-DATE- 19601125 -YEAR- 1960 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- SPEECH -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- CASTRO'S SPEECH TO MILITIA GRADUATES -PLACE- MATANZAS -SOURCE- REVOLUCION -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19601125 -TEXT- CASTRO'S SPEECH TO MILITIA GRADUATES IN MATANZAS Unsigned Source: Revolucion (Revolution), 25 November 1960 Yesterday noon, the graduation exercises for more than 500 militia officers at the school located in the old headquarters of the 4th Military District, in Matanzas, marked the end of an extraordinarily important phase in the consolidation of the national revolutionary militia as a popular defense body against any aggression aimed at Cuba. This means that thousands upon thousands of men and women, who are members of the militia, are not only inspired by patriotic and revolutionary fervor of the highest degree and are ready to make the greatest sacrifices, but that they have already begun to acquire a solid and perfect military training which will enable them to confront any attack with the maximum efficiency also from that viewpoint -- that is, any attack that might be tried by the Yankee imperialist forces or by their proteges, the mercenaries and the cops, against national territory. Graduation Ceremonies A total of 536 militia officers received certificates appointing them 2nd lieutenants in the militia at a tremendous graduation exercise which was held at the militia officer training school in what used to be the headquarters of the 4th Military District. The ceremony was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Dr Fidel Castro in a huge square in front of the school, in the presence of thousands of Matanzas militia men and the population in general; many of the people had walked 7 km from the center of the city in order to express their profound revolutionary convictions and their solid support for the government of the revolution. The following were present on the reviewing stand, in addition to Fidel himself: Minister of the Armed Forces, Major Raul Castro; the chief of the National Revolutionary Police, Major Effigenio Ameijeiras; Minister of Agriculture, Major Pedro Miret; the chief of the Air Force, Major Sergio del Valle; the Minister of Government, Jose A. Naranjo; the Minister of Social Welfare, Dr. Raquel Perez; the ministers of Labor and Justice, Major Augusto Martinez Sanchez and Dr. Alfredo Yabur; Captain Emilio Aragones, national coordinator of M-26-7; Major Pedro Garcia Pelaez, military commander of the province; Captain Julio Suarez, provincial delegate of the INRA; Baudilio Catellanos, president of the INIT [Institute Nacional de la Industria Turistica -- National Institute for the Tourist Industry]; Major Pablo Cabrera, commander of the 4th PNR region; Gregorio Ortega, intervention officer of the CMQ Circuit; Basilio Rodriguez, provincial coordinator of M-26-7; Reinaldo Davila Santana, provincial commissioner; Argelio Martinez del Torro, municipal commissioner; Ernesto Fernandez, Suiberto Bello, and Ricardo Pareja, representing the provincial executive committee of the Revolutionary CTC, and other personalities of the revolutionary government. As Dr Fidel Castro pointed out in his speech, these hundreds of workers had to go through a tough training program before they could be awarded their commissions as militia offices at this graduation ceremony which is the first of its kind in America; the training program included the climbing of Mt Turquino on various occasions; it also featured very rigid discipline and organization, along with the kind of tactical knowledge and the most modern military experience as well as efficient military methods that are indispensable in this kind of operation. The graduating officers belong to the militia units of Havana, according to a statement made to this publication by the director of the school, Captain Jose R. Fernandez Alvarez; another class, even larger than this graduating class, will immediately start training at this training center, with a program which will include the following subjects: weapons, tactics, map reading, and combat engineering. The teaching staff in addition to Captain Fernandez Alvarez, includes the secretary, Captain Raul Vila Otero, and the following instructors: 1st Lieutenant Wilfredo Viera and 2nd lieutenants Pablo Perez Castro, Rolando Dobue Vidaud, Jose Martinez Llul, Hugo Torres Gomez, Bernardo Martinez Canal, Jose R. Palacios Janjaque, Rafael Neyra Cerfat, Francisco Vales Padovani, Ismael Lorenzo Ferrer, Joaquin Franco, Guillermo Perez Rodriguez, Rafael Mendez, Hermes Perez, and Roberto Canjedo Leon. Meeting with Instructors After the graduation ceremony, Dr Fidel Castro went to the office of the director of the school where he had a long discussion with the director and the instructors, in the presence of the Minister of the Armed Forces, Major Raul Castro, and other revolutionary government personalities. Speech by Fidel Here is the complete text of the speech made by Dr Fidel Castro as based on the shorthand version provided by the office of the prime minister: Comrade graduates of the Militia Officer Training School, ladies and gentlemen: Can you all hear me in the back? (Shouts of: "Yes") This