-DATE- 19610307 -YEAR- 1961 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- SPEECH -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- CLOSING OF THE PLANTATIONS CONFERENCE -PLACE- HAVANA -SOURCE- HAVANA FIEL -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19610307 -TEXT- AGRARIAN REFORM BASIC NEED, CASTRO SAYS Havana, FIEL network in Spanish, Mar. 7, 1961, 0414 GMT--E (Live speech by Fidel Castro at the closing of the Plantations Conference in Havana) (Summary) Comrade delegates to the first congress of agricultural plantations. Tonight marks the end of a conference in which a very important problem has been discussed. Perhaps, since we all have great preoccupations these days, we have not measured the importance of this conference. Delegates from all parts of Latin America have gathered here. They represent small and medium farms. They took the trouble to come to Cuba. It is logical. Our doors are open to all visitors. We have nothing to hide in our country, and we have much to show. Naturally in revolutions, nations must take measures of security. This is a logical step to prevent acts of international reaction. In the case of Cuba, the counterrevolutionaries have taken some measures. But why prevent people from coming to Cuba? Why hinder visits to Cuba by U.S. students and intellectuals? If our country is so bad off, why don't they come to Cuba? The reason is obvious. Measures must be taken against visits to Cuba, above all visits of workers and farm group leaders. Direct observation and confirmation of what is happening in our country defeats all the imperialists' campaigns, all the lies about the Cuban revolution. Every visitor tells his group what he has seen in our country. Naturally the reactionaries want to prevent the Cuban truth from being spread. It is dangerous for the monopolies, for the exploiting oligarchies; it is dangerous for the privileged group in America. That is why a conference such as this had to overcome difficulties. Despite it all, an important number of delegates were able to attend and to reach a series of conclusions, which they will divulge when they return to their countries. The agrarian problem is fundamental in Latin America. It is perhaps the most serious problem. And in our country, where we had a similar problem, we have found solutions. The peasants in the country have had the worst of it. Illiteracy is higher in the country than in the cities. The residents of towns have had more opportunities to go to school. Moreover, the peasants are all over the territory. They are generally not organized. Their products fall into the hands of middlemen who profit the most. They have not had price guarantees. They are victims of speculation; prices have never been stable. They have been subject to contingencies of climate. The city worker is organized. In the great industrial centers there is always a powerful workers' force. The worker fights for his demands, and even in the most exploited countries that labor force has the power to force certain concessions from management and the monopolies. Naturally when workers in the city reach their goals, the interests who succumbed to their demands increase the price of their goods. Workers in cities improve their situation. But their products are made dearer for the peasant. Therefore, wages are lower in the country. Estate workers do not have the power of industrial workers. They are mostly illiterate. They can be deceived more easily. They have no organization and are under the influence of the owners and the bosses. The result of all this in the midst of a society of injustice, is that the agricultural worker or the peasant is in the worst situation. That was true in our country. But is was even worse in most Latin American countries, but more seriously. There was less hunger in Cuba than in the rest of Latin America, and there was plenty of hunger in Cuba. There is one Latin American country where a peasant gets 4 cents per day. Need Agrarian Revolution The conditions of feudal exploitation are truly amazing. There is only one remedy for those things. That remedy is agrarian reform. (Applause) and if the word were not sufficiently expressive, we could call it the agrarian revolution. There is no other remedy at all. And the intellectual laboratories of reaction in America can wreck their brains, but they will not find another formula. The conditions of hunger and exploitation are so evident in rural America that even the leaders of imperialism speak of agrarian reforms. They understand that is it necessary to make reforms in the country. But these reforms, of course, must be made at the expense of economic sectors that are allied to imperialism. Often they must be made at the expense of the interests of great monopolists. Of course the term "agrarian reform" is a very broad concept. Many things can be called agrarian reform. You will remember that when they began talking of agrarian reform in Cuba it was backed even by the big landowners. But what was the agrarian reform they supported? The imperialists too have formulas for agrarian reform. They have spoken of agrarian reform using uncultivated land. They spoke of this when they saw an agrarian reform was upon them. When they saw the revolutionary blow coming they tried to get out from under, and they began promoting a sort of agrarian reform that would affect uncultivated land, although not right away, but after the establishment of taxes, so that reform would be introduced when land was still uncultivated after a number of years. The imperialists also spoke of agrarian reform, on prompt payment. That was utopian. The Latin American countries have big deficits. The monopolists want prompt, effective, payment in dollars. The Latin American countries do not have dollars. All these formulas were just palliatives to deceive. The