are doing more or less the same thing. You have stock companies and we have cooperatives; you have chain stores belong to Mr So and So and we have chain stores belonging to the Revolutionary Government; you plan for war and we plan for peace. (Applause) Confusion of Ideas There was a tremendous and absurd confusion of ideas. In other words, when something existed for the purpose of exploitation, it was very good. It was all right for 10,000 stockholders to own all the land. But this was very bad when the land was supposed to belong to the poor farmers! That sort of thing was Communism or it was something like Communism or whatever they wanted to call it. Yes, and when we set up chain stores, that was supposed to be bad. When these chain stores were set up to exploit others and when only one man got all the profits, that was good; it was good when Mr So and So got a million pesos or 10 million pesos to put up a factory; yes, that was supposed to be good. and so, a man could become a factory owner with the money of the people, with the resources of the people. But now, now that the government puts up the factories, now that the profits no longer go to any Mr So and So, now that the money is used to build a school or 10 schools and to hire and pay 10 teachers to give scholarships to a thousand college students -- now that is supposed to be bad! Exploitation was supposed to be good and justice was supposed to be bad. This confusion of ideas was so bad that when those counterrevolutionaries were sentenced at Santa Clara, I said to them: "Do you want the land to be be taken away from the peasants and do you want the land once again to be given to the big landowners?" "No, No!" "Then, do you want us to take the teachers away from you?" "No." "Do you want us to take houses away from the people?" "No," "Do you want us to raise rents again" "No." "Do you want us to convert those military barracks back into fortresses again?" "No." "Do you want us to close the beaches and return them to private ownership?" "No." "Now, what do you want? What is it that the revolution has done, that you are not in agreement with?" "Ah, no, no, nothing." And so, they agreed with everything. (Laughter) They agreed with the agrarian reform, with lowering the rents with our industrialization plans, with everything. And so, against whom are they? What pretext do they want to invent and why do they come here to talk about Communism? Because, if they do agree with the revolution and if you say that we are Communists, then you are Communists too. (Laughter and applause). It is a fact that we have been trying to find our way, the solution to our problems, and we have come up with all of the measures of the revolution which we thought would help us resolve these problems; these are the measures which, we told the people, should resolve these problems. Now, were we Communists because we did not shoot Carlos Rafael Rodriguez? (Laughter) Ah! What are they going to say now? What are they going to say now that Carlos Rafael has turned up on this television show? (Applause) They Know What They Want They created tremendous confusion around this problem; they created all of this confusion of ideas because all of these counterrevolutionaries are confused; not a one of them has a clear idea. Of course! They do have one clear idea; everybody knows that they want. They want to be paid -- and they all want to be generals here. The first thing they do is to assume for themselves the rank of major. Of course, you don't get to be a general overnight; this sort of thing is rather rare. But they appoint themselves to the rank of major and then they begin to give orders to everybody. And then they hope that the planes will come with the parachutes, with guns and rifles and weapons and bazookas and all of that stuff. We never got any of that; if we needed ammunition, we had to take it away from the soldiers; or we had to pick up the ammunition which the soldiers dropped by the wayside; those were the only "paradrops" that we ever got. In 17 months, we never got a single round of ammunition from abroad. Seventeen months! These people know what they want; they are full of ambition but they have no idea about social problems; they analyze these problems in a very simple manner and they say... and they believe that the problem can be decided by a show of force or by economic resources or military power, coming from the United States. And they do the things which never before occurred to anybody. But here, it would not occur to anybody to rise up: that sort of thing would not occur to anybody. But look, there was a chance to rise up here! (laughter) And take a look and see if there were any abuses in the camps! And there is something else I asked them: "Come here now. Do you know of any peasant whose house has been burned?" "No." "Has any poor peasant been assassinated?" "No." "Has any poor peasant been tortured?" "No." "Has anybody been tortured here?" "No." "Have you seen anybody dead in the streets or shot down in the streets?" "No." And with all of the things that happened here and with all of the abuses that existed in this country, it did not occur to anybody to rise up. There were plenty of abuses when all of these American companies were in control here, the United Fruit, the Francisco Sugar Company, when they were the landowners and the factory owners everywhere, they would shoot people down. But let's not have any more campaigns against the foremen and overseers -- because that is one problem -- at least some of these foremen and overseers! (Laughter) There are indeed some foremen who are having trouble with their work and that... but let us think a little more of the foremen who, in the final analysis, were employees, in the rural guards. Yes, in the guards! The soldiers. They committed abuses of all kinds; they did not respect the families of the peasants; they had no respect for women; they had no respect for anybody. They did not rise up! They did not rise up against robberies or against crimes; they did not rise against exploitation, when they bought produce from the farmer for half the price and when they sold it at 3 times that figure on the market; No, they did not rise up then. How could they then rise up now? Besides, this is absolutely impossible since the first mistake they make is to believe that you can make a revolution with the support of the landowners, against the poor farmers who now own the land. Natural Allies Of course, we know whom they ran into here: the middleman who had been driven out of his business of exploiting the people here, the big landowner in the particular zone, including some of those who had ranches here even though they were not big landowners, perhaps with 20 or 30 caballerias. And so, as you analyze all of the individuals who were ready to help them, you find a man who was involved in white slavery between here and Manicaragua; and he participated in the uprising; then you have the PUR mayor, from I don't know where, who supported the counterrevolutionaries; and the middleman So and So and the landowner So and So; as you look at them, you get the picture of what kind of people were affected by the revolution here. They had all kinds of types here, the former lawyer, the adventurer, the deserter, the drunkard, the people who thought that the old days were coming back, the people who quickly put on uniforms and thought that they could go back to gambling and robbing and making big profits. But this was not to be. And so, all of these types, all of them Batista supporters, met there. The thing that really hurts is to see the shamelessness with which these pseudorevolutionary elements, who passed themselves off as revolutionaries, tied up with the war criminals and these types! And how they haggled and how they placed themselves in the service of the embassy and imperialism! This is a very shameless thing indeed. But I am not at all surprised; I knew this would happen, with people like that. Now, what were they trying to accomplish? They were trying to create small groups that would rise up and they attempted this in Pinar del Rio, they tried it in Oriente and they failed and they tried it in Las Villas. They Offered No Resistance We began to get some reports on these little groups consisting of counterrevolutionary elements and others who reportedly tried to form groups in Escambray. Of course, we had the army units, but they are in training; besides, we think that it is best to use local people, local peasants, to fight against small counterrevolutionary groups that try to constitute guerrilla units. Within a month, we organized a thousand Escambray farmers there. Of course, the serious thing is that all of these people engaged in some very big illusions. After the first small groups of revolutionaries had been set up there, they were joined by Batista people, people of all classes. What did these people believe in? Of course, to fight one of these little groups, you have to locate it first and this takes a lot of work; it would be easier to fight a large force. But then, again, you cannot let them organize a large force because that would then cost more lives and more sacrifices. There is no denying that if they organized a large force at any one of these points, it would be much easier for us to spot it and to wipe it out; but we are perfectly familiar with these techniques, because, after all, it was we who initiated this type of warfare here. (Applause) How could any of these little groups escape us? There was no possibility at all. But they joined these small groups out there, while the peasants were getting some training. Of course, they did not offer any resistance. We figured that we had a group of about 150 out there, because they offered no resistance at all. When we took a closer look, we found that there were 200 or 250 persons out there. But then they gave the watchword for constituting these groups in various places throughout Cuba; they tried to create trouble in certain rural areas, it seems, in order to prepare the situation and in order then to send the expeditionary forces which they were training abroad. These groups -- including the one in Havana where they tried to constitute a little group -- these groups tried to ... well, we had information that they tried to send former regulars, who had joined them, to the zone of Pinar del Rio, to the zone of Oriente, to start an uprising; and they probably also had some illusions about the zone of Las Villas, only because sometime had passed simply due to the fact that we were training the peasants. And then came some peasants from Escambray and they are really formidable fighters. They were trained in two groups of 500. As soon as the first group had been trained, it was sent into one zone; after we had completed training the second group, we also sent it out. But since the problem was to capture these gentlemen and to prevent them from getting away, we also used militia from these provinces, including militiamen from Oriente. They took up positions, they surrounded the area and then began the job of finding these groups out there and we did find them within a number of days. No Escape for Anybody They offered very little resistance. As a matter of fact, we captured 102 of them and their principal leaders. All of the others were captured in the pockets into which the peasants had driven them. Within 3 or 4 days, we captured another 50 or 60 more. And this is how these operations go; they might last 8 or 10 or 15 days; the operations are started on the basis of reports to the effect that some of these groups are out there. And so we have these groups out there in the mountains but the main thing is to make sure that they do not escape. And so it was they found it was absolutely impossible to fight against the mountain farmers there. They ran into a thousand mountain farmers with automatic weapons. We took these farmers and we broke them up into small units and we put a rebel officer in charge of each of these groups and they went out into the field. And they really are formidable fighting men; they did not let a single one get away. We figure that the peasants suffered two casualties in return for rounding up 102 of these people out there, in 2 weeks. And two farmers died as a result of accidental gunshot wounds; in operations of these types, you usually have more casualties due to accidents than due to combat action; and we lost one Rebel Army officer. And of course, these people out there surrendered because they knew they were not going to be mistreated. One really admirable example involved Felix Torres. Now, this fellow Felix Torres had a nephew who always was his buddy during the revolution, when they served with Camilo; he practically brought him up; and that boy, heading a peasant patrol, was persuading a group of counterrevolutionaries in the mountains and he was killed. Now, on the next day, Felix Torres captured those who had assassinated his nephew; he took the prisoner and as he himself said during the trial, he did not bother them or mistreat them; he brought them there, to the prisoner collecting point, and, it says in the trial record, he asked that those who killed his nephew be punished. Of course, only a revolutionary could do that sort of thing because everybody knows that the situation was different when the cops and the minions of the law ran the country; everybody knows what happened when the regulars caught a revolutionary. If any of these cops or regulars had captured Felix Torres, they would have rubbed him out in 5 minutes. Special Agrarian Reform This is the difference, the big difference, between the conduct of the revolutionaries who have ideals and who have a set of ethics and who have principles, on the one hand, and the cops and the minions of the law, on the other hand. Here we did not use a single aircraft; we did not shoot up a single house; we did not strike a single zone; we did not bother the peasants in any way; we did not prevent them from going out and buying foodstuffs; we did not take any measures against them; and still, all of those groups were completely wiped out. All of those who scattered and who tried to hide out in the caves, way up in the mountains, all of them are going to be arrested, one by one. And now they are never going to try this sort of thing in Escambray again (applause). Why? Now we have a special 500-man combat column from Escambray, which spent 7 months in the Sierra Maestra; these are fellows between the ages of 16 and 25 whom we have been training for some time as a special force to be assigned to that zone; and we did not mobilize those boys who are in training and who are from there. We mobilized the peasants. And now we are going to institute a special agrarian reform in Escambray, a special reform, because these counterrevolutionary groups developed there; they were able to develop there with the help of certain landowners and big ranchers. And so we are going to have a special reform in Escambray; and we are going to locate 1,000 peasants in Escambray, in 50 or 60 cooperatives (applause) and they will be under arms, yes, they will be armed. They are also going to get a loan so that they will be able to develop the rich land there, so that they can grow coffee and cocoa and fruit trees and so that they can develop animal husbandry; they will get a 5-year loan so that they can develop the area there, because the Escambray zone is different from the Sierra Maestra and from the zone of Oriente, because there we have many farmers who own 20 or 30 caballerias of land. There, the land is not distributed the way it is, for example, in the Sierra Maestra, among many small coffee growers and many small landowners. And so this is the solution we have for the problem there. We are going to have to have a trial within 8 or 10 days in order to judge those who remain; but the principal leaders have already been sentenced and punished. Simultaneously, another one of these "Masferreristas" groups landed there, with some Americans, between Moa and Baracoa. At the same time, a deserter, a sergeant, by the way, swiped 15 or 20 rifles from a military barracks in Imias. These two events of course were connected. The way I see it, they were trying to form a front consisting of groups concentrated in that zone, near the Caimanera Base. The problem was to create a zone of operations there, a trouble zone near the base, because that is the only reason for landing those 27 individuals there. Then, the watchword was to trigger uprisings by groups of regulars in various parts of the country. As you know, the other day, some of these former regulars, were cooking a meal for themselves when a family with a child drove by in a jeep