-DATE- 19610728 -YEAR- 1961 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- SPEECH -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- 8TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE EVENTS OF 26 JULY -PLACE- CUBA -SOURCE- REVOLUCION -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19610728 -TEXT- CASTRO SPEECH ON THE EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY OF 26 JULY Source: Revolucion, Havana, 28 July 1961. We carry below the full text of the speech delivered by the Prime Minister, Doctor Fidel Castro, at the great popular gathering held in Jose Marti Revolution Square to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the events of 26 July. To the accompaniment of loud acclamation from those present, who chanted various revolutionary slogans, Comandante Fidel Castro approached the microphones and had to wait several minutes before being able to speak, due to the cheers of the people. The Prime Minister spoke as follows: Commander Gagarin (applause), First Cosmonaut of the world and Hero of the Soviet Union (applause), Heads of the special diplomatic missions present here with us today (applause), Special ambassadors (applause), Members of the diplomatic corps (applause), Workers, peasants and students of Latin America and other countries of the world with us here today (applause), People of Cuba (applause): It does great honor to all of us that the Soviet Union has sent the man who has just made the first flight in space (applause) to be with us this afternoon. He has been decorated for this, in his own country, with the Hero of the Soviet Union medal (applause). And this show the great friendship of that people toward us (applause). We recall clearly that it was at that same time, when the Soviet Union was covering itself with glory and prestige by launching the first man into space, that the government of the United States launched against our people its criminal invasion. We had occasion to contrast the two deeds: that promoting science and advancing the progress of mankind and peace, and the cowardly and unscrupulous mercenary invasion, which the imperial- ists, inspired by the desire to recover their privileges and their monopolies, launched against our country. Because of this, because the two events are clear in our mind, and because in those same days of our people, in an act of great heroism, defeated the invading mercenaries and since the revolutionary government has established the National Order of the Bay of Pigs for presentation to all those men who have accomplished extraordinary facts promoting peace and science and contributing to the advance of mankind, or in the struggle against colonialism and imperialism, nothing could be more proper than to present the first Order of the Bay of Pigs to the first world cosmonaut, Commander Yuri Gagarin (applause). Thus, the recollections of these two deeds, which occurred at almost the same time, these two heroic actions, these two great victories for world peace, will always be linked (applause). But not only is a hero of the Soviet Union visiting us today, for another great man of the Soviet world, who has twice received the Hero of the Union Medal for his deeds at the North Pole, and who has also achieved rank of General of the Soviet Air Force, has accompanied Commander Gagarin here. He is General Kamnin (applause). Other countries such as the Korean People's Republic (the United Arab Republic), and the Republic of Guinea (applause) have also sent special missions to us for the 26 July celebration. And other countries, such as India, Finland, China and Lebanon have sent us special ambassadors (applause). A large number of other countries have delegated their ambassadors as official representatives at the 26 July ceremonies (applause). Many Latin American brothers, the always enthusiastic leaders, peasants, workers and students of Latin America have also come to see with their own eyes if what is said about our revolution is the truth or a lie (applause), if what those who defend it say is true, and whether or not that which those who combat it say is a lie. Because obviously, much is said about our revolution, good and evil. Everyone knows who speaks well of it and who speaks evil. Everyone knows who defends it and who combats it. And it is not precisely the largest estate owners or the presidents of monopolies or the editors of the mercenary and yellow press who make up the legions of the defenders of the Cuban revolution. It is possible that the systematic lies and slander find some among the men of the people who can be made victims of confusion. It is possible that they can recruit some misguided minds among the people to oppose our revolution. But what is certain is that they will never win the heart of any true worker, any true peasant, any true intellectual, any true revolutionary (applause)! And the best and most honest elements in each brotherly Latin American people defend our revolution. The men and women who are capable of thinking for themselves and who have a clear and real and true idea of the problems of our continent defend the revolution. These people will never play their game or echo the slanders they write about us, the lies the imperialist news agencies and their accomplices, the reactionaries, all over the continent, repeat about us. Because the things said against our revolution are discredited of themselves. One need only realize that those who write against us and who lie about us are the exploiters of the American continent. Those who write and tell lies about us are the freebooters and the pirates of this continent. (shouts), those who write and tell lies about us are those who have seized the natural wealth and riches of our peoples, who are making profits and getting rich at the expense of the sweat and the blood of tens and dozens of millions of Latin American brothers. And if those who write and lie and act against the Cuban revolution are such people, this only means that the imperialists and their servants and lackeys are profoundly grieved by what the Cuban revolution has done to promote justice, what the Cuban revolution has done to benefit the poor, the exploited, and those against whom there was discrimination (applause). If the exploiters attack us, if the freebooters combat us, if the thieves slander us, if those who discriminate hate us, it is simply because we are the friends of those who were ex- ploited and subject to discrimination (applause) and this defines our revolution, because we regard the attacks the imperialists have made against us as a real honor. We are proud of the hatred of the discriminators and the exploiters for us. Because the imperialists have defended and are defending all the bandits in the world, all the exploiters and the criminals in the world (shouts of "out"). The imperialists have defended and are defending all the reactionaries and all the miserable despots in the world. The imperialists are the defenders and the protectors and the generous friends of any traitor, any mercenary and any enemy of the peoples of the world -- anyone who discriminates, who colonizes, and they are the friends of the whole policy of oppression and exploitation which exists on every continent of the world. And those who defend the exploiters, the despots, discrimination, colonialism, all the evils which exist in the world -- it is they who combat us. Thus, this policy collapses, that is to say, this campaign of lies and slander against the revolution destroys itself, because the support and the sympathy of the peoples of Latin America with our revolution, above all the campaigns they have waged, above and beyond the systematic, daily lies they write about our revolution, above the established interests and the allies of the imperialists on this continent -- this support and this spontaneous sympathy with our revolution, which the slanders and the lies have not been able to destroy, are the proof that the Cuban revolution can defend itself. (applause). For this reason, our first words today are words of thanks for the honors accorded us on this 26 July, the honor rendered to us by the visitors who have come to see for themselves what is happening in Cuba. As you know, the government of the United States, that country which calls itself the "leader of the free world" (shouts and whistles), the country which calls itself the archetype of a democratic country -- even if the Negroes in the south do not claim this (applause), has prohibited its citizens to visit Cuba, and a large group of US students which proposed to visit our country was warned that this would entail a fine of 