problem of the land is not just a problem of uncultivated land. It is also a problem of single-crop land, of lack of agricultural planning, of incorrect use of farm resources, or poor use of land. Single Crop Dangers Land should be devoted to the crop it is most fit for. And there is a social problem in agriculture, especially in single crop agriculture. That was the problem in our country. Most land was for sugar cane or cattle. Many men were needed to cut the cane, but for much of the year all these families were out of work. They had to live on the credit they received, if any. Goods were sold to them at high prices; they had to pay off their debts from the slack season when they were cutting cane. There was much unemployment in the rural areas. Laws were evaded; desperate workers had to accept contracts under which the real wages did not even reach half a peso. To solve the problem in Cuba it was necessary to put through an agrarian revolution. It was impossible to speak of prompt payment in cash. There was no cash, no dollars, and the cash that was available was not to pay big landowners, but to solve agricultural problems. The principle of payment in bonds was established. That did not suit the monopolists or landowners. Most refused this payment. As for land held by the monopolies, a later law established nationalization, and it was stipulated they would be indemnified when they bought more than 3 million tons of sugar a year at a set price. Our attitude had to be fitted to the reaction of the monopolies to our revolution. If they refused to buy sugar, we refused indemnification. If they want to buy sugar again, then we can discuss some kind of indemnity. It depends on mutual advantages. As for native big landowners, they had a right to payment in bonds, but most preferred to give up the bonds and even the 30 caballerias of land the law allowed them. We appreciate this. The first problem is that of payment, then. Experience shows that payment must be made to the small landowners who are affected. The revolution applied the principle of payment in bonds for all land. Later we understood it would have been better to pay cash to modest families that depended on revenue from their land. There were many families who had a bit of land that they rented out, and they depended on the rent. When we implemented the urban reform, we took that into account and we passed a more perfect law. We took into account the modest families who had invested in houses. The law specified that rent would still be paid to them up to a certain amount for a set period. They could even get a pension at the end, if the house had been their only source of income. That is fair. When we began our agrarian reform program, we did not have such a clear vision of the problem of small landowners. It would have been better to make a distinction between large and small landowners, and to make cash payments to small landowners and pay nothing to big landowners. It was possible to correct the situation, where families depended on rental from a small bit of land. But the system of renting out land could not be allowed to continue. It is absurd for a family to work a caballeria of land that must provide livelihood of the family working it and a family that never goes there. If everybody had a bit of land, it would have been different. But the sharks took 10,000 bits apiece, and they had an army. Army Defended Foreigners We know better now what armies were for. Sometimes we thought it was to beat students, break up strikes and workers' demonstrations. We were told that the army was to defend the territory, but the territory was held by foreigners. So the army was defending the integrity of foreign property in our land, property of Yankee interests that owned land, power plants, factories, public services, and most industries. The army, that we used to see parade by with its modern weapons and that was supposed to defend territorial integrity, actually was intended to defend the integrity of foreign interests and interests of a native minority. The army was to defend exploitation of natural resources, particularly land. Big landholdings were untouchable because of some deed. Maybe the big landholding has been bought very cheap. Maybe ownership was due to some act under the Spaniards. Before Columbus the land belonged to the Indians. They lived on the land in common, working. The true owners of the land were the Indians. But colonizers came, and distributed the land, and distributed the Indians, too, among themselves. Some were sent to work in mines or rivers. Many committed suicide. That was the origin of land ownership. The land went from hand to hand. When the so-called republic came, U.S. companies bought up the land at very low prices. There was speculation in land. The sharks had acquired the land and were ready to sell it off at juicy prices. Owners of big estates and big industries were ready to buy. It was a sure business. Land around Havana was going at up to 50 pesos per meter. When houses were built for rental, it was the tenant who paid for all the speculation. The revolution destroyed many juicy businesses. Those people owned the land from the Morro to beyond Guanabo, hundreds of millions of pesos worth of land, according to prices they demanded. To live there, all that money had to be paid to the speculators. Of course a house cost much more. Today all that land is at the disposal of the nation. It is available today for housing. And price involves the work that actually goes into building streets, sewers, houses, etc. How ridiculous to add to that price! The old legislation here did allow that kind of theft. Those who passed the legislation benefitted from it and had an army and a powerful neighbor to back them. Everything around here belongs to the people today, although it did not before. And