simple ceremony is of tremendous importance to the revolution. First of all, this is the first time in Cuba and also we might say this is the first time in all of America that a large number of Cuban workers received their graduation certificates as militia officers. (Applause) Now, this is not the sort of certificate that you can get easily. The course began about 5 months ago; it began in the Sierra Maestra with Mt Turquino. This revolution began in the Sierra Maestra and in a similar manner, the volunteer teachers, the youth brigades, the militia officers, and all of the others who want to take this tough test, began in the Sierra Maestra. The soldiers of the Special Combat Columns of the Rebel Army had to scale Mt Turquino 10 times. And the men who want to join up, in other words, the new recruits for the Rebel Army, must scale Mt Turquino 20 times. (Applause) And there are youngsters who have already been attending training for more than 8 months, who have already climbed 20 mountain peaks and who will have to stay in the Sierra Maestra without getting paid (Applause); some of them already have 15 mountain climbs to their credit. Tough Test for Recruit Selection In the old days, this was not the way it was done; in the old days, you had to find a sponsor; recruits would arrive with letters of recommendation and of course they did not get the best people that way. If we had done the same thing, we could not have any good fighting men, any good soldiers of the fatherland; if we had invited everybody who wanted to join us, then the same thing would have happened. To pick the best, you have to have some kind of selection based on a tough test of strength. We also want to invite all of those who want to come, all of those who want to climb Mt Turquino 20 times in order to become soldiers. (Applause) And we have done the same thing with the volunteer teachers and we have done the same thing with the youth brigades, and we have done the same thing with the militia officers. (Applause) More than 800 started out for the mountain peak; but a considerable number of them was unable to pass this test although many did pass. However there were those who passed the Mt Turquino test but who could not pass the course at the Militia Officer Training School, where the comrades spent more than 3 months and sometimes were unable to see their families for as much as a month and a half. Many of these comrades have wives and children; however, they took this sacrifice upon themselves and this sacrifice very often is tougher to take than any other sacrifice of a physical nature. And so they were selected each time on the basis of their own effort and performance. This was a kind of automatic or built in purification process; at the end, out of the more than 800 who started out, we were left with 536 who today graduated as militia officers. Discipline and Organization They have passed the test and they have learned; this was not just a selection effort; it was also an apprenticeship. And what they have learned we can already observe in the battalions and the units of the militia which we have organized. The presence of school trainees -- at a time when they were nothing but trainees -- contributed extraordinarily to the organization of these many militia companies which -- during the days when the danger was more or less immediate -- were organized in order to defend the country against aggression. And the comrade officers of that organization of many occasions expressed their appreciation and their praise for the work of the school trainees who were helping organize the companies because wherever they went, one could immediately observe their discipline, order, and organization. This is why it was necessary to utilize the services of these comrades even before the course was over. And some of them were assigned to the antitank gun batteries; others were assigned to the antiaircraft batteries and others still were assigned to mortar batteries, with mortars of various calibers. (Applause) For instance, I might tell you that we have the comrades of the 820 mm mortar battery (shouts and applause) here with us today. Yes, they went out on practice yesterday and fired blanks. (Applause) And so, they specialized in certain weapons even before the end of the course and they will continue to specialize. The presence of 536 graduates from this school means a lot to the advancement of the organization of the forces for the defense of the fatherland. (Applause) We know very well what this means because we have found ourselves confronting the task of organizing the fighting men all over the island; and we did not have military cadros for that organization. It is not the same thing to mobilize 1,000 men as it is to mobilize 10,000 men; and it is not the same thing to mobilize 10,000 men as it is to mobilize several hundred thousand men. (Applause) Now, a combat platoon is not easily organized; a combat squad requires a leader and a platoon requires even more and a company requires still more and a battalion req uires even more than that, and a combat front requires more than any of the others. Fighting Men with High Morale Now, it takes time and a lot of training to get a company to the point where it can go into combat. A