and they fired on these people. They killed the child and they injured the mother. Now, these fellows have been arrested and they are going to be hauled before the revolutionary tribunal. Completely Wiped Out That group of 27, all of them, has been captured, all of those 27, all of them. And we have a lot of peasant militia always ready there, when it comes to capturing any of those ex-regulars who start trouble there. All we have to do now is pick up the sergeant who swiped the riffles; of course, these fellows have an advantage in that they can always try to head for the Base. The last four of them were captured 40 km from the Base. They were heading for the Base in order to seek refuge there. Here is what the situation is right now: the groups which have risen up both in Las Villas and in Oriente have been completely wiped out. We are going to have another trial in Las Villas for those who were captured after the first trial; and we are going to have to ... I think the four who were captured out of the troup of 27 are probably being tried right now. That is what the situation is as of this moment. And these are members of the mercenary groups that are training in Guatemala. We can be absolutely sure that they will have to send those groups out sooner or later. Once you start this sort of playing with weapons and once you get into all of this training, then -- since these gentlemen are nothing but tools, since they are getting all of this training -- the only thing left for them to do will be to start out on their mission and come over. We must expect them to come and I am sure that they will come sooner or later and we have to be ready for that. This is one of the variations in the aggression of imperialism, when they use mercenary elements. We must be prepared and we do have Rebel Army units ready to go into action against those groups; and we already have a number of militia units which are being equipped for this purpose and our entire effort of training militia and army cadres is coming along very nicely. We Will Wipe Out the Entire Offensive We must fight this battle in the economic field, in the field of international diplomacy, and we are going to have to fight these battle also in military terms because this is inevitable, to put it quite plainly. All revolutions had to go through this sort of thing and these groups are daily becoming angrier and more full of hate and impotence and they are inevitably headed for a confrontation with the law of revolutionary processes. They will come and they will be wiped out. And thus, that will be the moment at which we will liquidate the current offensive of imperialism. But then others will come. We are going to have to destroy many offensives of imperialism but, just as we are absolutely sure that the revolution will become stronger, during each phase, so do they know the fate that awaits them, these counterrevolutionary leaders and the imperialists who land here on our soil. It is painful to have to face up to this circumstance but this is our duty and it is not we who have brought those criminals here; it was they who sent them. If the revolution must execute them by firing squad, then they are the guilty ones. They can spare themselves the trouble of sending those criminal and counterrevolutionary elements and then the revolution would not have to resort to revolutionary justice. All of this is also a part of their plan and their game, because, around each and everyone of those individuals who is punished here in this fashion, they develop their propaganda campaign all over the world, all over Latin America, in other words, this is how they develop their campaigns against the revolution. But those things are inevitable and the thing that you cannot avoid, the thing you have to accept, is that all of this is an inevitable part of the revolutionary process. I can certainly tell them that in connection with the counterrevolutionary pockets which were wiped out and in connection with the counterrevolutionary pockets which were siped out and in connection with all of the groups that will be wiped out, even though all of the ex-regulars may rise up. They are just making work for us, in other words, we have to mobilize the militia and the army and then we are going to have to capture them. And if we have to contend with this for the next 10 years, then we will stick with it for the next 10 years; and if we have to confront this situation for 20 years, well, then let it be 20 years. We are not worried about this; we know that this is a long struggle. And the people must be prepared and know that this is going to be a habitual thing here: in other words, this thing with the counterrevolutionary and terrorist groups, all those people who are paid and aided by the United States. The weapons which they sent, when they dropped 22 parachute loads of new weapons, with American factory serial numbers, from a 4-engine aircraft, along with communications equipment and codes and everything else -- all of this is the sort of stuff which only the United States Army has. They did not even bother to deny this; they did not even have to deny this because Kennedy proclaimed this publicly, in other words, he stated publicly that they were helping the groups which were fighting in the mountains. But these are just "midsummer night's dreams!" Isn't that it? (Laughter) Isn't that what Kennedy had in mind with those little groups. Jose Pardo Llada: Major, you talked about the counteroffensive or the counterrevolutionary offensive; I think it might perhaps be a good idea to talk now about the counteroffensive of the revolutionary government, especially the counteroffensive which has been launched. They Escaped from Morro Dr Castro: No, let's talk about the counterattack. (Laughter) Jose Pardo Llada: All right, the counterattack, the counterattack there which has been launched in the presidential palace. Specifically, in connection with the latest effort here, the urban reform law. Could we perhaps talk about that? Because here is what is happening in this connection: all Cubans tonight have become a kind of legal consultant or attorney or interpreter of the law; everybody in interpreting what the law says and everybody is trying to figure out when he is going to have a home, whether he has to wait 5 or 10 years. I would therefore like to ask you, the first and foremost revolutionary leader, a question in this connection, so that we may know how and when this was conceived by you; and second, I would like to address this question to the prime minister who promulgated this law. Dr Castro: All right, let me say something which I had better point out before I forget. Hose Pardo Llada: All right. Dr Castro: This concerns another event involving a group of counterrevolutionary prisoners who escaped from El Morro. This was a group of those men who had been sentenced in connection with the trial of Hubert Matos. They had been sent to the Island of Pines for imprisonment. Now, these fellows certainly committed a ... you might call them double tratiros: first of all, because of the attitude they had assumed on that occasion: and, second, because... Now, I would really like to help those fellows because if you analyze this situation carefully, you find that men very often are the victims of circumstances; they may have been badly influenced or badly oriented, as these rebels were; I understand that their guilt was relative; they had bad luck... If they had been with Raul, or with Che, or with any other of our comrades, they certainly would have adopted a different attitude -- you can be sure of that. And so we moved them; we gave jobs to some of those boys who had been charged during the trial but who were acquitted; yes, we gave them work and they were doing quite well; these are the fellows we moved to El Morro; they were able to see their families 3 times a week while they were there and they certainly had all of the facilities they could want; one fine day, I inspected El Morro and I talked to them and I explained the situation to them; we certainly talked on the best of terms; I told them that we are going to give them an opportunity to rejoin the revolution. Disloyal Guards But who was guarding them? Other gentlemen who were likewise examples of ingratitude. Since we had been deactivating a series of fortresses, we had to use a group of marines from the Navy to watch them. Now, they gave us two examples that are typical of what happens very often in this connection. But this should not fool anybody because people very often react this way to a generous gesture. This group of boys, in complicity with the marines who were there, 5 marines, the bunch I mentioned before; because we have too many assignments to cover, too much work to do, and all that sort of thing... Well, was it our fault? We had already deactivated the Casablanca Arsenal and we deactivated the Cienfuegos Arsenal. Why? Because the Navy was the only service that was not dissolved; the Army was dissolved, the police was dissolved, however we were very generous with the Marines. Why were we so generous with them? Because they had adopted a less drastic attitude than the army, although they had men like Laurent and people like him who committed many crimes; they did fire on us a lot, that is true, with their frigates, and so on, in the Sierra Maestra, but we treated them, the marines, differently from the way we treated the army. But what happened then? Well, something very simple happened: the spies from the embassy, the State Department, the counterrevolutionaries, they were always trying to conspire with somebody. Who were they trying to conspire with? Well, the people with whom they had contacts in the past, the people with whom they had been friendly in the past; and they were constantly conspiring in an effort to get a frigate to mutiny or in an effort to get a garrison to mutiny: and they played this little game. We knew that some of them were conspiring, and this is why we took a preventive measure: we deactivated the warships, we deactivated the fortress of Cienfuegos, and we put rebel forces there. That was the preventive measure; we did not arrest anybody because we had taken this preventive measure. "It is better to lock the barn before the horse gets away." And we took this precaution, we ordered them to go out and work -- we did not kick anybody out, absolutely nobody, because we detest the idea of having to take measures which simply result in people getting kicked out into the streets. And so, there were some fellows who responded; there were some cases of old marines, humble sons of the people, who reacted properly and they captured some of the fellows who were trying to get away and take the money that had been offered them; they tried to get them to desert from the ships and there was some struggle at that time. In other words, there are always those who react properly and then there are others who turn out to be traitors, like those who were assigned to guard duty here and who enabled 14 prisoners to escape, with the help of some of the old regular marines -- and they went off with them. Timely Warning Of course, if we had dissolved the Navy completely and if we had not left a single one of those marines on duty, except those who had been captured or those who were known revolutionaries, then none of this would have happened; if we had kept these people penned up on the Island of Pines, none of this would have happened to us. But many of these marines still had their weapons and I talked to them in all sincerity at that time; some of then can go; others, at best did what those traitors did; and still others might behave differently...at any rate, it is best to speak out quite frankly; it is a good idea to address those 3,000 or 4,000 marines whom we have now, many of whom still have their weapons, we would like them to think about these events; we would like them to think about the examples set by those who behaved well and the examples set by those who behaved badly. We do not want to kick anybody out into the street, we know that this is always a painful thing. Even though they still have their weapons, we must certainly tell them that the revolutionary government is taking all of these circumstances into account: the negative facts which occur and the positive facts and this is why I want to give timely warning that, if the men who are part of a component do not respond integrally and loyally and completely, if they do not respond to the revolution in this way and if they do not do their duties, then we will not be responsible for the fact that we have to take measures which will lead to the complete dissolution of the Corps. People might think that it is tactically not a good idea to talk this way but I have always talked that way and I have always taken these things up in public. The same thing is happening to those marines that happened to many officials in the Batista government, people who entered the government service between 1952 and 1958. Now what goes on here? Many of these people do not forgive the revolution for having been so generous with these others; it is they who talk and act like counterrevolutionaries; I do not know whether they confuse the generosity of the revolution with some sort of idea that the revolution is obligated to do this sort of thing or that this constitutes one of the weaknesses of the revolution; I do not know whether this is how they figure this. But these are facts which we must take into account, in other words, the elements who are left over from the past, including in the armed forces, elements who are left over from the past, in the various departments of the civil service. They Had Better Understand It does not cost us anything at all to put out a law tomorrow, completely dissolving the Navy and the Marine Corps, releasing them all, except for those who were taken prisoner and except for those who distinguished themselves as revolutionaries; it does not cost anything at all to expel from the civil service all those holdovers from the Batista past; this does not cost us anything at all. We have done many more difficult things in the past and we have promulgated laws much more radical than this one. I do not know whether, before we actually have to take measures of this kind, it might not be a good idea to appeal to this type of person, who is still around, to appeal to him to understand what the revolution is trying to do and to prevail upon him to join the ranks of the people so as to cause the least possible damage; it is our duty to defend the revolution, to defend it against foreign and domestic enemies; we are doing our part in this respect; and all of those Cubans had better think hard and realize that the revolution has been generous with those people; that the revolution has done its part and that they must now likewise to their part because we would prefer them to go on doing their jobs, we would prefer them to join the nation, we would prefer them to join the effort being made by their home country, rather than having to take drastic measures in the interest of the security of the revolution. This is why I want to discuss these things publicly, in the hope that there will be military men... Because they are not all the same, as you know; I am not trying to say that all of the people who were in the administration, in the past, are bad men; nor do I want to say that all of those who were in the armed forces, in the past, are bad men. What actually happens is that they are placing the revolution in a difficult situation whenever there is a case of desertion, whenever there is a case of disloyalty, whenever there is a case of counterrevolutionary conspiracy; but they all have the duty not only of doing their own part but also of contributing to the purge of all of those elements who respond with ingratitude and treason to the generosity of the revolution toward them. And they certainly should do their part because I certainly could not speak any more clearly than I am doing now, nor could I discuss the situation with more frankness, nor could I explain this problem more clearly than I am doing now. We would like all Cubans, who have no cause whatever for being against their country, to join the effort made by the nation now. We do not necessarily want them to be 100% revolutionaries but we do want them to fall in and join the effort which the country is making. Now that I have explained this -- because I wanted to discuss this before I forgot it -- I can answer your question... Now, let's see, where were we... (He looks over some of his notes). You told me that the people had been converted into legal advisors in this case or consultants. The Moncada Promise Jose Pardo Llada: The people are getting into some legal interpretations of the law in order to find out when they might be able to own a home. Dr Castro: Well, what is it you want to know? Jose Pardo Llada: Now, it might perhaps be interesting, Major, for us to talk at least for a few minutes about the headline in today's edition of Revolution which says: "Moncada pledge redeemed." In other words, how was this law conceived? Dr Castro: Which one? We have three laws here. Jose Pardo Llada: The Urban Reform Law. Dr Castro: All right, I still have not said the most important thing that I wanted to say here today, from the viewpoint of the general trend of thinking in the revolutionary government... Jose Pardo Llada: Why don't we take this up at the end of this panel discussion, later on? Dr Castro: No, I want to take it up now. Jose Parto Llada: What? Dr Castro: No, you question! (Laughter) Now, to get back to your topic... Look here, buddy: The Urban Reform Law was conceived after the Moncada epoch. Besides, that was the only point that was missing from the Moncada program. And so it had its roots in that epoch. It was tied in with the general housing problem for which we have been trying to find a number of solutions. The first thing we did was to create the savings and housing institute so that we could go ahead and build housing units with the money that was collected from the lottery. The basic principle of this law was to make homeowners out of people who were just renting homes. Why? Because, in reality, the person who rents a home pays for that home over a period of 15 or 20 or 25 years; and there are even families who pay for these homes for 30 years. By that time they have paid for that home many times over but they never get to own these homes. All right, the case of a low-income family, which built a little house and then rented it, that case was not as serious; but the serious thing happened in cases of big apartment houses, where a big operator had the capital necessary or got the credit from the banks and mobilized his own credit and built an apartment house; he would buy the land and he would then build on it and then he would collect the rent. And the apartment tenant would pay for the land and for all of the speculation with the land and he would pay for the value of the building and the interest on the capital that had been loaned to the building owner. In addition, the big operator would have a profit and he would then invest that money again elsewhere. In other words, the apartment tenant paid for everything and in the end he wound up with nothing. This is how the system worked; and each day, the concentration grew because the time during which individual homes were built in the towns in the interior was during the 30's and the 20's. From 1940 onward, urban property was becoming increasingly concentrated. This included many homes belonging to those families which had one or two houses which they rented out. During the last 20 years, nobody built a single house. Very few people built a home for the purpose of renting it and the renting business was in the hands of companies or persons who controlled many apartment houses or homes. For example, it was said that the Sarra family had something like 12,000 homes. I don't know the exact number now. Just Basis for Law There are apartment buildings that brought in rent amounting to 50,000 pesos. Now what was our judgement on this matter. Why did the government not provide any support here, instead of loaning money, mobilizing the funds of the national savings program to enable a big operator to build an apartment house, which means that a family would be paying rent all its life, why were these resources not mobilized toward the purchase of a home and why could the monthly apartment rent payments not be used to pay the home mortgage? Why not, indeed? Would that not have been the right thing to do? Well, it certainly would. This would have been the right thing to do and this was one of the promises that were made when we said that we would be cutting rents 50%, as part of our proposals for the revolution and its achievements, in other words, when we proposed the construction of housing units on a massive scale and when we proposed that ownership of these homes be transferred to the families. So, in other words, we were talking about that law quite some time ago. That law was actually conceived at that time. And then we stated a number of problems here: what are we going to take as the index for the number of years during which the mortgage was to be paid off? We could not simply hand these homes over to these people; we had to find some kind of basis. Was this the time during which these families were to live in those homes? No, because it might happen that somebody might just have moved to a 20 or 30 year old house and they certainly were going to be paying 20 years for this house. In the end, we took the time the house was built as the base. We assumed that a house built in 1930 has been practically paid off, that a house built in 1958 has not yet been paid off, or perhaps a house built in 1955; nor would a house built in 1930 been paid off by 1950. And so we finally established a uniform basis: the time the house was built, in order to determine the number of years over which the current tenant would pay the mortgage. Of course, the law would have been much nicer if we could have said today: "All right, everybody owns their own homes as of now. You don't have to pay anymore rent or make any other kind of payments." Well, that created two problems. The fact that we did not very simply do just that is due to the fact that we could not do it for two reasons: first of all, the large number of families whose income was derived from the houses which they owned and from which they drew a rental income, in other words, houses which they had rented out. These families were not affected by the rent control law, many of them, that is, because houses built built prior to 1940 had a lower rent or mortgage payment on them and they were not affected by the rent law. And, above all, we have a larger number of small home owners who own homes that were built until 1940. If we were to relieve the tenant of the obligation to pay the rent, we would be leaving many of these families without an income, the income which they now count on to support themselves. So much for one aspect here. Second, we have the following: if we were to lift this rental payment entirely, the people were going to have much more money to spend, at a moment when we were trying to increase production, at a moment when consumption had already increased extraordinarily; now, it would have been inflationary to lift these rent payment obligations so that the people would have, in this case, spent much more, several million pesos more every month; there was a very fundamental economic reason for this and we must realize first of all that we are in a phase of production increase and that consumption has increased extraordinarily. Second: because we had to consider the case of those who are currently getting their only income from that rent and we certainly could not deprive them of that rental income. Third: the state, as of now, would have to assume a burden here in continuing pension payments and starting new pension payments. So, we had a number of reasons, three reasons, to be specific among others, of course. Now, what formula did we figure out here. All right, we figured on a minimum of 5 years for all houses built prior to 1940. In other words, all houses built before 26 July 1940; in those cases, the current tenants would become the owners of those houses within 5 years, continuing the same payments that they are making now. So they would become the owners of these houses in 5 years. The government would be collecting the money. Jose Pardo Llada: In other words, they would be paying -- excuse the interruption -- in other words, they would be paying to the Provincial Council of the Urban Reform? Dr. Castro: The government would collect all of these payments from all of these houses, all of these currently rented homes. The government would pass the money on to the owners of these homes... So that they would not have to bother about collecting the rent or so that they would not have to take care of any other formality. They would get the full payment amount deriving from the sale. (Applause) We will deduct the city taxes, that is to say, the money which they currently must pay to the city. And during the first month, a small amount for the expenditures concerned with the documents involved in the conversion of the lease into a home purchasing contract. Now, the law says... The prices which they have to pay... No, the number of years. Here is what it says: The home purchase price shall be determined in accordance with the date the house was built, as follows: "Urban homes built before 26 July 1940 shall have, as their legal price, the price resulting from the sum total of the monthly rent payments in effect as of the date of publication of this law, for 5 calendar years." In other words, what remains for them to pay would be 5 years of rent payments in the amount they are currently paying, an equal amount every month, in other words, what they are paying today, minus the city tax on urban land and the amount of utilities for 5 calendar years. In other words, we are going to credit them with these monthly amounts. "Urban homes which were built after the above mentioned date, but before 26 July 1950, will have as their legal price the amount resulting from the sum total of the monthly rent payments in effect as of the date of publication of this law, for a period of 5 calendar years plus half of the number of years and months in the arithmetic remainder between the date of construction of the house and the July 1940 date." Now, do you get that? Did anybody understand this? (Laughter) Well, that explains the law. In other words, nobody understood it because, when you run into these problems in legal language... Well, you know that is what we lawyers are for, to try to make this understandable. (Applause) "Plus half of the number of years and months in the arithmetical remainder between the year of construction and the July 1940 date." Well, that is quite simple: suppose the house was built in 1946. How long would you have to pay for a house that was built in 1946? Jose Pardo Llada: Five years. Dr Castro: Five years, plus half of the difference between the year 1940 and the year 1946; 5 years plus half of 6, that would be 3, in other words, 8 years. Now, let's take the year 1948: Five, plus half of the difference between 1940 and 1948, that's 8 years, or, in other words, 4 years. That will mean that he would have to pay 9 years as of 1948. Now, take a house that was built in 1942. You add 5 years plus half of the difference between 1940 and 1942. From 1940 to 1942, it was 2 years; half of 2 years is 1 year. Five plus 1 makes 6. You get that? (Applause) So, you have to add up the years and the months. In other words, i you have 4 years and 6 months, half of 4 years and 6 months would be... for example between 26 July 1940 and the year the house was built, you might have 4 years and 6 months, that is to say, he would have to pay 2 years and 3 months, plus the 5 years which we mentioned before, in other words, 7 years and 3 months. Now, everybody can figure the rest out for himself. Now, let's take the year 1950. Now, in this case, he would have to pay 10 years. The houses that were built from 26 July 1950 onward will have as their legal price the price resulting from the sum total of the monthly rental payments plus the number of years and months in the arithmetic remainder between the date of construction and the July 1950 date. Now what does that mean? If the house was built in 1958, he would pay 10 plus difference between 50 and 58. Now, here this is not half, because the rule here says that the house should be more or less considered paid off from 1940 onward, in 20 years, in other words. If the house was built in 1958, then he would pay 10 plus the difference between 50 and 58, which is 8. In other words, 18 years plus 2 years for which he has already paid rent and that makes 20. If the house was built in 1955, then he would pay 10 plus the difference between 50 and 55, and that makes a total of 15 years. If the house was built in 1953, he would pay 10 plus 3 or 13. If it was built in 1952: hew would pay 10 plus 2 or 12. If it was built in 1951, 10 plus 1 or 11 years. If it was built in 1960, 20 years. That figures from 1950 onward. For the period from 1940 to 1950, the formula would be 5, plus half of the difference. Now do you get it? You, for example over there, what year was your home built in? Jose Pardo Llada: Well, that house was built in 1948-1949. Dr Castro: All right, 1939, let's suppose we work with that. You would have 5 years to pay plus half of the difference between 40 and 49, that is 9 years or 4-1/2 years. So you would have 9-1/2 years and then you would own the apartment which you have there. (Laughter) Now, what about you over there? Carlos Rafael Rodriquez: Well, I would have 6 years to go. Dr Castro: And what about you there? Ithiel Leon: In my case, from 1921 onward. President and Ministers Excluded Dr Castro: Ah, you are in the clear: (Laughter) I want you all to know one thing, I want you to know that the only ones who would not benefit from this law would be the members of the Council of Ministers and the President of the Republic, by virtue of the following article. "4th: The benefits which, by virtue of this law, may be reserved for the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and the ministers of the government shall be cancelled hereby in favor of the Cuban state." In other words, they were only persons, the only tenants throughtout the Republic who did not benefit from the Urban Reform Law. (Applause) Mortgages Moderator: Dr Castro, there is a very important point connected with mortgages which I would like you to touch on likewise. Dr Castro: Mortgages? All right, this law, let me tell you, will benefit everybody. Everybody benefits from this, however, the interest groups have not come out greatly harmed either. First of all, are the small-scale rent operators going to be greatly harmed? No: Why? Any family that owns one of these houses, any family that collects 80, 100, 120, and up to 150 pesos and does not have any other income -- in many cases -- now, how will the law resolve that problem? A family which has two homes dating back to the year 1958 and which now collects 80 pesos in rent -- that is, a house dating back to the year 1938 or the year 1927 -- will, from now on and for the next 5 years, get this amount which the state will in turn get from the tenant of the house. When that time passed, the tenant will, as of that moment, acquire property rights and the only thing he will have to pay is the monthly mortgage installments, an amount equivalent to what he is paying today in terms of rent; but he does acquire the property as of the moment at which the councils are constituted, as of the moment these councils are constituted, and then they will ask him to cede his contract to them and as of that moment they are the owners of the house and the payments will then be made in installments. Now, what about that family which has an income of 80 or 90 pesos from two houses dating back to 1938? Well that family find itself without any income 5 years from now? No. When that time is up and when the rent has been paid until then, the government will grant a lifetime pension to all families which are getting less than 500 pesos and which do not have any other income. If they do have other income, then the amount will be revised in accordance with the other income sources; for instance, a widow who has two homes now gets 90 pesos and after 5 years those payments will stop and she will instead get a pension. In other words, the state will actually give her more because she will no longer have to bother about collecting the rent nor taking care of the house and she will be getting a pension that will be exactly equal to what she was getting in the form of rent payments, -- without having to worry about that house for the rest of her life. Lifetime Pension In other words, the state will also concern itself with that type of person, so that he or she will not be abandoned and it will improve that person's situation. Actually, a person who now has to collect his own rent and sometimes the tenants are behind in the payments and sometimes they do not pay at all -- that person would actually gain by getting a pension. If that person makes anything up to 250 pesos, then we are going to give him 