what was true of the city was true in the country too. They had big estates. When the state built a road, the estate owner got triple prices for the land used. What shall a country live from, if not the land? The interests of the country must be taken into account. A system for exploiting the land should logically be a system that will meet the country's needs. The most unjust system or production was the monopolistic single-crop system, that did not meet the food needs of the people or the social needs of our nation. The revolution has been introducing fair methods of exploiting the land. Who should own the land? It is fair for the land to belong to the family that works the land directly. That family is not exploiting anybody. The revolution decided land ownership was just, for tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and squatters. Break Up Large Estates This often took place in the mountains. The peasants used to go there and plant crops with great difficulty. After three or four years they would have something to live on. But when they had completed clearing the land, the landowners would look into the records and force the peasants to give up the land. Now the revolution has given that land to the tenant. Naturally, the parcel system is not the most perfect system. But it is just. Part of the land was in the hands of small farmers; another part was in the hands of the big estates. What should be done with the large estates? That was an important question. At first the estate owners did not want their lands to be effected. Layer they said that the land should be divided. Anyone knows the situation of an 80-caballeria farm with 300 workers. That is about one-fifth of a caballeria per worker. Thus, any plan for the land would have to be discussed among 400 workers. Why did the estate owners want the land divided? Because they knew that would mean the failure of our agriculture. If the land were distributed, each worker would not even receive one-fourth of a caballeria. Large-scale production would be impossible. To get milk we would have to give a cow to every family. We had similar trouble in the Sierra. We distributed cows once, and they ended up sick or with broken legs. We distributed more cows and the same thing happened. Apparently they wanted mean for 15 days more than the wanted milk. This was understandable: They were hungry. They gave up a very important food for the children. That was unfortunate. We knew what the problems would be. If we broke up the large estates, agricultural production would decrease and so would the number of cattle. How about tractors--were we to give one for each caballeria of land? Impossible. Imagine what we would be like if we gave one tractor for every 20 caballerias. How many changes for trouble. There would be nothing but conflict. Say we needed to have several items produced. Well, they would be vying for the change to produce the more profitable crop. But then the suitability of the land must be taken into account. Not all land is good for producing cotton. That would have resulted in 300 families with very dissimilar standards. What did we do? We organized agricultural cooperatives. It will be recalled that when they attacked us in the north, the first thing they said was the agrarian reform meant not meeting obligations to American markets. But they were surprised when the land was organized on a cooperative basis. What is the result? We have more cane this year than ever before. By giving the land better treatment and more fertilizer we have greatly increased production. On each of the cooperatives there is now a dairy. How many stables--200? No, just one. If we had given a cow to each person, there would have had to be 200 barns. Now there is only one stable, and the children are assured of milk. The killing of cows is banned. What kind of cows are they? Mediocre milking cows. We have started artificial insemination courses. That will permit improvement of the quality of the cattle. If 120,000 families has 120,000 parcels of land, 120,000 cows, how could the system work? Each would have to be trained. As it is, all cooperatives have been sent information notifying that insemination will be practiced by the end of the year. Peasants Gain Stature All these plans can be carried out easily, as well as our plans for diversification. Single-crop agriculture is the worst type, because the workers are out of work for a part of the year. The sugar crop layoff time can be used for another crop. This year 120,000 families working all year, are not enough to take care of the crops. That is the first great result of the agrarian reform in the cane fields. Diversification will produce the same amount of sugar in less land and will make work for the rest of the year. That means that layoff time disappears. What a boon! That old nightmare has disappeared in our rural areas. The solution of the milk problem in all the cane cooperatives is another achievement. The solution of the housing problem is being tackled on a large number of cane cooperatives. We have visited cooperatives where over 80 percent of the workers were militiamen. The rest were too old or invalids. The cane is not guarded by the rural guard any more. The sugar workers were never worried about burned cane; they used to benefit from it. Today cooperative member will lose if the cane is burned. Today every worker is a guardian for the cane. The 120,000 cooperative members with their families make more than a half million persons taking care of the cane. So here you have one big result. In every cooperative there is one man responsible for public order. He is elected by the cooperative. He does not get wages for the job. The workers elect the most responsible members for public posts. In the old days there were fights at country festivals. Today go and see; nobody