company of men without training and leadership is certainly not the same thing; that would be nothing more than a bunch of men without combat efficiency, quite in contrast to a well organized company of men, in which the strength of the men, that is to say, the strength of the individuals, is multiplied. A well organized company of fighting men, with high morale, and with reason and understanding -- and, by the way, rational understanding and high morale add up to valor -- such a company of valiant and well-led, well-organized, and well-trained men, can fight against 20 companies that do not have the same kind of organization. (Applause) But if the opposing forces do not have high morale and rational understanding of what they are doing then, even though they may have discipline and organization and leadership and training, we can say that another company of fighting men with high morale and a rational understanding of what they are supposed to do, in addition to discipline, leadership, and training, can certainly go into action against an enemy many times stronger. Do you know how many companies of enemy forces, which do not have high morale, even though they have a rational understanding and discipline, do you know how many such companies, one of our disciplined fighting companies can face, if it has valor and a rationale understanding of what it is doing: Well, it can face as many as you might want to imagine. (Applause) And this is not a simple statement. The facts have demonstrated more than once in the history of Cuba that this is true. The Spanish forces were numerically much stronger than the Cuban forces and they were, furthermore, better supplied, better trained, and better armed. And then, in the recent struggle, all of the forces sent against a small nucleus of the revolution, on a large-scale military basis, the largest number of men which we were able to muster against about 8,000 soldiers was a mere 300 armed men. Ah, yes! If these men, in addition to being well armed, had had an opportunity to learn how to handle weapons, if their commanders had had an opportunity to get the necessary command training, then perhaps we might have done the job with 150 men instead of the 300 we had. (Applause) In other words, a single company can tackle an unlimited number of enemy soldiers if that company is well organized, well armed, well led, and above all if it has a rational understanding of what it is doing and a high fighting spirit. We had to tackle the task of organizing the people, training the people, and arming the people. However, at the same time, we had to train instructors and commanders; we pushed ahead successfully but we can understand the tremendous job we have done only if we think what this effort implies. Weapons in Good Hands If the enemies of the fatherland attack our country today, they would not run into the same resistance which they would have encountered 3 months or perhaps even one month or maybe just 2 weeks ago, because if they attack today, they will run into X number of perfectly well armed battalions (applause), X number of mortar batteries of various calibers (applause), X number of antiaircraft artillery batteries (applause), X number of cannon (applause), and X number of etc, etc, etc, (applause). But, above all, they would find it quite a bit more difficult to win, quite a bit more difficult to go into action: they are going to have to tackle all of those men who will be handling all of those X number of weapons! (Applause) They will find that these weapons are not in the hands of a group of privileged individuals; they will find that these weapons are not in the hands of softies; they will find that these weapons are not in the hands of men who are accustomed to living in abundance and luxury; they will find that these weapons are not in the hands of men who have never done any hard work. These weapons are in the hands of men who have learned what sacrifice is, in the hands of men who know that life is tough, in the hands of men who were not privileged, not the privileged of yesterday, but, yes, indeed, the oppressed of yesterday and the privileged of today! (Applause) In other words, these are workers and peasants and humble men from the people who yesterday many times looked into the barrels of rifles pointed at them, who walked into rifle fire, as they went off in pursuit of their aspirations and their rights and their dignities. These rifles will now be held in your hands, in the hands of the people, in the hands of hundreds of thousands of men, in the hands of millions of Cubans, and they will be pointed at oppression, humiliation, and exploitation. There used to be a day when the people were forbidden to have weapons. Why should a worker or a peasant or a student or a professional man be allowed to have a weapon? Why should an artist, a poet, a sculptor, a writer have a weapon? Weapons used to be in the hands of just a few, and most other weapons were prohibited, that is to say, they did not prohibit the use of weapons for avoiding illegal acts, they did not prohibit the use of weapons to prevent armed robbery, they did not prevent the use of weapons to prevent crime. Never before have we had less crime in our country than today and never