150 pesos, plus half of the difference between 150 and what he used to get, let us assume, 200 pesos, in other words, the base will be 150 pesos, plus half of the difference between 150 and 200 pesos or 25 pesos; in other words, the pension of that person would then be 175 pesos. Now, for instance, a person who gets 250 pesos in rental income would likewise not be left high and dry; he would get 150 plus 50 or a total of 200; he would, in other words, get a pension of 200 pesos. In other words, any small homeowner would be guaranteed a pension, after the payment period is over. That was the solution which we found to be the fairest and the most humane for those cases. But, take a person who has two small homes and take another fellow who has 10,000 homes or 2,000 homes -- now, there is a big difference here. 600-Pesos Ceiling Now, what is the solution for the fellow who has many homes? Well, it will be the exact opposite (laughter and applause). The man who has many homes will not be able to draw more than 600 pesos a month. A landlord who used to make 40,000 will now have a deduction of 39,400 pesos (applause), yes, that's right, 39,400 pesos, and we are going to give him 600 pesos. Now, is a revolution which guarantees that gentleman an income of 600 pesos cruel? No, that revolution is not cruel. Anybody can live on 600 pesos today; there is no doubt about that, just ask any worker, ask those who make 200 or 150 whether they could not live nicely on 600. And that does not include those who have their own homes, because generally they do have their own homes. They all have their little nest-egg stashed away someplace. You can be sure of that (laughter). They have their little bank account here and there. All right, there might be one terrible case perhaps in which a millionaire will wind up poor. But here is a remedy for cases such as this one: let him go to the revolutionary government and petition for a pension. (Applause) And so, nobody would be abandoned; the revolutionary state is a just state; it is not like a reactionary state, an exploiter state, a state which serves for exploitation and which served the privileged, a state which leaves old people without any resources, a state in which old and poor people have to sleep under the bridges and in doorways or where they would be picked up by the police or where they would have dogs sicced on them and where they would die of hunger, abandoned; the revolutionary state is so just that, if there is any millionaire without any income, the state would give him a pension so that he can continue to live decently, because he is a human being, and the revolutionary state will not abandon him. The revolutionaries have a conscience and our kindness is just about too strong and we are just about too fair-minded to abandon any human being. We cannot do here what the exploiters and the privileged did; they abandoned the human individual. We are going to let that millionaire have his little old pension so that he can meet expenses and have a good meal. (Applause) And this is the way it is going to be and I don't want anybody to have any doubts about this. Beneficiaries of the Law Dr Carlos Rafael Rodriguez: Major, I can see the worried look in the face of Captain Guerra Matos and I don't want to be a nuisance here, taking up all of this time with my questions. I would like to introduce now... Dr Castro: I am going to be very brief now. Dr Carlos Rafael Rodriguez: I would like to introduce now, in connection with this topic and precisely because you have just begun to explain the policy of the government with respect to various social categories, a problem which relates to the other aspect of the counterattack, in other words, the nationalization laws... Dr Castro: Wait a minute, don't get into that problem yet: (Laughter) Dr Carlos Rafael Rodriguez: No, I just want to bring this up because the topic has already been broached. Dr Castro: No, no, let us conclude this here by talking about those who will benefit from the law. Dr Carlos Rafael Rodriguez: Magnificent; I think that's a very good idea. Dr Castro: Look here now, we have seen that all of the small interests have been guaranteed and backed up, in other words, that they will benefit and that this, primarily, involves all of those tenants who today pay rent; second, the law will benefit all of the urban businessmen and merchants and those who have small stores, small businesses, all of them. Why? Because those people have for many years been fighting to keep their businesses open and they have not been granted a permanent commercial license or permanent opportunity to keep their stores open. This law gives them much more; it gives them the right to acquire the property, in accordance with our provisions here; I have seen many people, small businessmen, who were extremely happy because we have at least and once and for all resolved the problem of keeping these businesses where they are, permanently; we have solved that problem for them now. Third, the law benefits people who had mortgaged homes. All of those people will benefit likewise. Why? Because now they do not have to pay any interest any more; what they pay in terms of interest is converted into capital amortization; the people who built their homes through the FHA will benefit; these people very often approached me and told me that they had not gotten any benefits out of this but now they do not have to pay interest anymore. All right, the amount they pay now is to amortize the capital and the interest is deducted. And so, the benefits will extend to [Unreadable text] had mortgaged homes, persons who built on the basis of FHA credit, small businessmen, small industrialists, all those who have stores and businesses and all of those who rented or leased from the Republic. Few laws have benefited more people, all at once, than this law. Now, these are the persons who have benefited from this. And the only people who do not benefit from this, as we said a little while ago, were the people in the Council of Ministers and they are going to have to look for a home on loan, later on, or something like that. Right to Housing In addition, this law establishes a basic principle, the basic principle to the effect that the family has a right to housing. This is a new right which we could very well have included in the Havana Declaration; but this is one more right which the revolution has established and which is spelled out in the law. The law establishes... In the last paragraph of the introduction, it says: "Whereas: the Cuban revolution considers the right to housing an indispensable and inalienable right of the human being." This law contains something very important because this is the first law of its type in the world and because, from this day onward and well into the future, it contemplates the housing problem from three different view-points, in terms of three phases. First, we have the present phase. Here is what the law says: "All families have a right to decent housing." But we cannot proclaim rights without turning them into reality and we therefore immediately try to figure out how we were going to turn this right into reality. The state will implement this law in three phases: the present phase, the immediate future phase, and the less immediate future phase, in other words, a more long-range phase. Today, what is the present phase? This is a phase in which all of the tenants are becoming the owners of their own homes through this law. After that, they can swap houses or they can sell their house, just like anybody else has their homes; I don't know exactly how this is done -- it is not very easy to sell a home but they can do so if they want to. Then comes the second phase, that is to say, the actual or current phase. The state will facilitate the amortization of the home in which each family lives, using what the family currently pays for rent, over a period of no less than 5 years and no more than 20 years, based on the date of construction of the home. Then comes the immediate future phase. Now, the state will collect millions of pesos each year, the difference from 600 pesos on up, and other income, within the provisions of this law. What is the state going to do with this money? Well, here is our future policy: we have two agencies, the INAV, which will build homes so that the family can become the owner of what it is paying for. But this is still a home which will have to be paid off with the price that is the result of material and manpower; in other words, the cost of the manpower; and so, it may cost 5,000 or 6,000 pesos, maybe 7,000 pesos, and even though no interest will have to be paid, the family will have to pay 25, 40, 45, and so on pesos a month and that certainly adds up; now, with the revenues derived from this law, we are going to build the homes of the second phase, a phase in which there will be no amortization plan but in which we will collect a rent equivalent to 10% of the income, at least; in other words, suppose a family earns 90 pesos, we are going to give them a home with 2 or 3 rooms, and they are going to pay 9 pesos. That family is not going to become the owner because, to become the owner, it would have to pay 25, 40, and maybe 45 pesos, depending upon what the house is worth. If the family makes 250 pesos, it pays 25 pesos for the house which the head of the family needs for himself and his family. If there are just a few of them in the family they will have a small house; if there are many, they will have a good family-sized home, even though they may pay only 9 pesos for a 3-room house, depending upon their actual housing needs. In other words, with the revenues we get we will launch housing construction plans, that is, the state will, and the state will then collect a small rental payment. That is the second phase. And so we will then have families which will be paying off their own homes and we will have families which will be paying 10% less than their rent. This will be a transition phase leading to the third phase, which is the future phase: using its own resources, the state will build housing which will then be given to each family, free of charge, and for permanent usufruct. Now, what does that mean? It means that, in the future, when national production has reached a high level of development, when the state has sufficient resources, it will guarantee the right to free housing; but when will this be? Well, within 10 or 15 years. That is what the situation will be within 15 years. Virtually everybody will have his home paid for and will thus be the master of his own home. One group that has been paying rent at the rate of 10% of the family income will, as of that moment, no longer have to pay any home rent, as of the second phase, in other words, the people would not be paying for new homes; they would be getting them free of charge and the others would be left with the property which they have now, in other words, which they are now paying on. But, wait a moment, there is more: We have developed an entire evolutionary criterion, from one phase to the next, from the second to the third phase. In spite of the fact that the future phase would appear to be rather far off, we are nevertheless working on this, right now. In the cooperatives, the cooperative members will pay for the homes, in other words, they will pay for the homes with their profits. Now, there are certain model farms which the INRA is developing, with a very high degree of technical development, in which case it is the government that is putting up these developments; those who work there will make the salaries specified in the law but they will also get free homes and free electricity. This is the system which will constitute the future phase in the city, within 15 years; we are applying this system, however, in the rural areas, on the model farms, in other words, farms which are among the most highly developed which the INRA has in the interior. Free Housing Why is it right for us to do this in the rural areas now? Because incomes in the rural areas are lower than in the cities. Now, if these farms have a rent income, the state can perfectly well give the families there some free homes. There are some cases where they get even more. For example, in Rosario, on one of these farms, the homes have 3 rooms. We are now completing that development and it is certainly worth everybody's time to inspect that development. In other words, a little later on around November or December. Each house will have a room for tourists. Now, in addition to the income which they get, they will be able to rent a room on Saturday and Sunday to those people who come out into the country for a weekend and so they are going to have an additional income. But we are going to give them their houses. Within 15 years, by the time the country's economy has developed tremendously, the nation will be able, with its own resources, to guarantee the right to free housing for every family. And these are the principles that are proclaimed in Article 1 of the law. The current phase, the immediate future phase, and the longer range future phase -- that is the setup here. And, so, in 15 years, nobody will be paying anything. Nobody at all, not those who live in new homes and not those who live in old homes; nobody will be paying any rent for these homes. All right, those who currently want to join the INAV system will be able to acquire a home but they will pay more because they have to pay for the cost of the home. That might be 30, 35, 40, or 45. I think that's just about the size of it. (Laughter) And so we are going to keep on building houses under the INRA, on the basis of an amortization system; in other words, the homes will be made available on the basis of rental system which in turn will be based on the income and we are going to have 2 types here, plus the homes which are being built in the rural areas under another system, for the cooperatives and they will be paid for by the cooperatives or by the farms under the INRA, for which the state pays, of course. This is a very important point because the law already looks forward to the future panorama here, in other words, housing is a basic right and the law states that this right shall be given free of charge in the future. Now, making that kind of revolutionary law certainly couldn't be bad. Pardo Llada: One point of information, Major. Fidel: Shoot. Pardo Llada: Well, to put it briefly, because we haven't got much time left. Fidel: All right, they can play ball at 2200. (Applause) You know very well that when there is a tie, they may play extra innings (laughter) and sometimes they have 4 or 5 or 6 extra innings; all right, we are going to play some extra innings here before going over to the ball field. (Applause) Tenement Houses and Apartment Houses Pardo Llada: Now, this is in reference to Articles 25 and 26 of the law where it says that the ownership of real estate destined for the so-called tenement houses, the apartment houses, will be transferred to the state, without the owners getting anything at all. Later on, Article 26 says that the councils of the urban reform will resolve the cases referred to in the preceding paragraph, in other words, the conditions under which these persons, that is to say, those who live in tenement homes and so on, will provisionally remain -- or whether they will remain in the premises which they now occupy. Fidel: Of course, they will stay here, they will pay the council, but the council will accumulate the money for... (he looks at his papers) Yes, that is what they are going to do with that... In all of these places, these tenement houses, it certainly was wrong to have all of these families live in subhuman conditions and it certainly would not be right to have them continue to pay those who have been exploiting them. But these people will continue to pay and the money will be accumulated for the purpose of building new homes or housing units which will be based on the standards which the government has determined for these buildings which it will put up. In other words, we must now start building housing facilities for the indigent in the tenement houses and places like that. This is what that article means. There is nothing here for those who live in a tenement flat because those people were living under subhuman conditions and the government will take over the construction of the required housing. You understand? Pardo Llada: The other topic, I think, can also be taken care of easily. This concerns the situation of the apartment house employees, the custodial personnel, in other words, who are the employees of those people who are now going to cease being the owners. Fidel: All right, that problem