fights now. This is because there are no more rural guards to make the people mad. The man keeping order is a neighbor, another worker, just like the rest. So authority is no longer something hateful. There has been an extraordinary change in the mentality of the peasant. He sees no difference now between himself and the national authority. He himself is part of that authority. He identifies himself with the interests of the whole nation. He sees power today as a power for his own protection. He himself is part of the national might. Every cooperative member, every worker, can be a part of the authority. The same is true on the people's farms. Why in the past was there an overseer or a guard on the plantation, or a pair of soldiers? So there could be some force to defend the interests of the owner. Why should the worker risk his life defending property that was not his? Today the only thing a cooperative member can ask for is more work, so he can produce more and earn more. He sees that cane and knows it is his own. He sees the rain as helping his own cane. If anybody tries to burn the cane, he is ready to defend it with his life. He knows it is up to him if he wants more money; he can work more and produce more. If he drives a truck, he must take care of it; it belongs to the cooperative. If some machinery breaks down, he loses. Formerly the loss was not his. The interests of the plantation are identified with the interests of the growers, t he workers. This ended conflicts in the rural area. Today, the farm workers profit from the crops. The worker does everything necessary to increase farm production, because he will benefit. And so one can foresee an extraordinary future on all these co operatives. Just visit them, ask about the work and the plans for crop diversification. One cooperative has already organized a theatrical group of its own. Some peasants are already writing plays for that group. This means the peasants are no longer lagging behind. satisfied in their basis aspirations, they are taking an interest in culture. This has encouraged the government to prepare to send out 3,000 music, drama, and dancing instructors to the cooperatives. In a couple of years, with the schools that will soon begin operating, we can send three instructors to every cooperative and people's farm; each can have its artistic group. The day will come when any city family can go to the interior on a Sunday and spend the day happily among the peasants, enjoying magnificent plays or dances. The peasant has a virgin mentality, free of a series of influences that have poisoned the intelligence of the people in the cities. The revolution is working with these fertile intelligences, as it works with the land. These intellects will be incorporated into the nation. The agrarian reform, therefore, has in the cooperatives the second form of production. Increased Meat Supply However, there were vast expanses, where few families lived, devoted to cattle raising. What was to be done with a huge estate devoted to cattle raising, employing only a dozen workers. No cooperative could be established with so few people. It was an antiquated method of cattle raising; diversification had to be implanted there too. The INRA did not divide up the land on these big ranches. The INRA had to supply the country with meat. The meat supply had to be boosted to meet the demand arising from more money in the people's pockets. Lower rents, more jobs, meant more meat eaters. Formerly meat was also in short supply during part of the year due to speculation. Today about 50 percent more meat is being consumed, and yet meat has not been in short supply. This demanded a big effort. It was necessary to get more meat out of the same number of animals. The revolution set up people's farms on the big ranches. Today agriculture is divided into small farmers, agricultural cooperatives, and people's farms. The people's farms belong to the nation. The cooperative members own the products of the cooperative. The people's farms are like factories, owned by the nation. What are the advantages; on the cooperative, the member has a daily or monthly income set by the cooperative; he gets profits from crops, but housing, water, light, and other services must be paid for. These services are free for the workers on the people's farms. The workers on people's farms will receive the wage set by law. The most modern techniques are introduced on the people's farms for improved methods of growing tomatoes, a better breed of cows, and so forth. The development of a people's farm benefits the workers on all people's farms. Cooperatives may differ because of differences in soil or water supply. Some, therefore, have more profits than others. On some cooperatives the children are better dressed, because the soil is more fertile. But on people's farms it will not be that way. Even if one has poor soil and another good soil, the workers of all will get the same benefits. All the workers will have the right to a house. There will be a school in the towns. The cooperatives build with loans from the state, to be paid back out of profits. On the people's farms the towns are built with state funds. Children of people's farms will begin working on children's farms at the age of 10, along with their studies. We have two pilot children's farms, to show what children can produce in a few hours a day. They will grow vegetables, produce poultry, eggs, and milk that they will eat themselves at the school lunchroom. The children will get three meals daily at the school center on people's farms. They will grow part of what they eat. The farm administration will provide the rest. The children will get clothing and shoes at the school center. On people's farms, the administration will pay for the drama and dance instructors. So in one case, production belongs