5,000 pesos and 5 years in prison. In other words, the "great country which is the leader of the world and the archetype of democracy" does not want to allow its students to visit Cuba. It does not want to permit American citizens to come to see for themselves what is happening in Cuba, and it has made it illegal to visit our country. Our attitude is different. Our attitude is truly that of the governments and peoples who really believe in their cause, who really believe in what they are defending, and thus we have not forbidden American citizens to visit Cuba. For this reason, we want them to visit Cuba and we want many visitors to come from Latin America and everywhere in the world (applause), because we have nothing to hide from the world. Indeed, modestly, we would like to show the world what we have done in two and a half years of revolution, and moreover, we can also explain why we have not been able to do more. And we want to do this in order to explain to the world how we have done what we have in an atmosphere of such aggression, hindered by so many hostile actions, and so many threats on the part of the imperialists. Nor had we forbidden Cubans to go to the United States. We are not forbidding anyone who wants to experience these "marvels" in the United States (shouts and whistles). The airlines are operating between Cuba and the United States and the revolutionary government is authorizing those who want to go to the United States and even those who want to stay there (shouts). We are not creating obstacles of any nature. In other words, unlike what they are doing, prohibiting travel from the United States to Cuba, prohibiting US visitors from coming to Cuba, we are neither forbidding visits nor forbidding our people to go and if they want to remain in the United States (applause). Nor are we thinking of doing so. It is good to clarify these revolutionary viewpoints just now, during these 26 July celebrations, about which the imperialists news agencies, the imperialist and reactionary press and the enemies of the revolution have been circulating all kinds of rumors. "Prepare for 26 July." "Buy your tickets before 26 July." "On 26 July, it will be all over." What was going to be proved on 26 July? What was to be decided on that date? (Shouts). Well, then, who is concerned about these rumors? Who is spreading these rumors? Who is repeating these rumors? (Shouts). In fact, have the people of Cuba ever lost anything on a 26 July? (Shouts of "no"). Has any humble citizen of the people, any worker, any peasant, any student, any humble family of the people ever left anything on 26 July? (Shouts of "no"). Has any exploited Cuban, any Cuban subject to discrimination, any abandoned Cuban ever lost anything on a 26 July? (Shouts of "no"). Or on 1 May? (Shouts of "no"). Or on 1 January? (Shouts of "no"). The people have always gained by the revolutionary laws (shouts of "yes"). They cannot tell the people (shouts of "Fidel, Fidel" and "we will conquer!"), they cannot tell the people tales of any kind. They cannot influence the people with rumors of any kind because the people know that their revolutionary government will never take any steps against them, it will never go against their interests. (Applause and shouts of "Cuba, yes, Yankees, no!"). And it is for this reason that the people are here, joyfully celebrating the 26 July holiday (applause and shouts of "we will triumph!"). They are here as they have always been here when summoned to the Revolution Square, because the people never fail. One need only look around from this place where we are and from which we have viewed other gatherings to see that on this 26 July, that is to say, the third to be celebrated since the triumph of the revolution, there are still more people than gathered here on the first 26 July (applause and shouts of "left, left"). And this is true despite the fact that this mobilization has not been a national one as was the first, on 26 July 1959, because on that occasion the peasants from all the corners of the country were mobilized, and we have not done that this time. And there have also been two other great gatherings today in Santiago de Cuba and Camaguey (applause). The people have come to give their answer to the plotters. The people have come to give their answer to the reactionaries and the imperialists. The people have come to say to them "we are here, do not forget that we are here, do not forget that we exist" (applause). And the men and women of the people have not come here to eat and drink, to stroll and to amuse themselves, as they came to the fiestas in the past. No, the people have come here today to say "present" as always (applause). The people have come here today to show that their revolutionary spirit has grown, to show that their revolutionary conviction is firmer than ever. The people have come here to say that after two and a half years of revolution, they want to continue with the revolution and to continue promoting the revolution (extended ovation). Obviously, the reactionaries are incapable ever of rallying a fifth of the men and the women gathered here today. And this is natural, because the exploiters cannot rally the people anywhere. The exploiters can rally exploiting gangs, but the defenders of exploitation can never rally the exploited, they can never rally those against whom they discriminate, they can never rally the people in any real sense. But a revolution can rally the people. And the people are here. It is not the great estate owners who are here, not the exploiters, not the representatives of the monopolies, the hired ruffians, the speculators, the thieves. It is the people who are here, because only a just revolution and only a just government can rally the people (applause). Only when the people count, only when the people matter, only when the people decide can the people be rallied. Obviously, the reactionaries, the imperialists, say that they are the great democrats. But it is we who can count those here and demonstrate the extraordinary support of the people for the revolution. It is we who can count the hearts and the souls and the minds supporting and advancing with the revolution. (Applause and shouts of "Fatherland or death"). For the representatives of the oligarchy and the exploiters this is democracy. For them, democracy is petty politicking. Democracy is this cloak under which they can feel the most evil exploitation of man by man. For them, democracy is this system under which only the privileged minorities count, only the gangs which monopolize the resources and the wealth of the nation count. For them, what we have here is not democracy. It is clear that for them this is not democracy because they do not know what democracy is (applause). For them what we had before was democracy. And who is it who objected to what we had before? Who has forgotten what existed before? No government could rally a tenth of the people gathered here. In the past, to rally the people, they had to force government employees to come, they had to pay money, they had to recruit the hungry people and even despite these maneuvers, even with the rum they distributed at public gatherings, they could not rally the people. Corrupt politicians, misappropriators of funds and exploiters decided on problems of the country. The people counted for nothing. What we had in the past is what the imperialists call democracy, this petty politicking which serves to conceal exploitation, to frustrate the will and oppose the interests of the people -- this is what they called "democracy." Obviously, this was the democracy of the monopolies, of the great estates owners, of the US companies, of the exploiters. What we have, obviously, is not the democracy of the exploiters. Do the exploiters have rights in Cuba? No (shouts of "no"). Do the foreign monopolies have rights in Cuba? (Shouts of "no). And the estate owners? (Shouts of "no"). No, and do they have a right to govern the country? (Shouts of "no"). Do they have a right to make the laws of the republic? (Shouts of "no"). No, the exploiters have no rights, because the right to exploit is not a right but simply an intolerable privilege which mankind has had to put up with, because privileges and yokes are accepted by people while they cannot get rid of them, but when they can, as our people have been able, the privileges of the exploiters cease. And it was the exploiters who governed our country. The exploiters no longer govern it today. Those who enjoyed the great privileges have been "called to account," as the people say. The supposed rights of the exploiters have disappeared in our