will be resolved by... Well, they are going to have to keep on working and those buildings are going to have to be taken care of. The reform council is going to resolve that. We are going to try to preserve the jobs of all of these people. We are going to organize this thing quickly. Unrented Houses Here is something important; we are now rapidly investigating all of the apartments that have been left vacant in an attempt to frustrate the law and to mock the law. This is something that was done by those people who were waiting for the counterrevolution to come and they are now trying to let their friends have these available apartment units and in this way they are trying to mock the law. This is why all the neighbors should call the following number: 7-3772. (Voices from the background and Fidel asks: "What's going on?"). Yes, 7-3772. Has everybody got a pencil handy? (Many reply: yes.) In the houses likewise? Yes, 7-3772 and 7-5088. Let me repeat those numbers: 7-3772 and 7-5088. That is the Public Works Administration which ought to get all of the reports you might have on vacant apartments, because some people already are beginning to lock these apartments and we have heard of two cases where some people sneaked in anyway and took over these apartments. (Laughter) No, let me correct that; they did not have a lease; in other words, anybody who gets in fraudulently does not have any right to that space. We must prevent those who control these apartments now from mocking the law; everybody ought to pass on any information he has on any vacant apartments so that the Reform Council may check into this and so that these apartments can be distributed to other people; I know that a lot of people complained that there were empty apartments at a time while many people are looking for apartments and still other apartments are being rented out furnished by these people. Problems Solved And so, all of these problems have been solved once and for all by the law. And I want to ask you all to give your full cooperation to the Ministry of Public Works so that we may properly take care of the question of these houses and the unrented apartments. Pardo Llada: We have another little question here on... Fidel: Hey, watch out, you are making Carlos Rafael very unhappy here. (Laughter) Pardo Llada: This is still on this law; this is still on the law... Pardo Llada: All right, there is something I read here -- I don't recall the article -- and it concerns something which may not be important at all. Fidel: I think that the fellow who has become the legal consultant here is you, buddy. (Laughter) You have studied the law here, have you? Pardo Llada: Well, there is an article here, I don't know which one exactly it is, but it says that you can pay the mortgage or the amortization during the 5 years or 8 years, depending which year is applicable, or anybody who so desires can pay off an advance. Fidel: All right, anybody who has the money and who wants to pay this off quickly, can do so; that is perfectly all right and nobody will prevent him from doing that. Pardo Llada: All right, Carlos Rafael, you have the floor. (laughter) Wanguemort: All right, let's go, Dr Carlos Rafael Rodriguez. Carlos Rafael: All right, let us now take up the other aspect of the counterattack. Now, of the three laws which have made history in recent days, two pertain to nationalization and one to the complete nationalization of the banks. Fidel: All right, except for the Canadian banks, and people want to know why, and if they want to know why, then I will explain it: very simply because those two banks are rendering a great service to the government, an international service, in facilitating the commercial operations, imports and exports, etc; in other words, these banks are handling all of the payment transactions and they are really rendering the revolution a service, through their home offices in Canada and this is why we have made an exception with those two banks. They are not covered by the law and they are operating on the basis of agreements which we have arrived at with those two banks, in other words, on the basis of conversations and this is why they were excluded from the law by virtue of the functions which they are performing through their home offices. That is the reason why those two banks will continue to be exempt from the law. Law for the Defense of the Economy In other words, we realize that we must come out with a law which will take all of these facts into consideration so that we can develop the entire revolutionary process and so that we can utilize all of the means and facilities that present themselves. This is the reason why those two Canadian banks were not included in the law. There are other houses which were excluded from the nationalization law. Some people might ask themselves why Sears, why the Ten Cent stores. Well, for a very simply reason; although these are United States companies, they are subject to the law for the defense of the national economy; this legislation is different from the other one. These enterprises are subject to these provisions and they have been nationalized along with the various acts of aggression that have been directed against us and they are subject to legislation which has already been created in this respect, and this is the only reason why they are not included in this particular law and this is actually a new legislation, intended to cover cases other than those covered earlier. This is also a law for the defense of the national economy but it concerns enterprises which are not foreign, in other words, Cuban enterprises. They are not national enterprises, simply because some people say: how come we are nationalizing all of these national enterprises? No, to nationalize means to put something under the control of the nation. They were private enterprises owned by Cuban citizens or they were Cuban organizations, but they are not national enterprises, and this is why we have here a law for the nationalization of enterprises which were not national enterprises but which were owned by individuals. These are two different things here, these are two different laws, and we shouldn't worry too much about that. If they keep continuing their economic aggression against us, we are going to keep on nationalizing United States enterprises, in accordance with that legislation. Now, is that all clear? Carlos R. Rodriguez: Perfectly. Fidel: All right, because people keep asking questions about these points. Carlos R. Rodriguez: Now, referring to that nationalization, Major, and to the earlier process of interventions, there are people in Cuba, they are very well known and they have good connections, and some of them left Cuba and they are now doing a lot of talking outside the country, in other words, these are people who do not and did not have the courage to say all these things here, people who have been saying that the government is going to take everything, that the government is going to nationalize everything, that it is going to get its hands on everything, that nobody is going to own anything here... (Applause) Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen of the television audience, this applause was intended for some individuals who have just entered the studio, the President of Guinea, Mr Sekou Toure, accompanied by his suite, the members of the delegation of the Republic of Guinea, who are in Havana right now and who have just signed a cultural relations pact with the revolutionary government. The studio audience has given this clamorous ovation to these men. (The audience gives the visitors a standing ovation.) President Sekow Toure of Guinea did not come earlier to attend this broadcast of our "Meet the Press" program because he was indisposed. Dr Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, please continue. Dr Carlos Rafael Rodriguez: As I said before, some people, who are quite well known, have been propagating the idea that the government is interfering in everything, that it is nationalizing everything, and that it is intervening in everything. Gradually, as you read this nationalization law, you can see that this involves enterprises of a certain type and a certain size. Furthermore, the law itself establishes that the government is determined to give guarantees and facilities to modest-size entrepreneurs, something which is tied in -- and this is why I want to ask you once again about this -- something that is tied in with the protection which the government has just given to merchants through the law and to certain small industrialists through the housing law. What is the strategy here and what is the government's view on this problem of the medium-sized entrepreneurs, whom the law covers, however without specifying anything here in greater detail? Fidel: All right, look here, sometime ago we were confronted with certain difficulties that were due precisely to those campaigns and to that state of fear which is a consequence of some of the measures taken by the revolution. Two Historic Days About a month ago, in the CTC auditorium, I talked about this and explained that we did not want to intervene in everything, that this was done on many occasions against our will; in other words, we found ourselves forced to intervene in some industries, as a result of production sabotage, as a result of deliberately created conflicts; besides, in many cases we did not have enough personnel and cadres and that forced us to adopt certain measures quite against our will. I remember that, the other day, some people approached me and explained to me that it was all very well to make all these statements, because I wanted to explain the policy of the revolutionary government in all sincerity, in other words, the policy that we did not want to take everything over, and that those interventions occurred many times against our will. But, in the matter of intervention in small, very small businesses, as well as big businesses, the best thing is for me to explain the line here because this is one of the points which I have to take up here tonight. There are two essential things here: one, the future line of the revolution, so that everybody will know what to expect; two, the program which the revolution has accomplished so far. I believe that these two days have certainly been two historical days on the basis of what we have accomplished in terms of the Moncada program, which has been the document that guided the conduct of the revolutionary government and the document, or the principles, that guide the conduct of the revolutionary government right now. Now, let us talk quite clearly and very frankly about this problem of the first 20 months of the revolutionary government: let us say that we have made some mistakes. Why? Because we wanted to make them? No: Because we were able to avoid them? Well, let me tell you, that we could not have avoided them. The government simply inherited too many problems: a revolution is a highly complex process, especially when that revolution has to be accomplished against an empire as powerful as the Yankee empire, which is only 90 miles from our coast. In the midst of this struggle, in the midst of all this sabotage, we had to confront extremely difficult conditions, and the country's reserves were exhausted. We had the task of making a country out of nothing, of developing an underdeveloped country, of satisfying the one thousand and one necessities of our people; and in the midst of that struggle, we had to go on, with new men, many of them devoid of any experience, men whom we had to train as we went along, cadres whom we had to develop during this entire process. And so, we could not avoid these mistakes. Those who are angry over some of the errors which the revolution has committed, must try to understand that we could not avoid those errors, we could not humanly avoid them, because we did do everything possible to avoid them. However, we have not been able to avoid them. Nobody can reproach us that we have not worked and that we have not made every effort; many of us even have sacrificed our health through overwork which we had to do during the first few months of the revolutionary government, the 20 months during which we have had our revolutionary government. Interventions Were Necessary And so, these errors were inevitable. But we did commit them. We had to give authority to a number of functionaries, on the various levels of the public administration, in order to carry out the agrarian reform and in order to make sure that this agrarian reform would not be mocked; it was necessary to carry out a number of interventions involving land and property. There came a moment at which almost all government agencies intervened; the Ministry of Labor intervened, on the basis of the law, in order to resolve labor conflicts; the INRA intervened, the 30 INRA development zone chiefs intervened; the Department of People's Stores intervened; the Department of Housing Construction intervened; the Ministry of Commerce intervened; the Ministry of Transportation intervened; and so, there came a moment when intervention was a generalized attribute in all government agencies. And even though many interventions were justified, there were many cases of unjustified interventions. In some cases, a fisherman who had 2 or 3 boats, was intervened; or a truck was intervened; or a tractor was intervened; this is not the same as intervening 50 tractors from a United states landowner, from a big landowner company; it is certainly not the same as intervening one tractor from one man because the zone chief or some cooperative administrator needed that tractor in order to do his work. And this is how we had a series of unjustified interventions, ill-advised interventions, which did not involve big property owners nor big landowners, but small property owners, humble people, in other words, and this is how these injustices were committed. Yes, these were injustices, these were mistakes which we could not avoid and we must be honest enough to admit this here. We fought against this sort of thing but it was not easy to eliminate this. Why? Because, on the one hand, we were fighting against the proliferation of interventions; on the other hand, interventions were indispensable in other places as a result of the acts of sabotage in our production establishment, as a result of the reactionary attitudes on the part of businessmen and owners. I can give you an example her: the Ministry of Agriculture is, for instance, responsible for large-scale crop dusting, using air-craft; it consulted us as to whether it should take over private crop dusting planes. And we told them: "No, buddy; we are going to have to buy these, to the extent that they can be purchased, and we are going to have to try to find some other way and we are not going to intervene anything here." And this is how it was done. But in the meantime, 4 of those crop-dusting planes were flown to Miami, along with their owners and some pilots, old-line veteran pilots, and some other individuals. So, you see, that it is difficult to work out a policy here and we did have to contend with the obstacles which the saboteurs and counterrevolutionaries created for us. A Principle of Fair Rectification However, we are not going to abandon our idea here and we are going to continue with this effort. Now, what about the aircraft? Well, here it is necessary to work out some sort of agreement with the owners so that we can settle this matter without having to take the aircraft over. Sometimes there is an immediate need; however, we have already adopted a policy and with these three laws we are actually closing out one phase of the revolution; with these three laws we are closing a phase which perhaps was a decisive and fundamental phase of the revolution and we are beginning a new phase in the revolution now -- and this is very important to keep in mind. In the first phase we had to take drastic measures; this drastic procedure in many cases led to excesses in terms of authority and duty performance; and this excess in terms of official functions and authority led to errors and injustices. Now, we must begin to correct those errors. For example you can see that the urban reform law was a law which could be studied more thoroughly in some details; here we were able to take into consideration the cases of small-scale owners, cases which were not covered by the agrarian reform law; we still have many cases of small ranch or farm owners who derived an income from their farm or ranch property. For example, we are going to begin to correct a number of situations here, we are going to have available half a million every 6 months to pay the bonds which are due the