to the cooperative members, but services are paid for out of the profits. However, services are guaranteed to all families on the people's farms. Human Factors The fact that the children of the peoples farms will get food and clothes in school will be a real revolution because there is a human problem that may not be clear to everyone. We discover hard things sometimes. Such is the case when we go to the country and find that a family has 10 children. The workers get the same wage as a single man. The 10-member family has to subsist on the same income as a two-member family. The 10 who don't get enough to eat will be ill when they grow up due to poor nourishment. Just because they had many brothers they would suffer. How shall we overcome that? The 10-member family must deprive itself. The children must worry about whether their fathers are indolent or indulgent. How can we assure all children the same opportunity? In school. That is how we can assure that all the children have the food they really need. Whether they have many brothers or not, the children will have their food. And with or without children, the worker will have money to spend as he wishes. Fathers of 10 will have as much as fathers of three. Any 12-year old can pick as much cotton as an adult. The children can work at that easily. They can work in some industries. There are some jobs the women can do also. The houses will be built by the government. The number of children will not affect housing, medicine, clothes, or other such costs. So on the epiphany the children will all have same right to get gifts. All this means that we will not favor any particular system. Some cooperativists may want to turn the cooperative into a peoples farm. We will oppose this, because we are in a period of transition. The country needs that system or production because the cooperative members have shown that they can increase production with very little investment. They saved part of the 34-million-pesos and diversified. The revolution needs the cooperatives. That is why the cooperatives cannot change into peoples farms. Let us see what the experiment tells us. Let us see which is the better system. Which does most for the needs of our country. The cooperatives have formed on the basis of a very combative mass, not like in the peoples farms which have been formed in areas where there were few workers before. The Granma ranch has 3,000 caballerias of land and 7,000 workers now. There is a range in Pinar del Rio where 6 peons used to work. Today there are 20,000 working there. These workers came from many places. Two Systems of Production It is necessary to maintain these two systems of production. There is another method, the method of small farmers. Part of the land is in the hands of the small farmers. What is the government policy toward them? It is the following: The revolution is not only the search for ideal methods; the revolution must also adapt aspirations to realities. In Cuba there are many small farmers who are very close to the land. What has the revolt done with them? First, there are no rent payments. The small tobacco producer used to pay 30 percent of his income for rent. The coffee farmer also paid. The rebel government ended the rent. We will review our policy on paying them in cash. There is room for rectification in this sense on the part of the government. Many of the farmers are in the mountains. It is not an ideal method of production; the farmer works there with his family. The counterrevolutionaries would like us to become utopian revolutionaries and stick our feet into it. That is not the policy for the revolt. We won't form them into cooperatives. The small farmer was also exploited. The small farmer was dispossessed at times. He was a victim of middlemen. he was a victim of the government price policy. The revolution ended exploitation, including the exploitation of the small farmer. The revolution should aid them, as it is. That is the policy of the revolution. In the mountains there are thousands of farmers who are getting credit. It is a simple system--no fuss. We have appointed an inspector in the area to investigate the need for the credits. The coffee plantations were poorly managed--too much crowding. Cacao was in poor shape also. When the technicians learn more, better plants will be used. There will be a credit program for the mountains. In Baracoa there were few people. United Fruit cultivated the plantain there for some years. Then the company moved away. The people thought of nothing but the banana. Baracoa has fertile land and is suitable for certain crops, but they are long term crops. During the dictatorship a fund was set up for the area--it went to the big interests. We have a plan now. In the next four years Baracoa will get the equivalent of 7 million pesos annually--more than during its best banana years. That will go to help increase the coffee and cacao crops. This plan is being used in Oriente and Las Villas. In the mountains cotton cannot be planted, machinery cannot be used to well. So we had to establish a long-term credit system this year as part of the aid program for small farmers. There are 35 million pesos in the budget for credit to the small farmers and 80,000 small farmers will receive credits, which will permit them to develop plantations with their families. What do we do when a farmer has more land than he can work himself? We ask him to get his family to help him. A small family cooperative--that is the policy of the revolution regarding the small farmers. The small farmers are allies of the revolution. The counterrevolutionaries tried to frighten the small farmers. Some peasants wanted to form cooperatives by themselves made up of small farmers. They now have a town, but what is our view? We have discouraged such cooperatives. Why? Precisely to avoid the