before have more weapons been in the hands of our people (Applause). Never before has there been less robbery in the history of our country and never before, nevertheless, have more men been armed in our fatherland. The Unknown Nation Weapons used to be outlawed simply because the people was not supposed to have any access to them, and the privileged groups wanted to perpetuate their domination over the people, to continue this illegality, to continue the rule of force by a minority over the vast majority of the people; it wanted to keep the people in slavery and humiliation. This is why the people were prohibited from having weapons and this prohibition came very zealously from those who knew that the day the people had weapons, they would be driven out, oppression and exploitation would be ended in the country once and for all (Applause), because then a disarmed minority could not possibly impose its privileges upon an armed majority. And the concept which they had as far as the nation is concerned was not the true concept of the term "nation." To them, the nation was a minority; to them, the fatherland was a minority; to them, liberty was for a minority. They had the freedom to exploit, to humiliate, to persecute, and to mistreat the majority. For them, the rest of the people did not exist, the rest of the nation did not exist. The nation was not everything, the nation was not the conglomerate of all Cubans; the land and the wealth of the nation were not the land and the wealth of all. (Applause) The goods which the nation created, the wealth which the workers of the fatherland created were not for the enjoyment of all, certainly not for thee enjoyment of those who produced all these goods. The wealth and the fruit of the labor of the nation were primarily intended for those who had never soiled their shirts with sweat, who were not capable of producing a single good thing for the country. (Applause) This is why weapons were outlawed. And when they did give weapons to somebody, it was not a honorable worker, they did not arm a revolutionary worker. They armed a gangster or a gang leader or plotter in order to spread terror among the workers and the people! (Applause) They did not give weapons to the people and they did not give command positions to those who were capable of scaling the highest mountain in Cuba 20 times; they did not give command positions nor weapons to the workers who can pass through tests like the ones you have just passed; they did not give weapons to those who climbed the highest mountains; they gave weapons to those who did a different kind of "climbing", those who did a lot of kowtowing (applause). They did not give weapons and command positions to the best but the worst, to the most miserable; they did not give command positions and weapons to the most virtuous but to the most corrupt; they did not give them to the most revolutionary but to the most renegade; they did not give weapons and command positions to the most patriotic but to those who had sold out to the foreigners or to the privileged powerful. (Applause) Winning on the March What the revolution has done is to give weapons and command positions to the best, the most virtuous, to the cleanest, to the most revolutionary, to the most self-denying, to the most patriotic; that, more than anything else, tells everything there is to be said about our revolution.; What the revolution has done is to guarantee, once and for all, that justice will definitely prevail in our country (applause) and that our people will victoriously march onward. Who can doubt this? Who can doubt that our country will overcome all obstacles? (Shouts of "nobody!") Who can doubt that we are winning as we march on? Who can doubt that we are on the march, who can doubt...(Shouts of "we shall win")...And who can doubt that the people and the revolution will become stronger each day as they march on victoriously and overcome obstacles? Who can doubt that the revolution today is much stronger than it was a year ago? Who can doubt that our steps are more secure today? I remember a day when I arrived at the capital of the republic, after the forces of the tyranny had been destroyed, and when I said that I felt exactly the way I felt when we landed on the beaches of Belic; in other words, that everything was still ahead of us; that we still had everything to learn; that, in the final analysis, we had been learning on the march, as we went along. Today, likewise, as we are just about to approach the second anniversary of that debarkation in the liberated fatherland and the 4th anniversary of that other landing, we feel that a lot of time has passed as we look at the things and the realities which the revolution has created today; but it also seems to me, as I look at the work of the revolution, that, even though much time has passed, we have not yet celebrated the 4th anniversary of that day when a small group of men, many of whom gave their lives along the way, landed on those beaches. (Applause) Imperialism Broken Today we can say that we are accompanied by the experience of 2 years of work, after the end of the war; we have with us all of the things which we have been able to learn in those 24 months. And men and peoples never learn better than