poorest and most humble families which have been covered by the agrarian reform law in those small plots of land which were given to the farmers as their own property. (Applause) Now, this is a principle of fair rectification. Why? Because we are the government, because the people embodies revolutionary power, and because the people is strong. And when the revolutionary government makes a mistake, anybody who may be a victim of such a mistake, has no one else to go to but the revolutionary government and this is why the revolutionary government must be fair and when a mistake is made, when an injustice is committed, it must be corrected -- because this is the source from which the people always expect justice to come and we want to make sure that the interests of a modest man of the people are properly protected through this justice. Indemnity Claim Bureau The term "justice" here of course does not mean a claim by a speculator who exploits the people, a foreign monopoly, but we always believe that it will be only fair to take up the claim of humble people who always expect justice to come from the revolutionary government. There are many cases -- perhaps there are not too many of them -- but there are cases of people who have been affected by revolutionary measures, people who were in rather moderate circumstances. We are going to correct these injustices and we are going to set up an indemnity claim bureau for persons who lost a truck or a tractor or some small property, in other words, people who claim indemnification, up to certain limits, of course. We are going to set up this office so that everybody who has been involved in this manner as a result of any of these measures, which may have been wrong or excessive, anybody whose interests have been affected in this way, will be able to file a claim. Third: I want to declare here that the revolution has accomplished the first phase and that it is now entering a new phase; I want to state here that the methods of the first phase necessarily were methods that were different from those of the second phase. The methods of the first phase had to be drastic; we could not go on temporizing in other treatment of the foreign monopolies; we could not hesitate in our approach to the big estates and the big privileges; we very simply and plainly had to liquidate the big estates and the big privileges: we had to liquidate the economic power of a minority which controlled the economy and the politics of the country and which had abused this economic and political power, which it had in its hands, and which had exploited the people through this power. The economic and political power of the big privileges in Cuba has been eliminated. The privileged minority in our country has been liquidated as a political and economic power. The economic and political power of the minority has been liquidated and the people now hold these powers; in our view, the term "people" is a very broad concept. As this filters down toward the most humble sectors of the people, the number will increase. There are many activities which are antisocial and which are carried out by persons who are not member of the privileged minority but who have been doing this sort of thing as part of the social system which we had and they constitute a rather large group and we certainly have to reckon with them too. We feel that it is necessary to abolish the rental system; in other words, rents such as they have been paid so far; however, we are taking into account the interests of all those families which live on a small income because it is our duty to take this into account and to indemnify those interests in a fair and satisfactory manner. During the new phase of the revolution, there will be no more drastic measures of an economic or social nature. Why? Because those who used to control the economy of the country, those who held the greatest power, a power that was primarily of an economic nature, have been removed from the scene by virtue of the measures taken by the revolution. That leaves the people as such and this still involves numerous interests. During the second phase of the revolution, the measures are not going to be drastic, in terms of economic and social measures, that is. If we do find ourselves forced to adopt a drastic method, then this will be for revolutionary reasons, in defense of the revolution, against those who conspire, against those who link up with imperialism, against those who join the enemies of the fatherland; but these measures will not be taken for reasons of an economic or social nature. And this is why I want to declare, right here and now, in the name of the revolutionary government, that the first phase of the revolution has been accomplished and that the revolution now enters a second phase whose methods will be different, in terms of economic and social transformation. There will be no drastic methods and no interests will be liquidated. Whenever any economic or social measure that may have to be taken happens to affect some interests, the revolution will take these interests into account, it will talk to those interest groups, it will always try to find a fair and satisfactory solution and it wants to see to it that anybody who, because of any economic or social measures taken by the revolution, may be in any way affected, will be properly satisfied. Phase of Tranquility and Security The revolution faces a great task; it has the task of industrializing the country and promoting the agrarian reform program; it must develop the country's agriculture, it must develop our educational system and it must, in other words, promote both economic and social development. We have the resources, we have the means, we have the financial power of the country, we have the financial resources of the country -- in our hands; we have the natural resources of the country in our hands; we have the basic and fundamental industries of the country in the hands of the revolution; and foreign trade is in the hands of the revolution; transportation is in the hands of the revolution; public services are in the hands of the revolution. The revolution now has all of the resources with which it can rapidly and successfully develop its programs in the economic field and in the social field and it can therefore offer guarantees to all of the interests in the middle sectors and small sectors in the country. Let me state this somewhat more clearly: for example, on the basis of the law for the nationalization of 382 enterprises, which had to be nationalized, we could not conclude this first phase of the revolution without nationalizing the banks, without nationalizing the fundamental enterprises in this respect and without promulgating the urban reform law. After these points, which belong to the first phase of the revolution, had been taken care of, we were able to launch a phase of tranquility and security for everybody. Let me give you an example here. Take the case of a lady who runs a beauty parlor; now when this law came out, she thought that her beauty parlor was going to be taken away and that it was going to be nationalized. Many urban businesses, small businesses, now began to worry whether small urban businesses were going to be liquidated, whether people's stores would be set up also in the city, whether small factories and small businesses were going to be liquidated by the revolution. The revolution does not have to liquidate those businesses. Let me put it this way: Right now, the country is in a situation in which everybody has to pitch in: and that includes all of the small businessmen, all of the small industrialists, all of the medium-sized farmers, and what they and we, together, have to do is to see to it that everybody puts their shoulders to the wheel in order to accomplish the great programs of economic and social development of our country. Intervention Policy Will Change In other words, the lady beauty parlor operator, who was so worried yesterday that her beauty parlor might be nationalized, today is entitled to the benefits of the urban reform law because this law gives her rights, possibly to the business premises for which she now pays rent; she might also possibly benefit with respect to her home and, furthermore, she will have the security, the feeling that she will not have to worry anymore about her beauty parlor. This intervention policy is going to change. Intervention now will be an exceptional measure and this thing is always going to have to be approved, ahead of time, by the planning board; in other words, many of the government officials, who had been intervening without prior consultation, will now find their attributes cut in this respect. We are going to centralize these functions and we are going to set up a requirement to the effect that the Central Planning Board will have to be consulted first of all and, above all, this will always be an exceptional, an extraordinary measure. Now, everybody has to work together in this: the people, the workers; in other words, whenever a conflict springs up, the policy will be to try to arrive at some reconciliation, to try to find a solution without intervention, and that will apply to the whole country, without exception: it will include the peasants and the workers, the people, the small industrialists, the small businessmen, everybody, and all of them will have to combine their efforts; and this is the wisest, the most intelligent, the most patriotic, and the most revolutionary policy which we can promote at this moment. This is good for the country and this is what the country must do. The revolutionary government gives this guarantee in connection with the methods to be pursued during the new phase of the revolutionary government; it gives the guarantee that these interventions are going to stop and that they will be instituted only as an exception, when there is no other remedy; the revolutionary government guarantees that all interests, which are affected by any revolutionary-type measure, will receive satisfactory treatment and complete indemnification; the revolutionary government guarantees that the revolution has arrived at a point on its road, a point in its advance, a point in the development of its power and which it does not in any way at all have to fall back on drastic measures aimed against the interests of the medium or small sectors of our country. People's Stores Now, as far as the merchants in the city are concerned, we have no plan of establishing people's stores in the cities; I would like to explain this situation to them: the people's stores were initially started in the mountains, where exploitation was really tremendous, because the small businessmen were in turn exploited by the big outfits which sold merchandise to them at high prices and which were making a tremendous profit; and the small merchants in turn sold the merchandise at even higher prices, in other words, there was a tremendous markup. This institution was established in an effort to protect the people in the mountain regions. Then it was necessary to expand this to other rural sectors because the merchants simply pulled out when the first people's stores were established. It was necessary to take over the distribution of merchandise throughout the entire rural zone and we always warned these merchants not to move to the cities. Why? Well, we have a large number of merchants and businessmen in the city; in an underdeveloped country, such as ours, you have a tremendous proliferation of all kinds of small businesses because everybody who does not have a job or who does not find employment simply invents something to which he can devote his time, even though it may just be a hot dog stand or fruit stand or even though he might just sell potato chips or something like that; there are small towns along the highways where everybody is a merchant and where-everybody lives by selling to everybody else; these are numerically large groups which we must take into account here; there are many people doing this kind of work. The introduction of the people's stores in the cities would not only be unnecessary but would also create unemployment; it would create social maladjustments; it would deprive numerous city merchants, small businessmen, of their incomes. This is why this measure is unnecessary. We would simply be creating an obstacle to the revolution if we were to institute that measure here in the city. The revolution has control over foreign export trade as well as imports; it controls the big warehouses and department stores and the banks; the revolution is not at all interested in that distribution machinery so long as the distribution system in the city adjusts itself to fair and reasonable prices. They can indeed contribute to the advance of the revolution and the revolution can also contribute to the solution of the problems of many of those small businessmen and small merchants. We are not at all interested in this. The people's stores will not yield any income to the government, virtually none at all, because these stores will always sell at moderate prices and this is only fair because wages in the rural areas are much lower, much lower than in the cities; and all of these measures which we have taken in the rural areas will tend to prove the living conditions on the farms. It Would Be a Mistake to Ruin Small Businesses American commercial companies, such as "Minimax" and some other big outfits that were nationalized by the government were not converted into people's stores; they were continued as a commercial outfit, with the prices they had earlier; many of them sold their merchandise in high-income sections and there was no need to lower those prices; these price levels were maintained ad we only try to improve the quality, we tried to keep them well supplied with all products and we did not want to establish prices that would wipe out small businesses in the city. This is the policy we have pursued. Now, a series of department stores have been nationalized. What policy are we going to pursue in this respect? Are we going to cut prices so that all of the other stores would be wiped out? No, we are going to maintain those prices; those prices will serve as an income for the government to support the economic and social development plans of the revolution. It would be a mistake to wipe out small businesses which remain now, and there are quite a few of them, and at the same time we would be renouncing incomes which should be invested in order to create more factories, to build housing units and to build more schools -- in other words, this would be renounced perhaps to the benefit of some of the high-level sectors. This is a policy which anybody can understand perfectly well and I certainly hope that everybody will understand it. These department stores, for example, "El Encanto," now how are we going to handle that? Are we going to cut prices there? No! "El Encanto" carries lots of brand-name articles and it has its own price range and the people who buy there want to walk away with the "El Encanto" label and they pay for that label and that outfit will maintain its quality and so the people will be able to buy all of the things they like there, all of the things they have been buying there in the past. This will be a department store under government administration and the government, in administering it, will uphold all of the characteristics of that department store. And the sales girls there, at "El Encanto" and at "Fin de Siglo" -- those sales girls are very nice to look at and very lovable and I am sure they will continue to treat everybody in style there. (Applause) That is the policy we are going to implement in the cities; and nationalized establishment, any type of business which may be established to meet the new necessities will be administered on the basis of this criterion, in other words, we are going to have a price level here which will not wipe out the urban businessman. Need to Fight Against Speculation The small urban businessman can contribute to the revolution by fighting against speculation, by not helping in the speculative activities of those who hoard merchandise in order to jack prices up, he can help by adjusting himself to a reasonable profit level which will make it possible to keep all of these places of employment open. On the other hand, we can do much more here. For example, the big outfits were strangulating the little outfits. We have liquidated big outfits and we are not going to strangulate anybody now. The banks, many of the banks had stopped giving loans and the small businessmen were left without any credit and on some occasions without any merchandise or they sold their merchandise at high prices. In