appearance of promoting cooperatives. That would only serve to give the counterrevolutionaries a change to claim we are out to take their land away. There are farmers who live their land. That does not bother the revolution. Small farmers must be given guarantees that they can keep the land if they want it. To prevent the formation of cooperatives too freely, we have adopted the principle that small farmers are allowed to form cooperatives only if they insist on it strongly and the entire group is willing. Only then will the INRA allow them to form a cooperative. While they remain independent farmers, they get credit and technical aid. That is the revolution's program for the small farmers. They can always count on government aid. Small Farm Association Some of the small farmers had more than just a little land. Some of them have stirred up the small farmers and tried to speak for them. So we called in all small farmers with five or less caballerias of land to form the National Association of Small Farmers. They include sugar growers, coffee growers, ranchers, and so forth. Thirty-five million pesos are at the disposal of the association for granting credits to these small farmers. Some, using family ties, have tried to agitate among small farmers. Imperialism is so unscrupulous in its actions that it tries to promote family divisions when there is any change to cause trouble. We have had to apply equally the laws we have promulgated without privileges for anybody. It is characteristic that government officials here have rather low incomes, and the government is absolutely honest. There are privileges for nobody. We would betray the revolution is we were swayed by any practices which were formerly customary. None of our officials has had any kind of privilege. We have an aunt who lost her son, and we help her with our own money. That is what we can do. But we must be honest. The reactionaries and imperialist agents try to approach our relatives to dig up some criticism of the revolution and make it appear that we are opposed by our own relatives. These are maneuvers respecting no honor. The law was passed about cutting all the cane. The reason was explained. It was a crime to let 10,000 caballerias of good land planted in cane go unused. It was decided to cut that cane. The cooperation of the workers and the people was requested in cutting the cane. We could guarantee the sale of only 4 million tons at 4 centavos. A provisional price of 2.5 centavos was set for the rest. We decided the fair division was to pay 4 centavos for the other three parts, with everybody sharing alike. Long Struggle Ahead We have devoted ourselves to a cause. We are not interested in business deals at all. We enjoy the confidence of the nation. We are very aware of the millions who make up the poor segments of our country. They defend the revolution above all else, and we own ourselves wholly to them. Imperialism and capitalism have come out as champions of the family, but they are the big destroyers of the family. Class interests are so strong that they are sometimes stronger than family ties. But for us there is the people. We owe ourselves to the people. That is where our life lies. A son of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes was captured. When he was asked to give up his cause in exchange for the life of his son, he said all the citizens were his children too. We feel the same way. We can never for any reason put any personal sentiment above our obligations to the people. We have devoted ourselves to that exclusively, and we will die devoted to it. We will always hare the people's lot. Everybody can be sure of that. When everything is going perfectly, then we will have a right to retirement. The struggle we are in is a long one. All resources will be used. The enemies of the revolution will use the worst methods. They will use every weapon. But it will be in vain. Because this flame will never be put out. So our policy toward small farmers has been clarified. Nobody who has not been a small farmer or a revolutionary can speak for the small farmers. The big planters in particular cannot speak for the small farmers. If any wants to, let him first give up his plantation. So that is what we have done, in agriculture and in general. We believe things are going wonderfully in agriculture, so much so that we have been able to resist economic aggression. Let those who have 25 or 30 caballierias get busy and cultivate their land instead of talking about the lot of the workers. If they need credit let them ask for it from the National Bank. If they don't cultivate their land we will put through another agrarian reform. (Chanting and applause) There are some of these small farmers who don't employ the workers and then blame the government. I am glad you understand that there are several battle fronts and that we have to fight hard. At least the people are well aware of it. After two years of the revolution the people have learned a lot. One must understand well what forces support the revolution and which oppose it. (Crowd shouting) Wait--let that girl speak. Why? Why are the priests against the revolt? And who believes in the reactionary priests? Are they with the rich or the poor? They are with the rich. Have they protested yesterday? The smuggling? (Crowd shouts answers in each case.) There has never been a single sermon or pastoral letter in defense of the people, not now or during the war of independence. That is the old story. They used to burn the Indians. If the criminals go to Heaven, we don't want to go the Heaven. If the exploiters go to Heaven, we don't want to go. (Five minutes of chanting and cheering) Know Your Enemies It is important to know our enemies. A real revolution has the support of the most combative sector of the people. We know we will be victorious in this