country. Thus, this is not a democracy of the exploiters, estate owners and monopolies. The democracy the imperialists want is democracy wherein the people have no rights, wherein the people are miserably deceived, and wherein the exploiters and the privileged govern and decide all the problems. This democracy of the monopolies, the discriminators, the exploiters, is the democracy of which the imperialists speak. Now we are speaking of another democracy, the democracy of the people, of the workers, of the peasants, of the humble men and women (applause), the democracy of the majority of the nation, of those who were exploited, of those who had no rights in the past. And this is the true democracy, the revolutionary democracy of the people, the democracy of the humble, by the humble and for the humble (applause). It is for this reason that the people are not concerned about rumors. Who is concerned about the rumors? We are not (applause and shouts of "Fidel! Fidel!" and "unity! unity!"). The Yankee news agencies have been engaging in a whole series of speculations about this 26 July holiday for days now. Today, we were supposed to issue certain statements, to announce the integration of the revolutionary forces, to make this or that pronouncement. Naturally, the speculations of the imperialist agencies were dictated by certain maneuvers and plans of a political nature. Revolutionary integration is a process which has been occurring for some time, at the base, among the people. Since the early months of the revolution, when the revolutionary forces were made up of a heterogeneous complex, of many organizations, we have progressed to a stage at which the people, increasingly united, are moving steadily toward homogeneous integration in a single revolutionary organization (applause). Because obviously, this is the result of the increasingly greater unity of the people in the revolution. The fact is that the revolution has served to unite all the people, to unite all the people with it, to unite all the people in the hopes of justice and in the successes achieved to date. It is clear that the greatest enemy of any revolution is division, and that the best ally of the enemies of the people is divisionism. A people must advance united, a people desiring to establish a true regime of justice must advance together, as a single people. In the unity of this people lies strength, in the unity of this people lies its invincibility, and the history of this revolution proves that a united people is invincible. The history of this revolution proves that in unity there is strength (applause)! The history of this revolution shows that the worst threat to the success of a revolution and a people is divisionism. It is for this reason that the imperialists are concerned about popular unity. They are concerned, because the Cuban people are united, and they are concerned because the revolutionary organizations are joining together in a single revolutionary organization (extensive applause). Will it be the only organization? No, it will be the only organization of revolutionaries! The counterrevolutionaries have their organizations, their innumerable organizations. I believe that there are 180 counterrevolutionary organizations (laughter). And also the counterrevolutionaries have the Central Intelligence Agency, which is yet another counterrevolutionary organization. The revolutionaries, on the other hand, have a single organization, and the counterrevolutionaries will continue to have hundreds (applause). This is what the integration of the revolutionary organization means. But did we plan to announce this integration today? No, it has been happening, at the base, for months. The process of integration still has not ended, it is still in the process of occurring, and at a given moment this process of uniting all the revolutionaries in a single revolutionary organization will be completed (extensive applause). This will be the representative organization of the revolutionary people of Cuba. This organization will be the product of the unification of all the revolutionary organizations. Obviously, the imperialists are concerned about this. What do they want? That there be various revolutionary organizations, and also that they disagree among themselves, that these revolutionary organizations fight each other such as to weaken the revolution. But what do the people want? The people want strength in the revolution. The people want their revolution to be strong and to be able to defend itself against the attacks of its enemies. Therefore, the people want the revolutionaries to unite. Therefore, the people want a single revolutionary organization to be the organization of all the revolutionaries (applause and shouts of "unity! unity!"). Naturally, nothing the revolution does suits the imperialists. The imperialists have to combat what the revolution does. What would suit the imperialists? If the revolution did things badly, if it was divided, if it weakened, if it lacked discipline, lacked organization, and this is precisely what we revolutionaries are not going to do. We want to strengthen the revolution in its ideology, in its organization and in its discipline, because we know that this will make the revolution ever more invincible and it will make the imperialists and reactionaries ever more powerless against the revolution. But there is no need to wait for a certain date to declare the revolutionary forces united. When this process of integration has concluded, when that moment arrives, we will simply explain and tell the people that the process of unification has been completed. It was said that on 26 July we will go to make some statement or other. This is simple stupidity. The revolution does not have to wait for a date. The revolution must do everything in its own proper time (applause). We have said that the revolution is socialist (extensive applause). What does it mean to say that the revolution is socialist? Does it mean that everything here is socialized? No. Does it mean that everything here will be socialized in the ceremonies today? No, because the revolution is a process, nor can socialism be achieved by decree. Socialism is an economic and social system which is achieved by means of a process. It is not achieved by decree. It is possible to nationalize the sugar mills by decree, to nationalize the banks, the great industries, to implement a whole series of measures, but one does not achieve a full social and economic regime by decree. Among other things, the revolution is a process of educating the people, a process of developing revolutionary awareness. The statement that the revolution is socialist means that the revolution is advancing toward a socialist economic and social regime, without the exploitation of man by man. And in a national general assembly, in a gathering of this vast size, the Havana Declaration was approved. The people of Cuba approved the Havana Declaration, in which all the basic points are the basic points of socialism (applause). And, among other things, when the Havana Declaration condemned the exploitation of man by man, and condemned colonialism, and imperialism, and the exploitation of a people by the monopolistic enterprises of another country -- when it condemned the large estate ownership, and when it set forth the right of man to the fruits of his labor, when it set forth the right of young people to education, when it set forth the right of the peasants to the land, it was simply putting many of the things which the revolution had done into a statement of principle, and at the same time, it was concretely expressing the aspirations of the Cuban revolution. But it is necessary to understand this clearly. It is necessary not only that the revolutionary leaders understand it, for the people must, too. The most important thing of all is for the people to understand. The most important thing of all is for the people to know. A revolutionary undertaking is not the work of revolutionary leaders, it is the work of a whole people, it is the work and the task of the masses of the people. And the people must understand that the revolution is a process which sets itself certain goals, and these goals are not achieved by decree. These goals are not achieved overnight. The people must understand socialism, they must know what socialism is, and the people must know how to achieve socialism, a society in which the exploitation of man will have disappeared completely and wherein, with the disappearance of the exploitation of one class by another, we will achieve a regime of true justice and true equality among men, without