in a revolution; above all, in a revolution such as this one, which had to contend with such powerful enemies; a revolution such as this one, which had to advance over all of the obstacles placed in our way, by those on this continent who have kept the people in chains, by those on this continent who keep millions and millions of men in the worst type of exploitation and in the most criminal misery. And the full power of that empire, which is against us, a small country, which is against the revolution of the humble, by the humble, and for the humble, that full power of that empire has been broken. (Applause) And the people learned in this struggle; and we learned in this struggle; and this is why we do not feel today the way we felt that first day, when we landed; today we feel the way we felt 2 years after we had landed in the mountains of Sierra Maestra. (Applause) Much Left To Learn You all, comrades, you also have much to learn even though you got your honorable diplomas from this school today, this school which was the last regimental barracks to be converted into a school; we wanted to make sure to convert it into a school and so we turned it into an officer training school! (Applause) This honorable diploma means that you are now starting out; the many times you climbed Mt Turquino and the many months you studied at this school mean that you are beginning your careers now; what you have learned means that you are starting out and you have many marches yet ahead of you. Before, you marched as students, as trainees, you marched in the ranks, and now you will march at the head; but you still have many marches before you (applause and shouts of: we shall win! We shall win!). You still have much ahead of you to learn; you are leaving one school and you are entering another; you are leaving one unit and you are entering another; you leave one type of job and you start out on another. Today you are militia officers. The ranks of 2nd lieutenant is at the bottom of the scale; you are 2nd lieutenants of the militia now (applause). But above you, there is nobody in the militia with higher rank. This is a small force but you are the first; and promotions to captain will not come easy in the militia; in the militia, it will not be easy to become a major; anybody who wants to become an officer in the militia will have to go through the schools. (Applause) But at this particular school, men will be able to earn only this rank and no more; the other ranks, the promotions, will be even more difficult to earn. Any further promotions will have to be earned on the basis of extraordinary merit and study and hard work or in combat! (Applause) You Hold Responsibility Even though you may be in command of a battery or a company or a battalion, you will continue to be 2nd lieutenants of the militia. There were some fellows around here who already called themselves "majors of the militia." Well, nobody is a militia major here or anywhere else! And we have no militia captains either!! And we don't have any 1st lieutenants in the militia either! Now, you might have militia men in command of large or small mortar batteries, artillery batteries, or battalions -- but they will command in the ranks of 2nd lieutenant! (Applause) This is because any further promotions will have to be exclusively the result of true merit and this is why we began this system with the very first graduates. And this is how it is going to be throughout the island; but you will always remember that you were the first; you have been the vanguard; you were the first seeds we planted; and through you, we have planted the first trees. And you, each and every one of you, thus bears a responsibility; each and everyone of you bears the responsibility of the prestige of all of you. When one of you fails, when one of you acts badly, people will not say that he was "just anybody," but they will say that he was a militia officer; and when the conduct of any one of you was not worthy of your position, then the discredit will not fall on anyone of you, individually, but it will fall on all of you and it will fall on the first of you here. Keep this sense of responsibility and duty always uppermost in your minds; keep in mind the prestige that you are going to gain and above all keep in mind the faith and the confidence which the nation places in you, the security which thee nation gets because you are there, and the honor which you signify to thee working class. And the honor which you have earned for yourselves, workers, humble men from the people, who today rise in the love and confidence and faith of the fatherland. This is what this means! (Ovation) Fidel Said This is the first time in America that a large group of workers has received its militia officer graduation diplomas. This revolution began in the Sierra Maestra and all of those of us who want to pass this test of strength begin in the Sierra Maestra. The soldiers in the special combat columns of the Rebel Army will have to climb Mt Turquino 10 times. The new recruits will have to climb Mt Turquino 20 times. In the old days, anybody who wanted to become a soldier would try to get a letter of recommendation from some sponsor. The militia officers went through a process of self-purification