Latin American Network Information Center - LANIC

-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-


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