exploiter and exploited classes (applause). But it is necessary, it is essential that the people know what socialism is, what socialism consists of and how such a society is achieved. They must understand that such a society is not achieved overnight, nor is a month nor in two years, and that this more just society cannot be achieved unless it is on the basis of work and the economic development of the nation, the development of our wealth, because it is impossible to establish this more just society without an extraordinary increase in the production of goods which will permit all citizens of the country to satisfy all their needs. We will not achieve this more just society with great dreams, with great ideas, with great intentions and great desires. It must be achieved through a process and through great effort. Does this mean that we must impose socialism by force? No. Has the revolutionary government imposed socialism by force, or is socialism a consequence of the revolution of the people which seeks justice? (Shouts of "Yes" and applause). In other words, it is the result of the conviction of the people, it is the consequence of the persuasion of the people, it is the result of the education of the people. This means that we should not impose other ideas by force either; rather, we must win over those who do not understand our ideas, win them by persuasion and by reason. This means that in this process we must promote the self-education of the people, and we must hope that every humble man, every exploited man, every honorable man will understand and support our ideas. It is necessary, moreover, for the people to understand that this is not an easy task. Why do the counterrevolutionaries propagate lies for their own purposes? Why do the counterrevolutionaries make an effort to spread so many lies? They do this in order to win over to their side certain sectors of the people whom it is possible to arouse through fear and through rumors. The counterrevolution does not spread lies to win over the workers, those who were exploited in the past. It does this to win over certain social classes, certain social sectors of the middle class and the petit bourgeoisie, in order to persuade them to combat the workers and the peasants. The counterrevolutionaries are trying to isolate the workers' class and the peasant class. The counterrevolutionaries are trying to cut the workers off, to cut the peasants off, and if possible, to divide the workers and the peasants and also to see all the middle strata of the population against this workers' and peasants' class, so that they will serve the interests of the greater exploiters who want to gain control of the government of the nation again. This means that it must be understood clearly that the revolution which represents the basic interests of the workers' class and the peasantry is a process, and that in this process it is necessary to try to win over the largest possible number of the elements in the middle population sectors. In other words, these elements should not be thrown into the arms of the counterrevolutionaries and the reactionaries, but they should be won over and enlisted in the revolution (applause). This is the only intelligent and proper strategy for the workers' class and the peasantry, it is the only correct and intelligent strategy for the revolution. This means that the revolution should deal in a special way with these sectors, not in the same way as it deals with the great monopolies, that is to say, the great estate owners, the great industrialists and the upper commercial and financial bourgeoisie. The treatment of the sectors should be proper, polite and intelligent, in order to win them over to the revolution. We must take into account that there is a large sector of the population in small trade and small industry, people working for themselves, in their own workshops, and this is a large sector. In other words, the small industrial and small trade sectors remain. And the revolution should pursue an intelligent and correct policy with these population sectors. There have been those who have asked us: "Well, when are we going to seize all the small businesses?" And then, we realized that these people were very possibly speaking in good faith, possibly they believed that this is the most revolution- ary thing, and failed to realize that this would be precisely the most counterrevolutionary action, the most negative thing we could do (applause). Why? Because it would make into enemies of the revolution sectors which the revolution should enlist, and which the revolution should have and keep on its side, until they have been assimilated by the revolution. Why would this policy be counterrevolutionary? Because it would create more enemies for the revolution, it would divide the domestic front, because it ignores the fact that our basic battle is against the great imperialist interests, the great monopolistic interests which want to crush the revolution, and the revolution must offer a solid domestic front for struggle against these interests (applause). Why are we speaking of this problem? Because it is a problem which not only the leaders need to know, for the masses must know. This must also be a mass policy, since the leaders of a revolution can do nothing if the ideas of the revolution do not become the thinking of the great revolutionary masses, and since the revolutionary masses everywhere must implement the slogans of the revolution (applause). There are large numbers of small businesses, and an infinity of little stalls and small workshops, large numbers of people working for themselves, and the counterrevolutionaries are trying to frighten these sectors of the people. Obviously, the revolution is not sufficiently developed, does not have sufficient personnel to render all these services which in many cases small businesses and small industries render, but the counterrevolutionaries want to frighten these families, and naturally, since the revolution applied confiscation measures against the large owners, against the big business men, the counterrevolutionaries are trying to make these sectors of the people believe that their businesses will be confiscated too and that they, too, will be left without goods or resources. It is essential that the people understand, that all these revolutionary sectors understand, that socialism is the aspiration toward a more just society, without exploiters and exploited, but socialism is not an exclusivistic society. Socialism does not seek to let some live while hindering others (applause). Socialism is the desire to have every man and woman have the opportunity to live decently, and therefore, all of the honorable men and women in a country come within the socialist framework (applause) and all the honorable men and women of the country can aid in bringing socialism about. It is logical that if a family which has a small business as its means of livelihood is threatened with losing what it has, and finding itself hungry in the streets, logically any head of a family to whom the picture of his wife and children without the bread he can provide them is painted -- that man is filled with terror of the revolution, that man is full of fear of the revolution, and that man can be won over by the counterrevolutionaries. Because no man can claim the right to exploit other men, but any man can indeed say: "What I want is to have an opportunity to live, too. I have lived under a capitalist regime, and under that regime I adapted to certain conditions. What I want is to adapt myself to the conditions of socialism too, and to live honorably under socialism." We must prevent any citizen from being led to believe that he will be left in the street without a livelihood (applause). We must see that no family can say or harbors the fear that it will be left overnight without its means of livelihood. Capitalism was characterized by cruelty. The fate of any given man or woman of the people who might be out in the street without work, without a means of livelihood, without a home and hungry did not matter to the capitalists. Capitalism was cruel to the citizens of the country and uninterested in the fate of any given citizen. Socialism can never operate with the methods characteristic of capitalism. Socialism is interested in the fate of each man and woman in the country, it is interested in bread and work for each man and woman in the country (applause)! And for this reason, we can calmly allow those who want to go to do so, but we can only do this if we truly establish in our country absolutely just conditions, such that if someone goes