through sacrifice. Five hundred and 36 passed the test and learned their lessons; this was not just a selection process but also a process of apprenticeship. What they have learned we can already see in the battalions and in the units of our militia forces which we have organized. Regardless of where they may wind up, they will still be learning but we can nevertheless already observe their discipline and order and organization. The presence of 536 graduates of this school means a lot to the advancement of the organization of the forces that will defend the fatherland. A company of fighting men, with high morale and a rational understanding, well led, well organized, and well trained, can fight against 20 companies that do not have the same kind of organization. A company with discipline, high morale, rational understanding, and training can tackle all of the companies that do not have the proper morale or rational understanding, even though they may have training and discipline. We had to train and arm the people and at the same time we had to train our instructors and commanders. If the enemies of the fatherland attack this country today, they will not run into the same resistance which they would have encountered 3 months ago. If the enemies of the fatherland attack today, they will confront X number of perfectly armed battalions, X numbers of mortars, antiaircraft batteries, guns, and X number of etc, etc, etc. But above all, they will run into something that will be much more difficult to defeat, something that will be much more difficult to drive back: they will encounter men who can handle these X number of different weapons! And they will find that these weapons are not in the hands of the privileged, the softies, men accustomed to living amid plenty and luxury. These weapons are now in the hands of men who have worked hard all their lives, men who know what sacrifice is, men who know what the tough life, the strenuous life is, men who were not the privileged of yesterday but who were the oppressed of yesterday and who are the privileged of today! Yesterday, the worker, the peasant, the humble man of the people found himself facing rifles that were pointed at him. And they were pointed at his rights, aspirations, and dignity. The people used to be forbidden from carrying arms but this was not done in order to prevent robberies or crimes. Never before have we had less crimes and less robberies in our fatherland and never before have more men been bearing arms in our fatherland. The weapons were outlawed so that the privileged could maintain their domination over the people, their illegality, their rule of force, slavery, and humiliation. The people was prohibited from carrying arms because they knew the day the people had arms their power would disappear forever and this would be the end of oppression and exploitation in the country. To them, the fatherland, the nation, meant liberty for a minority..They had the freedom to exploit, to humiliate, to persecute, to mistreat the majority. For them, the rest of the people did not exist. The wealth and the land of the nation were not for the benefit of everybody. The wealth of the nation was to be enjoyed only by those who had never soiled their shirts with sweat. And this is why they did not arm the people; they did arm gangsters or plotters in order to impose terror among the workers and the entire people. 1 They did not give weapons to the workers, to the virtuous, to those who had passed tough tests, to those who climbed mountains; they gave weapons to those who did a different kind of "climbing," those who did a lot of kowtowing, the worst, the most corrupt, those who had sold out to the foreigners or to the powerful privileged. The revolution has given weapons to the best, meaning that this is the definitive guarantee that justice will prevail definitely in our country and that our people will march onward victoriously. Who can doubt that our country will overcome all obstacles? Who can doubt that we are winning on the march? And who can doubt that, overcoming obstacles on the march, the people and the revolution are becoming stronger every day? Who can doubt that the revolution today is much stronger than what it was a year ago? And who can doubt that our steps are more secure? At no time can men and peoples learn better than in a revolution. And above all, in a revolution such as this one, which had to advance in the face of the obstacles placed in our way by those on this continent who have kept the peoples enchained, who have sustained the worst type of exploitation and the worst kind of criminal misery over millions and millions of people. Today the power of that empire which is lined up against us, a small country, and against the revolution of the humble, has been broken. In spite of all our advances, we are just at the beginning. In the militia, the promotions to captain and major will not come easily. In the militia, a man will have to go to school before he can become an officer. But we have some fellows here who were already calling themselves "major of the militia." Nobody is a major of the militia! And we don't have any militia captains either! Advancement in the militia will have to be the result of true merit. -END-