other words, we can and we propose to control the financial machinery of the country: the banks, first of all, and we want to facilitate credit for all of the small industrialists and businessmen so that we can help them extricate themselves out of the situation in which they are in as a result of having lost their credit and all the other difficulties they are in, through the biggest stores and chains which are now under the control of the government and, furthermore, in accordance with the needs of the small stores which remain, we are going to work out a credit policy and we are going to enable them to get merchandise, that is to say, we are going to liberate them from strangulation by the big interests. Now the government is running the banks and the government will distribute loans in accordance with the interests of the country; we are going to give loans to industries that need loans, we are going to give credit to small businessmen who need it, we are going to give credit to farms that need credit. In other words, we are going to divide this into three branches: one bank for foreign trade, one bank for agricultural loans, and another branch will handle industrial and commercial credit, and then there will be no more need for sponsors, no more need for influence, no more need for cutthroat competition. Through the banks, the revolutionary government is prepared to facilitate loans to small industries, to small businesses, it is prepared to help them obtain merchandise and it is prepared to help them get out of the difficulties in which they are in, because the revolutionary government has no interest whatever and no reason whatever to liquidate those interests. The revolution faces a big task and we can invite everybody who wants to join to develop this great task of the revolution -- mark my words well: we can invite everybody who wants to join -- and those who are dragging their feet on the road here have two alternatives: they can either resign themselves to the situation and go away or they can stay here and they can even apply for a pension -- I said that earlier. Power in the Hands of the People Those who still have their businesses, their factories, their industries can continue working and they should go on working. I am talking very clearly here now and the facts tend to demonstrate what I am saying: anybody who keeps pitching in today has a great chance of joining the revolution. Power is in the hands of the people, in the hands of the humble sectors of the people; power is in the hands of the peasant masses, the worker masses, the mass of humble people and it is very solidly in their hands; but the people will not allow this power to be used arbitrarily; it will not use it to destroy other sectors; instead, it invites those sectors -- whose interests in no one obstruct the great program of the revolution -- join in the effort of the people; the people, in turn, will help those sectors purify themselves in terms of the big exploiters, the big chain store operators, the big loan businesses, the big money-grabbers. But if you analyze the situation carefully, you will see that we have liberated them also; we have given them the right to permanent status and we have given them something more than this right to permanent existence here: the right to retain property of those real estate and other holdings. We can give them credit, we can facilitate their operation. In turn, they can collaborate with the revolution and add their efforts to the effort of the revolution. I believe that these statements are very clear and very understandable and that they express the future policy of the revolutionary government. Let them not create any more obstacles on the way, let them not believe in a return to the past; there is nobody who can throw this machine of the revolution into reverse. We have gotten this machine going in such a way that nobody will ever reverse it. (Applause) The small businessman has no reason to make common cause with the big chain store operator who exploits him, with the money-grabber who exploits him, with the big loan firm that exploits him; the small industrialist has no reason to make common cause with those who exploited him, nor does he have any reason to be afraid; I have spoken very clearly and I have stated what the policy of the revolution is going to be and I have invited these businessmen and I have explained to them what the situation is and what our reasons are behind our actions. We want to establish the right to security for all citizens of the country, all of those who do not simply want to sit down on the road of revolution. We Have Done What We Promised The right to security means that those people who have their interests here can continue functioning; if any of their interests are affected in any way, they will get entirely satisfactory indemnification, without any drastic methods, because drastic methods are the methods which the revolution used against the big interests. And I want to tell them quite sincerely that this is a great opportunity for them to differentiate themselves from the big privileges, the big interests, whom we have on one side and the rest of the people, on the other side. On the one hand, we have those who join the enemies of the fatherland, those who conspire against the fatherland; on the other hand we have all those who are prepared to serve their country. This is the most important thing that I want to say here today; this is the policy to be followed by all of those interests and by the people. Everybody knows that I have always talked very frankly in explaining these things and I issued an appeal to the Marine veterans to stay, even though there are some fellows who take off with their rifles. I believe that anybody who talks as frankly as I do does not have to use any tricks in making sure that everybody will be convinced as to the sincerity of his statements. Furthermore, we are men who have done what we promised to do. Nobody believes that the world will collapse because of the revolutionary laws. We have smashed a few empires of course. Here, for example, you have a family -- I am not going to mention the name because I do not want to irritate anybody here -- well, that family had 7 sugar refineries, one bank, 8,000 caballerias of land, railroads, a pier, and cattle; others had thousands of homes and houses; others had 5 sugar plantations, big apartment houses, business houses, etc, in other words, they had fortunes of up to 200 million pesos. Did you all know that? It is difficult to accumulate a fortune as big as this, honorably, by the sweat of your brow. It seems to me that it would take an awful lot of brow;s sweat to accumulate 200 million or perhaps even 150 million only. Now some of these people, some of these families, might be included among those who are going to have to ask for a government pension. (Laughter) But that is not very likely either because they have money abroad. They all have money abroad, they all have foreign currency abroad. And so their world does not collapse. But on the other hand, we have created much justice through the revolutionary laws. We have made some mistakes. We will correct those mistakes; but the revolutionary measures will remain, they are eternal! We will correct the mistakes because this is our duty, because the government must be just and because, being the revolutionary government, this power must be within the reach of anyone who believes that he has been unjustly treated; it is the duty of this government to make sure that every citizen feels secure. However, the revolutionary government will be very severe with those who betray the country; it will be severe with those who conspire against the revolution because the revolution has every intention of continuing on, it has every intention of lasting, and it will be just toward all those citizens of the country, all of those honest citizens who want to work and who love their country. Yesterday's Dreams Are Reality Today Today, we have accomplished one phase. In 20 months of revolutionary government, we have accomplished the Moncada program, which in many aspects is already outdated. We now have a series of ideas here; these ideas are much more precise and much clearer today. The problems which we were viewing at that time from a distance we can today see with greater clarity and with greater certainty because we have more experience and because the facts have demonstrated that the dreams of yesterday can become realities. This is why Marti at one time -- when they called him a dreamer -- said that "the true practical man was the man who did not try to find out where you could live best but where his duty was and he was the only practical man whose dreams of today will be the laws of tomorrow." Our dreams of yesterday have been the laws of today and we have even been able to improve on some of these ideas, we have been able to do this, for instance, through our urban reform law, which is quite complete in many respects; and we have carried out the ideas which we developed in the past. Many governments in the past have been offering programs to the country but nothing was ever done. Perhaps this is why nobody believed us when we launched a modest program, without any pretense to perfection in basic conception and in terms of the solutions we proposed. But we did come out with our program, a clear program. And this is all spelled out in various documents. Sometime ago, I said that the revolution was a revolution of the humble people, by the humble people and for the humble people; I also talked about the school cities in other declarations and, finally, I discussed all of the measures which the revolution is taking. Today I can say with satisfaction that this program has been carried out. Many people did not believe in this program and this is why they are very astonished today; but they need not be astonished because we did not make any compromise with the big landowners, nor the big exploiters, nor the monopolies, nor the foreign interests that were plundering the country's economy; nor did we compromise with robbery and politicking and corruption. We did however pledge to put an end to all of the abuses and to fight side by side with the people; the only ones we did not betray were the people; the only ones we did not betray were the dead of the revolution and they were the only ones we could possibly have betrayed because they were the only ones toward whom we had obligations; we had pledged ourselves to the people and we had given our pledge to the revolution and we redeemed those pledges. Let Us Always Speak Clearly Today, for example, I happened to be glancing over the speech to the civic institutions, when I stated that we, in this country, had been lied to so many times that we had become accustomed to living with falsehood and this is why nobody listened to us when we spoke the truth. In that speech, 2 months after the victory of the revolution, I spoke very clearly and it is certainly worth taking another look at what I said there, because I analyzed all of the problems in education, in the economy, agriculture, housing, etc, problems which have been solved today. The audience applauded and here is what I said at that time. I talked about all topics and of course I cannot re-read that speech here but I was at that time addressing the representatives of the middle sectors of the population and I talked with my customary clarity; but above all I was very clear on the date as to the start of the revolutionary struggle, when I talked to the people, when I mentioned the 600,000 Cubans who were unemployed, the 500,000 farm workers who were living in shacks and who had no land, the industrial workers, the small farmers, the teachers, in other words, all of those sectors that needed the revolution. Here is what I said at that time: "That is the people, the people who suffer today and who are still capable of fighting courageously. Now, we are not going to make any false promises to the people, we are going to try to fool people; we are not going to tell them: 'we are going to give you what you want'; instead, we are going to tell them: 'here you are, and now fight with all your strength so that you will have freedom and happiness,'" And this is exactly what we did. What the People Won We did not say: "We are going to give you something," instead, we said: "here you are, fight as hard as you can for your freedom and your happiness." And I can say this again: here you are, you poor farmer, here is your land; here you are, you poor peasant, here are your schools and your hospitals; here you are, all of you people, here are the fortresses converted into schools; here you have your houses and your beaches and your factories, factories that used to belong to the foreign monopolies; here you have your electric power company, your telephone company, here you have your refinery, here are your factories, because in the old days you had nothing and today you have these things, today you have everything we were able to give you, today you have something worth fighting for. In other words, these were not promises, these were realities, and the people had something to fight for; the people now have something to defend and we believe in this, we believe that when you give the people something, when you give the people a chance they will respond and then the people will be ready to defend what they have gained. On that occasion I discussed the law which would once and for all give property title of the land to all the small farmers, the tenant farmers, the sharecroppers, the farm laborers, etc, who can now work these plots of land on the basis of the title which we have freely given them. We talked about the confiscation of the property of the wrong-doers; we talked about the agrarian reform, the general educational reform, the nationalization of the electric power trust and the telephone trust, the land problem, the problem of industrialization, and here is a paragraph in which I said this: "The problem of land, the problem of industrialization, the problem of housing, the problem of unemployment, the problem of education, and the problem of public health -- here are six points whose solution we are resolutely working toward with all our strength." And then I said, "that perhaps all of this might be a little bit theoretical and cold but it is important in view of the reality of the situation." And I said: "today, 85% of the agricultural workers are paying rent and they live under the constant threat of being kicked off their land; more than half of the best farm land is in foreign hands. In Oriente, the smallest province, the land of the United Fruit Company and the West Indian Company runs from the north coast to the south coast; there are 200 peasant families who do not have a single square foot of land where they can plant food for their children. On the other hand, vast areas of land are uncultivated." The Country Cannot Live on Its Knees I discussed the housing problem: "we have 200,000 shacks and hovels in Cuba; 400,000 rural families and city families live in slums, without even the most elementary hygienic and health facilities; 2.2 million people among our urban population, pay rent that takes up one-fifth and perhaps even one-third of the income and 2.8 million of our rural population and our suburban population do not have electric light." "But here, we have the same situation; if the government proposes to lower the rents, the owners threaten to paralyze all construction; if the government abstains, the owners build so long as they can get a high rental income; and if this is not so, then they would not lay a single brick, even if the rest of the people might live out in the open, exposed to the weather." I discussed the problem of education and here is what I said: "the future of the nation and the solution of its problems cannot continue to depend on the egotistical interests of a dozen big finance operators, the cold calculations on profits which they figure out in their airconditioned offices -- these 10 or 12 big businessmen and tycoons. The country cannot continue to live on its knees, praying for miracles; there are no miracles of this kind." "The problems of the republic can be solved only if we dedicate ourselves to the struggle for the republic with the same energy, honesty, and patriotism as did our liberators, in creating the republic. And we cannot accomplish this with statesmen such as Carlos Saladrigas whose policy consisted in leaving everything the way it was; we cannot go on prattling about absolute freedom of enterprise, guarantees for investment capital, and the law of supply and demand -- as if that would solve all of our