it is because he wants to, and not because he is not given the opportunity to live here and to work, but because he does not want to live honorably, and wants to go because he does not want to earn his bread working honorably (applause), so that those who go will do so simply because they do not choose to profit from the opportunity offered them by the father- land. And if such people want to go, let them go (applause)! Naturally the revolution does not come about in an easy way. The revolution is not something which develops simply and without problems. In some cases, the laws of the revolution are very hard on some people. There have been such cases, and moreover, we must even admit that sometimes we, involved in the revolutionary battle, have not had time to consider these cases. When the laws nationalizing all the US monopolies were implemented -- and rightly, because all these monopolies were multimillionaires, all of them had great investments and capital in the United States -- we certainly did not have to concern ourselves in any way about the nationalization of these great monopolies. When the revolution implemented another law, the urban reform law, it affected tens of thousands of people. However, this law was very well implemented, because the case of all those families living on the income from a house were taken into account, and these families continued to receive income. Urban reform continued to provide them with what they had earned, that is to say, this was a law which did not leave any family, any old person who was dependent on an income of 60 or 70 pesos from a house, hungry. When we undertook agrarian reform, however, our law was defective in that it did not take into account the situation of the very humble families who had, who lived off the rest of the land, that is to say, those who were not large estate owners. In this sense, the agrarian law was not as just and perfect a law, that is to say, it was just in its principles but in its mechanism and its implementation it was not as just as the urban reform law, because it did not provide for these cases. For example, the agrarian reform law left the large estate owners a part of the land. The law nationalizing the major industries left nothing to any of those owners of major industries. Naturally, the reaction of all the great industrialists to a loss such as this is to leave the country, even if they are given an opportunity to work, even though the government gives them a chance to earn a living honorably, they go, and this is what has happened. But in exceptional cases it did happen that there were families who on losing their industries were left "homeless in the street," without a cent. Naturally, this is not ideal. We recall that we once said that if any of these families was left without any resources, we would be prepared to provide them with pensions or some aid. We believe that it will be just in the cases of these families of a certain age, people who can no longer work at anything else and whose goods have all been nationalized, if they want to remain here and since they can no longer live like millionaires or exploit anyone, for the revolutionary govern- ment to be prepared to give them pensions, if their aids and conditions so require (applause), that is to say, if they are no longer able, because of age, to do other work. What does this mean? That the revolution must try to act in such a way that no one can object to its actions, such that its actions cannot be represented as acts of cruelty, and such that no one can cite the case of an unhappy "Mr. So and So" left hungry, without a single cent. The revolution must simply say: "No, even you, a great exploiter, even you, a great industrial magnate, will be prevented now from exploiting anyone. Now you can no longer exploit the labor of hundreds of workers. Now you can no longer exploit anyone. But the revolutionary government cannot leave you and your family hungry in the street. The revolutionary government even has a solution for you, if you are to too old and cannot work, but you should not be afraid of the revolution." Naturally, such cases are the exception with the great industrial magnates. They are exception. The majority have departed, the majority could not adapt themselves. Now then, there remains a large sector which is not that of the great magnates, nor is it such a small sector as that of the great magnates. With regard to this population group, the revolution should make an effort to pursue a correct and wide policy. Does this mean that private enterprise will always continue to exist? No, it will not. It will disappear with the revolution (applause). Will the businesses employing workers always exist? No. We should begin by saying that neither free enterprise nor these businesses will continue to exist forever, and that by the end of the revolutionary process these types of business will have disappeared (applause). This is something which those involved themselves should know. What we want to say is that these businesses cannot and should not disappear overnight. What we want to say is that we must now allow the sector of the population which makes a living from these small businesses to fear hunger. They must cease to fear that they will be deprived of their means of livelihood suddenly and without compensation and without any chance to earn a livelihood in the country. Because there are many small business men who are not worried about the fact that free enterprise may disappear in five, ten or fifteen years. This does not concern them. Nor are the small industrialists concerned that this type of business will disappear. What will be seized, they will be put in into the streets and will find themselves poor and homeless. That is to say, without work, without a business, without money, without food. And the counterrevolutionaries are trying to exploit this. What is the idea which the revolutionary government should put across to all of these elements? Well, it is the following: your business will not last forever. Your industry will not last forever. All of this will disappear to the extent to which the revolution develops, because the very development of the revolution will require such manpower for more remunerative jobs that no one will be able to find individual prepared to work under a system of craft enterprise which cannot possibly pay them the wages that a great industrial or trade enterprise pays. This means that this entire system of business will gradually disappear as a result of the revolutionary process. But what we must assure these population sectors of is the fact that as certainly as their businesses will disappear over a period of years -- not months, but over a period of some years -- while this type of business and this mode of live will disappear, we must also assure them that they will not be left in the street without income, without work, and without means of earning a living decently, without income. This is the idea which the revolutionaries, the workers, the peasants, the students must put across to the elements, because we are not an immature people. We must act like revolutionaries who know what they are doing, like revolutionaries who know how to analyze the various social classes and who know how to apply the policy which is suited to the various social strata in this process leading to the disappearance of the exploitation of man by man and the disappearance of the exploiter and exploited classes (applause). We must take care with the mania to confiscate (laughter). Those afflicted with it would treat the owner of an estate of one thousand caballerias the same as the owner of a fried potato stall (laughter). They believe that this is a form of promoting the revolution, persecuting everyone. Thus, they would leave the owner of a pushcart or a little shop without the means of earning a living, and this would not be an intelligent policy. This policy would go against the revolution, because it would create fear of it and lack of confidence in revolutionary sectors which can be our allies, which are capable of understanding that the revolution is just, that all that the revolution does it just, although they cannot understand being suddenly put out in the street to suffer hunger. And here lies the problem: we must now allow the counterrevolutionaries to enlist in their ranks the population strata which can be enlisted in the ranks of the revolution. We believe that it is very important to take this occasion to set forth these ideas and define these criteria to the people of Cuba, because this is not only the task of the leading cadres of the