struggle. We knew that from the first day. We still have a few fights to fight. You know that since that gentleman (President Kennedy--Ed.) got there, the new one, he has the same policy and, if anything, it is more aggressive. The situation in Latin America is not so easy. A great congress is being held in Mexico called by that great revolutionary figure, Lazaro Cardenas. He is a friend of our revolution, one of the most solid figures of this continent. The governments of Ecuador and Brazil have spoken clearly and energetically. The Yankee threats have not had the effect they had previously. The threateners are marching from failure to failure. When the workers are convinced of their force, they will realize that the mercenary soldiers are easy to erase from the map. The money spent for military purposes can build millions of houses. What magic formula will Mr. Kennedy offer Latin America? One government, that of El Salvador, declared it broke relations just to get dollars. What a shame. This year we have 600 cooperatives, 300 people's farms, and 80,000 small farmers. We have a plan to end illiteracy this year. We have a housing plan for 25,000 new peasant housing units. We tell the international reaction to stop their idiocies. Let them tell the people where the education, the work, the housing, and the other things are. No matter what they try to tell the peasants, no matter what lies, the Latin American peasants will realize that turning barracks into schools is what is needed. They will want the people to have rifles. The reaction will not be able to deceive with their theoretical freedoms--the freedom of millionaires to buy Cadillacs every year, to fool the people, to control education and the press. When the Indians are told that we took their land, their houses, they will say: So what? The only thing that will surprise them is that we let the oligarchists go in peace. The only thing the Indians can reproach us about is that we have been so generous. We did not have to execute the oligarchists. We did well in letting them go. Some stayed in peace; they no longer exploit anyone. The poor North American people have to pay for those thugs. It is sad that North American workers are paying them. That is what the U.S. Government has done. Have you heard of the royalty? They had powdered hair. Well, from wherever they have been thrown out, they have gone to the United States. Every parasite, noble, gangster, exploiter, warmonger, and criminal in the world had gone to the United States. That is the picture of the empire. They have gathered all the decayed of the world and the American people must support them, because they have never even produced a toothpick in their lives. Those people always ate of the best. They never worked, but they always ate the best. Who ate the bone? The people. Well the revolution gives the people the right to eat the bone and the ham also. If the people could only open their eyes to what we know, there would be no place in the world for a thug to hide. The day will come when they have no hiding places. U.S. Will Have Revolution A revolution will take place in the United States also. Why not? The crises are leading that way. One day we will have a revolutionary government in the United States which is friendly to us. That is a law of history. Twenty Pentagons cannot prevent it. They know it is their fate. That is why they are a danger to humanity: From that comes their bellicose psychosis. They know they are defeated, condemned by history, seeing a new world rising up in America, Asia, and Africa. And so we see them using all their tricks to harm the revolution. What CIA is doing against us is ridiculous. The other day they sent a plane. It was shot down. It fell off the Baracoa area, in the sea. On the same day a pirate plane coming from Guatemala came in with one motor cut and riddled with bullet holes. On Friday night a DC-4 began flying around the Cubanas area; it ran into firing exercises of anti-aircraft batteries and got riddled with bullets. Later this plane, which apparently came to drop arms, let them fall--a small mortar, machine guns, Garands, camouflage equipment, etc.--and apparently it continued along the coast and the arrived at Jamaica in bad shape. Authorities found it came from Guatemala. So this activity from pirate bases built by CIA in Guatemala was exposed much better than if the plane had fallen here. We hope that Jamaican authorities will turn them over to us as violators of international law. We hope the British empire, which was so worried over piracy in past epochs, will send us these pirates to be tried by Cuban courts. In any case the British Government cannot become an accomplice of these misdeeds by criminals who are constantly violating our territory. The mercenaries had to land in Jamaica, and the world has seen what Cuba has been denouncing. Our foreign minister in the UN will have another argument now, if all the proofs we have and the new Yankee arms we have to put on exhibit are not enough. So in two days they have had two planes shot down, and they have given us plenty of arms lately. They make themselves ridiculous. This is all the worse in a government with so many airs as that of the U.S. and with such an "intelligent" president. With all these acts of hostility, they will be unable to prevent us from attaining all the goals the revolution has set itself. They are worried, not we. They know they are at a dead-end. We are working, we lose no time, we have absolute faith in victory. They go from failure to failure. There is no doubt but that those gentlemen will have a few years less out of sheer rage. They know time works against them; we know time works for us. They suffer from the revolution; we rejoice in it, thinking that one day it will be the revolution of all Latin America and the whole world. -END-