problems." "In one of those big mansions on 5th Avenue, those ministers can talk all they want, but this will not solve any urgent problems." "In the world of today," I said, "in that world of today, no problem is ever solved spontaneously. A revolutionary government with the support of the people and the respect of the nation can clean out the institutions and can throw out corrupt officials and then it can immediately proceed to the industrialization of the country, mobilizing all of the resources of the nation and carefully studying and managing and planning and carrying out this tremendous task through technicians and men of absolute competence." "A revolutionary government can make 100,000 small farmers, who pay rent today, the owners of this land and it can once and for all solve the land problem. It can do this first of all by establishing -- as specified in the constitution -- a certain maximum area of land for each type of agricultural enterprise -- and by acquiring any excess through expropriation, reclaiming the land usurped from the state, draining the swamps, planting food crops, and setting aside areas for reforestation, distributing the rest among the peasant families, with preference being given to the largest families here, developing agricultural cooperatives for the joint utilization of refrigeration facilities, under the same technical and professional leadership in terms of crop cultivation and animal husbandry and, finally, helping these people get the necessary resources, equipment, protection, and useful know-how." "A revolutionary government will resolve the housing problem resolutely cutting rents by 50%, giving tax exemptions to homeowners who live in the houses in which they rent space, tripling the taxes on rented houses, demolishing the infernal slums in order to build new buildings, financing construction for housing of all kinds throughout the inland on an unparalleled scale; this is based on the ideal concept that every family in the rural areas should have its own piece of land and that every family in the city should live in its own home or apartment. We have enough stones and enough strong arms to build a decent housing unit for each Cuban family." Train the Generations "Finally, a revolutionary government will launch a general educational reform, in order to provide the proper education and training for the future generations who are called upon to live in a happier fatherland." This program not only has been accomplished, it has also been developed and further advanced. In reality we have done many more things. At that time, we were not yet thinking about the juvenile revolutionary labor brigades which are a reality today, about the volunteer teachers who are also a reality today in all of the rural areas of Cuba; we talked about converting the city of Columbia into a big school city -- and here you have the Columbia encampment which has become the "Liberty" school city, with dormitories for 2,000 poor university students and with classrooms with spaces for more than 10,000 students. But we have not only converted the military city of Columbia, we have also converted the barracks of all of the regiments of the republic and a large number of other military barracks throughout the island. Here you have the dormitories for 4,500 university scholarship students, two university cities which are being built, and a third one which we are going to construct. Here you have 10,000 classrooms created by the revolution, 25,000 homes built, during that period of time, and 50 housing developments have already been finished all over the island; you have your public beaches; and finally, you have many things which, at that time, had not even entered the minds of that group of revolutionaries -- but today they are a reality in our country. Thus the program, which has been accomplished, is being perfected in every way possible, it has been adjusted to the realities of our country, and we can certainly derive satisfaction from the fact that we can step before the people today and say that we have kept our promise. This document guided the management of the revolution during the first stage. Those who said that they were "disillusioned" did not tell us why; well, we told them why (laughter); and we explained why, simply because they did not believe in what we were saying, because they thought that the revolution could be bogged down; they thought that they could corrupt the men of the revolution; they believed that we were just talking and that we did not mean it. But when words were turned into reality, then they claimed that they were "disappointed." Yes, indeed, disappointed they were! They thought that we were just lying and this is why they were disappointed! They thought that there would never be an agrarian reform and this is why they were disappointed! They thought that there would never be an urban reform and this is why they were disappointed! They believed that the army of the interests would never be destroyed and this is why they were disappointed! They believed that the fortresses would never be converted into schools and this is why they were disappointed! They believed that there would never be a people in arms but now we do have a people in arms and this is why they are disappointed! They believed that no revolution could resist imperialism but the revolution does resist imperialism and this is why they are disappointed! This is why they call the leaders of the revolution traitors, in other words, the men who have made good on their promises, the men who have kept faith with the people. Each Family Has a Right to Housing That was the fundamental document of the revolution. Today, the revolution has a new document, a document which was approved by the people at the National General Assembly: The Havana Declaration; these are the principles of the Havana Declaration which was not a program put out by a group of men but rather the synthesis of all of the aspirations of an entire nation, expressed in that document, where we proclaim the rights and the duties of the human being and of the people. Today there is another right which we can add to that declaration: each family's right to decent housing. Here is what the declaration says: "the right of all peasants to land; the right of the worker to the fruit of his labor; the right of children to education; the right of the sick to medical and hospital assistance; the right of the young to work; the right of the students to free education, both experimental and scientific; the right of the negroes and the Indians to full human dignity; the right of women to civil, social, and political equality; the right of the old people to a secure old age; the right of intellectuals, artists, and scientists to struggle for a better world through their works; the right of the states to the nationalization of the imperialist monopolies, thus recovering the wealth and resources of the nation; the right of countries to free trade with all peoples of the world; the right of nations to full sovereignty; the right of the people to convert their military fortresses into schools and to arm their workers, peasants, students, and intellectuals, the negroes and Indians and the women and the youths and the old people, all of the oppressed and exploited, so that they can by themselves defend their rights and their destiny." And so we have created one more right: the right of each family to decent housing; and so we are expanding and developing the ideal of our revolution which has been specifically spelled out in these rights and duties, condemning what we must condemn: "The National General Assembly of the people of Cuba, finally, condemns the exploitation of man by man and the exploitation of the underdeveloped countries by imperialist finance capital. The National General Assembly of the people of Cuba condemns big land holdings, the source of misery of the peasants and a backward and inhuman system of agricultural production; it condemns starvation wages and the exploitation of human labor by privileged interests; it condemns illiteracy, teacher shortages, shortages of schools and doctors and hospitals; it condemns the lack of protection for old age throughout the countries of Latin America; it condemns discrimination against negroes and Indians; it condemns inequality and exploitation of women; it condemns the military and political oligarchies which keep our peoples in misery and prevent their democratic development and their full exercise of their sovereignty; it condemns the concessions of our natural resources in our countries to the foreign monopolies as a policy of betrayal and sellout, a policy that betrays the interests of the people; it condemns governments which disregard the feeling of their peoples and listen to orders from Washington; it condemns the systematic deception of the people by by public information media which only respond to the interests of the oligarchies and to the policy of oppressive imperialism; it condemns the monopoly over news by the Yankee news agencies, the instruments of the United States trusts and the agents of Washington; it condemns the repressive laws which prevent the workers and peasants and students and intellectuals and the vast majority of the people in each country from organizing themselves and fighting for their social and patriotic demands, it condemns the monopolies and the imperialist enterprises which continuously plunder our wealth, exploit our workers and peasants, bleed us dry, and keep our economies backward and subject the policy of Latin America to their designs and interests." This is today the program of the revolution for the new phase of extensive work which we now face for many years to come, a phase which we face and which also those who come after us must face; this is a tremendous effort in the field of industrialization, economic development, education, and programs for the complete elimination of illiteracy all over the country, programs aimed at improving living conditions and health conditions throughout the country. And so we have an important role to play in the world. They Are Trying to Take Our Engineers Away from Us This will not be an easy task. We must always remember what we can read in the Bible -- that many are called but few are chosen. Many were called in the beginning of the revolution but very few were chosen. Right now, the imperialist enemy is conducting a campaign to deprive us of our engineers; in this campaign it employs all kinds of traitors, including men who had jobs in the revolutionary government, such as, for example, the engineer Manuel Ray who today is one of those little counter-revolutionary leaders and who had no scruples and simply joined up with the former regulars who now plant bombs and who linked up with the United States embassy in its campaign to persuade our engineers to leave by offering them fabulous salaries in the United States and Puerto Rico; this is the drive to deprive us of refinery engineers and doctors -- but this is not surprising because imperialism, even in the United States, refused medical assistance to a Cuban who had been beaten up by the cops with absolute impunity; and so they want to leave our people without doctors by recruiting our doctors and offering them tremendous salaries abroad; and there are doctors who are miserable enough to sellout their country and leave; and there are engineers who are miserable enough and cowardly enough to sellout their country and respond to this call; and there are miserable technicians who are cowardly and who sellout their country and who responded to this call. Yes, they do exist and we have to call them by their names, because they studies at our universities which were supported by the people, they had every consideration here and all the help they needed and today they are selling themselves for the gold of the country's enemies and they commit the crime of leaving their country without technicians and without doctors. The very least that those men deserve is for us to refuse to allow the technicians who leave our country ever to return to their homeland again; but let those who want to go, let them leave, because we do not want to keep anybody here by force; and so we are going to refuse to let them in if they ever want to return (applause); we are going to condemn them to loss of Cuba citizenship, all of those technicians who had government jobs or jobs in nationalized enterprises or in government agencies and who now leave their country in order to serve imperialist interests abroad. But not all of them are going to leave; many of them will stay. Not all doctors will go because -- although it is true that we are very often short of technicians in the Sierra Maestra -- we are going to have many doctors who will go to the Sierra Maestra. They will not only go there to heal and to save many lives but they will also go there to fight. And we are always going to have good, very good people in all sectors: engineers, doctors, and technicians who will not desert their country, who will not betray their fatherland, who will not sell out for gold, who will not want to live amid the humiliation of being a traitor and having soldout, hiding from reality; and they might have the same thing happen to them what happened to others who left Russia when the Soviet Revolution came and went to China and who then had to leave China because the revolution came to China and so they finally came to Cuba and then the revolution came to Cuba and so they had to leave again -- no matter how far they went, there was always a revolution. This is what is likely to happen to many of them who run from the revolution because when they least expect it they will find themselves in the midst of a revolution, in the country where they have decided to sell their services because the world is changing, the world is moving faster, and there are liable to be revolutions and big changes anywhere in the world. The Vileness of Imperialism One way or another, there are likely to be great changes in the world. And as far as those traitors are concerned, one fine day they might not have any place to run to. But the people must know that the enemies using all of these weapons against the revolution; this is why we must train new technicians, technicians who will not fall for the evil of imperialism, who will not be a party to all of the aggression against our country, who will not use all our resources and then leave the country. Those men do not care whether 10 children die of an epidemic in the mountains or whether a 100 or a thousand children die. They do not care that there was no doctor, the imperialists do not care, nor do those who sell their souls to imperialism care about whether or not children die because of a doctor shortage. And they are trying to deprive us of as many technicians as possible. This is another problem which we are going to face but we will solve it, just as we have solved all of the other problems arising out of past aggressions and maneuvers. I believe that that just about wraps it up. Those who want to be afraid can go; all who want to work and fight have an opportunity to do so here; the Moncada program has been accomplished. We are now entering a new phase; the methods are different; our principles today are summarized in the Havana Declaration and the task which we face is the task which will occupy our time and our energy; our energy and the energy of those who will come after us. At any rate, we can say today what we said once before, in addressing the civic institutions, something I want to recall here before finishing up, something that I saw here (he looks in his papers) -- here is what I said: "It is not only important to make sure that the blood of those who fell in this struggle will not have been shed in vain. It is necessary for us -- whom history has taught, whom events have taught to worship our martyrs and to sing our national anthem, our apostles and our heroes -- it is necessary for us to see to it that the blood of Maceo, the blood of Marti, the blood of Ignacio Agramonte, the blood of all those who have fallen to this very day has not been shed in vain; we must be sure that all of these sacrifices were worth it so that the Cuban people can go forward." Very few people ever have the satisfaction which we have had in telling our people that the program has been accomplished. (Applause) Moderator: In the name of FIEL, the independent front of free broadcasting stations, I want to thank Dr Fidel Castro for appearing on this very important program tonight and I also want to thank the comrades on the panel. And a very good night to our television audience -- and we will see you next Thursday. -END-