revolution, but is also the task of the masses of the revolution, and it is necessary that the masses of the revolution understand and apply these ideas, and no opportunity could be better than that at this most formidable and revolutionary gathering (applause). With this policy, the revolution will become stronger and more invincible every day. The revolution, naturally, is not a simple process, not an easy one. Revolution is a very difficult process, because a revolution develops out of an exploiting social regime, a chaotic social regime, in which a thousand interests are interlinked and united, and wherein the system of privileges then even come to include large sectors. The privileges and the benefits of such a regime even extend to broad sectors of the population, and for this reason it is not easy to undertake a revolution. If revolutions were easy there would already have been a revolution and all of the problems in all of the parts of the world would already have been resolved. But undertaking the revolution is a difficult task, a task which calls for great patience and for moving wisely and correctly. We have wanted to take this opportunity to discuss these subjects. Nothing will end on 26 July. I imaging that the counterrevolutionaries have suffered a great disappointment (applause), because it has been demonstrated here once again that they are deceivers and sowers of false rumors. They will have to suffer the disappointment of this vast gathering today. It seems that my throat will not let me go on much longer. I have already told Commander Gagarin that while I delivered my address he could circle the earth twice (laughter and shouts of "Fidel"). He says that so far he could only have traveled one and a half times around the earth. This means that I have half a revolution left (laughter) before I complete my speech, but my throat does not want to help me much today (shouts of "rest"). However, without making too much effort we are going to speak of some things which we should discuss today (shouts from the audience begging Fidel to rest). Well, you will let me finish. Do not believe that I do not want to talk. The fact is that I have been trying -- it is some times since i have spoken and I have lost the habit of it. On this 26 July, we must know where we are. In brief, I can say to you that the revolution in these two years and seven months has achieved extraordinary successes, truly impressive ones, in almost all sectors. (The audience began to chant revolutionary slogans.) The counterrevolutionaries have been nurturing illusions. Do you know what kind of illusions the counterrevolutionaries have harbored? Well, they say that there will be hunger (laughter). Why do we laugh at what the counterrevolutionaries say? Obviously, the whole policy of the counterrevolutionaries and the imperialists -- my voice is coming back now (applause) -- their whole policy involves trying to create difficulties of an economic nature for us, to see if they can create discontent, among the people. In other words, they believed that we were a masochistic people or something like that, in other words, that they would be mistreated and attacked from every side, and that when they suffered the consequences of these attacks they would beg the imperialists for pardon, that they would be brought to their knees before the imperialists. We have known from the very first that they were mistaken, and that the results they would achieve with all of their attacks would be precisely the opposite. When they tried to deprive us of oil, when they suspended our sugar quota, after they had created for our country an economy based on the single sugar crop, after they placed an embargo on replacement parts and raw materials, both for industry and agricultural machinery, and after they tired of making all of these aggressive attacks upon us, and planning sabotage and terrorism and threatening and forcing us to expend great energy on military defense, and attacking our country -- after they did all this, they found after two and a half years that the expected results had not come about anywhere. The last thing they did was precisely to place an embargo on fats shipped to our country. Also, there is the fact that since the triumph of the revolution, the people have in their pockets five hundred million more annually to spend than they had at the time of the triumph of the revolution (applause). In other words, our people have five hundred million more to spend. Many large families, in which only one members works, now have five, six, and sometimes even more employed. The income of such families has increased extraordinarily as a result of the increased job opportunities, as a result of the lowering of rents, and as a result of the increase in salaries in many cases. And this is particularly the case in the rural sector, where a half of our population lives, where unemployment was the worst and where the employment situation today is the best. During the last harvest, they had a chance to see this in the fact that the first time in the history of our country there was not enough manpower to carry out the cane harvesting work, because a large part of the peasant population was working in other agricultural areas, and it was necessary to mobilize tends of thousands of men and women from the cities to complete the harvest tasks. A simple calculation suffices to show what 500 million pesos more in the hands of the people means. It means a greater demand for all articles. And obviously, there are items the production of which can increase indefinitely, such as tobacco and sugar, but there are others, of course, which have suffered from the weight of thee exceptional increase in demand. What illusions the counterrevolutionaries created for themselves in thinking that we may be plagued by famine! It suffices to examine the per capita consumption of rice, which has increased from 100 pounds per person to 130. These 30 pounds are those being consumed by families which did not in the past consume even a hundred, even 50, even 40 pounds of rice, while there were those here who consumed probably 200 pounds per year (applause). There has been a great increase in the purchasing capacity of the people. The people have 500 million pesos more in hand. What does this mean? That we must also make a great effort in production so that the people will be able to count on all the articles they want to buy as a result of this increase of 500 million pesos a year in their income. Fruit, for example, of which there was a surplus in the part, in sometimes in short supply as a result of this increase in demand. The city of Havana, for example, is consuming 800,000 oranges a day, and yet this quantity is not equal to the demand, the consumer capacity of the purchasing power of the people today. Naturally, the revolution is planting millions and millions of fruit trees, in a plan of proportions such as never existed in any other country in the world. This year and last, millions of fruit trees were planted, and the plan for the coming year calls for the planting of 75 million fruit trees more, including 20 million citrus fruit trees (applause). The revolution, the revolutionary government, is carrying forward its plans for industrialization and its agricultural plans. In connection with the fats problem, even the satisfaction of the extraordinary increase in the demand for meat, all of these problems of agricultural supply, the small shortages which are occurring as a result of this increase in consumption, will be resolved entirely by the revolution within a few months. Even, though this will be the last to be resolved, the problem of fats will be settled within 18 months. We will arrange for the production of all of the fats the country needs (applause). This means that we have no reason to concern ourselves about the future since today all the tools of production are in the hands of the people. Hunger did indeed exist, that is to say, there were shortages, a lack of resources and income on the part of the people, when the means of production were in the hands of the foreign monopolies. But today, now that the people are the owners of the tools of production, now that the people are the owners of the best land, now that the people are the owners of the best and biggest industries, now that the people can product through their own work (applause). Today, now that the people own industry and the lands, the people through their work can produce in their own industries and on their own land, and the future of our country cannot fail to be a happy one! The people will have all they want, because the people today are the masters of the best lands and, basically, of industry, and they will have everything they want to produce through their work, everything they want to produce through their efforts (extensive applause). What prevents the people from producing what they want, producing as much wealth and as much goods as they want, since today the peoples own the land and the industry? If the people are the owners of the natural resources now, it suffices for the people to want something, and the people can produce it. The people need only want it, and they can do what is necessary (applause). What the people need is time. The people need time and nothing more to resolve all their problems, because now the people have in their hand what they need to do this precisely. And that the people can do what they want is demonstrated by the experience of these years, it is proved by the campaign to eliminate illiteracy which we are carrying out (applause). I would like, for example, to see the hands of all those who have a brother or a son teaching reading and writing or learning to teach in the brigades (the majority of those present raised their hands). There are 94,000 young people in the Conrado Benitez Brigades, 94,000 young people teaching reading and writing (applause)! And by the middle of the month of August there will be a total of 104,000 brigade members teaching reading and writing throughout the country (applause). They are your sons and brothers who are carrying out a truly historic mission, a task which has become a crown of glory and the highest honor for our youth, who through it see a great opportunity to serve their fatherland and the revolution. As a result of it, illiteracy will be eliminated in our county in a single year (applause and shouts of "we will triumph! we will triumph!"). And is it not perhaps an extraordinary thing, an incredible thing, to teach more than a million to read and write in a single year? Is this not truly an accomplishment on the part of our young people? There are more than a hundred thousand young people who have gone to the rural sector, and to the most distant parts of the country. There they have stayed for months and they are ready to remain several months more, improving the life of the peasants and teaching. And the people which can do this can accomplish any tasks set for us, because there is no doubt that if there is something of which the Cuban revolution can be eternally proud, it is this effort it is making to benefit the illiterate and the ignorant. One of the greatest triumphs of this revolution will be to show the world, to show our brothers in Latin America, that illiteracy can be eliminated in a year when there is a revolution (applause) or when the people are prepared to support the just policy, and when there is a just policy for the peoples. The fact is that all the vast mass of young people has united in the tasks of the revolution. The vast mass of the young people here in our country have no problems with the revolution, no problems with the political regime. This mass of young people knows it is the heir to the benefits and the tasks of the revolution, the heir to the work that the revolution leaves it. This mass of youth has joined in as of now to play its role. And the very fact that our country at this time has more than a hundred thousand young people who have already passed the sixth grade or are in the sixth grade and who are gaining all of this experience which this work of teaching people to read and write means is truly impressive. People which can achieve this goal in a single year can resolve any problem with which it is confronted. And just today you will have seen the stadium, that is to say, the gallery which has been built at the back of this Revolution Square. Well, then, this gallery has been filled solely by the young workers and peasants who, coming from various parts of the island, have received scholarships from the revolutionary government. (applause). Oh, we have advanced, we have advanced. Neither on the first 26 July holiday nor on the second could we build such a gigantic gallery as this, and yet large as it is, it will not seat all the humble young men and women of our people who today, thanks to the revolution, are studying in various schools (applause)! Thus, the revolution today can gather the fruits of its labor, because we can gather together here the militia battalions, those battalions which made a mockery of the reactionary bands and which later had an opportunity to demonstrate their courage and their heroism in the battles in the Zapata Swamp (extensive applause)! Today the revolution can rally its battalions of veterans. Today the revolution can rally tens and tens of thousands of sons and daughters of the workers and peasants who are studying in the capital of the republic. Today the revolution can rally its Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (applause). Today it can rally its cadres of integrated revolutionaries, its workers' trade unions, its associations of young people, of women. In other words, the revolution today can rally an organized people (applause), because when the revolution came to power the past were not organized, the social organization of the people was entirely consistent with the circumstances of life in the past in our country. The revolution has organized the people. In the first year, and even in the second, the imperialists had to deal with a people who were not organized. But this people now, after two years and seven months of revolution, are a people with a vastly higher degree of revolutionary awareness than they had then, a much higher degree of political education than they had then (applause). And, in particular, this is an organized people. A people organized through their trade unions, through their Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (applause), through their militia battalions (applause), through their Young Rebels Associations (applause), through the Women's Federation (applause). Even the children are organizing in the associations of Rebel Pioneers (applause)! The people are being organized through their sports associations, their cultural associations, their agricultural cooperatives, their peasant associations, the reading and writing legions, the battalions of volunteer workers (applause), the professional schools, in which the intellectual workers are grouped. And they are bound together and oriented by the cadres of the integrated revolutionary organizations, which are advancing toward the formation of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba (ovation), with groups of persons joining hands and dancing and shouting, "Fidel, Fidel," until quieted by the playing of the national anthem). Now the people are organized. Each man and woman here now belongs to some revolutionary organization. For example, will all those who belong to the militia raise their hands (many in the audience raised their hands). Now, will all those belonging to the trade unions raise their hands (many in the audience raised their hands). Now, those who belong to the women's federation (many of those present raised their hands). Will all those who belong to the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution raise their hands (many in the audience raised their hands). And now, will all those who support the union of all revolutionaries in the United Party of Socialist Revolution of Cuba raise their hands (all those present, including Doctor Castro, raised their hands, shouting "unity, unity"). The imperialists and the reactionaries are not confronted today with a disorganized people lacking organization. The imperialists and the counterrevolutionaries, the saboteurs and the terrorists are not faced now with a people without organization. The revolution has not only maintained and increased its extraordinary warm popular support, but it has organized its revolutionary forces. The terrorists, counterrevolutionaries, saboteurs, reactionaries and imperialists (shouts) now have to deal with the organized people. And the reactionaries, the counterrevolutionaries and the imperialists no longer have in Cuba the resources they had in other days, because now those aristocratic quarters in which they plotted, where they hid the counterrevolutionaries and the terrorists, which produced the finest flower of the exploiter class, -- these sectors are the residence of these tends of thousands of scholarship students. (applause). And those who will live there at the beginning of the next school year will be those who hold scholarships in pre-university and basic secondary courses, in the technological schools, the revolutionary training schools, the university schools. What was the stronghold of the reactionaries yesterday is today occupied by the sons and daughters of the workers and the peasants (applause). Therefore, the circle is tightening increasingly around the reactionaries. Their path is becoming increasingly difficult every day. The reactionaries and the counterrevolutionaries will not raise their heads, no, because as they say, there are many committees for the defense of the revolution, there are many militia battalions, there are many trade unions, many young people's associations and associations of women or students or sportsmen or revolutionary cadres. No, because there are many militia battalions and many committees for the defense of the revolution and many associations of women, many revolutionary schools, and many scholarship student centers, many cooperatives, many people's farms, many peasant associations, many pioneer groups and many revolutionary cadres, simply because the people support the revolution (applause), and the counterrevolutionaries will not raise their heads, because the people are against them, because they have no popular support. Their strongholds are the shrines of the privileged, the exploiters, the worms, the parasites, the traitors, those who are confused, those who will sell out their country, those who lick the boots of the imperialists, the enemies of the worker, the peasant, the student, the enemies of our youth, of our society, or our nationality, of our future, of our progress. Because they want to return here to bring back miserable exploitation. They want to come back here to turn our new industries over to the foreign monopolies again. They want to come back here to turn over the lands which we have given to the peasants and the lands which we have given to the cooperative members to the foreign companies again. They want to come back here to take orders from a foreign master. They want to hitch our republic to the yoke of exploitation, corruption, abuse, injustice, ignorance and plunder, because they want to go back to the past, they want to put out the light of the future which has already been lit on the horizon of the fatherland and for this reason the people are against them. Our workers, our peasants, our legions of students, our young people, our women, our sportsmen, our militiamen, our soldiers, our people are against them. Our entire people will always be against them, against the exploiters, against the parasites. And not only will the hundreds of thousands of militiamen be against them, but the hundreds of thousands of teachers in the army against illiteracy, in the juvenile brigades, and in the units educating the people will be against them, too (applause). And the million and a quarter Cubans who are learning to read and write this year will be against them (applause). Because it has been the revolution which has remembered them. It is the revolution which has given them titles of ownership to the land. It is the revolution which freed them from the rents they pay -- often more than in feudal times, 50% of what they produced. It was the revolution which gave them roads, doctors, teachers and a sense of dignity. It was the revolution which gave them guns, too, so that they could defend their land, their revolution and their fatherland (applause). And for this reason, the people will always be against them, the vast majority of the people, one hundred percent of the people, because those who are parasites, those who are exploiters, those who are mercenaries in the service of foreigners can call themselves neither sons nor citizens of this people. For this reason, all of the honorable men and women will be against them, whether they be exploiters, or gangsters, or petit politicians, or traitors, or those who sell out their country, those who are the enemies of our country's advance, the ruffians of yesterday, the rascals and petit politicians and the middle men and the exploiting cliques of yesterday -- the people will always be against them, because the people are not here thanks to some passing enthusiasm, the people are not here for revelry. For two years and seven months, day after day, the people have been answering present, with increasing firmness, increasing fervor, increasing enthusiasm and faith, in the roll call of the ranks of the revolution. (applause). And this same people which paraded on 1 May, as soldiers and workers, has paraded today in an impressive sports display in this very square. And this spectacle of thousands and thousands of young people here is an unforgettable one for us, showing all of the potential of our country, all of the capabilities of our people, who are learning to achieve these collective triumphs of 5,000 athletes in a gymnastic tableau, hundreds of couples interpreting a national or foreign dance, 70,000 athletes parading here yesterday. It was only three or four months ago that the INDER [Instituto Nacional de Deportes, Educacion Fisica, y Recreacion -- National Institute for Sports, Physical Education and Recreation] was organized. And if this has been achieved in such a short time, the athletic performance next year will not be like the first one, nor like that of yesterday, but vastly better, covering the entire square, and every year on 25 July such an event will be held. This will be the date for the sports parades (applause). And also on 2 January there will be a military parade (applause), on 1 May, a worker's parade (applause), on 25 July, an athletes' parade (applause), and on 26 July, a gathering like this one today (applause). And thus the people are advancing, and thus, as we approach three years of revolution, everything is going much better than at the beginning. The organization of the people, along with the organization of the revolutionary leadership and the revolutionary government, is developing well, and the organization of the state, the organization of the public administration, the organization of our agriculture and our industry, is vastly improved. The first four year plan, with an investment of a billion pesos in industrial development, along with the development of our agriculture, in only four years, is soon to be undertaken (applause). Some 40,000 students with revolutionary government scholarships will begin to study during the next school year. The 104,000 brigade members will return to their classes, their educational centers, their higher and technological schools. University reform has been carried forward and thousands of students are now being trained for technical careers in our country. Thousands of technicians are also studying and training this year in the universities in friendly socialist countries (applause). Heavy industry will be developed, and on the basis of that heavy industry we will be able to develop all of the other industries needed for the satisfaction of all our needs. Despite the large number of attacks upon us by the imperialists, they have not even succeeded in imposing serious privation upon us. They have not even succeeded in imposing great sacrifices upon us. They have failed and they will continue to fail in their plans to harass us with hunger, their plans to destroy the revolution by economic aggression, as they always failed in their plans to destroy us militarily, too. And what a formidable future looms for our fatherland! We will no longer be an exploited people, no longer a people with a vast majority exploited by an egotistical and insatiable minority, no longer a people of great hungry majorities, great majorities subject to discrimination and humiliation, great ignorant masses, great unshod masses, great landless masses, great jobless masses. Now we will be a united people, a people with a single, unique majority, the majority of all the people. All of the people will have bread, and work, and education, and culture. All the people will have access to the institutes, to the universities. All the people will be masters of their factories, of their land, of their social circles. All of the children will be organized, all of the young people will be organized, all of the women will be organized, all of the workers and the militia men will be organized. All of the people will be soldiers, all combatants, all defendants of the fatherland! (Applause and shouts of "unity, unity!"). Because this is now the fatherland of all, because the land is now the land of the fatherland, because industries are now the industries of the fatherland, and because the fruits of the labor of the people are now the fruits for the people, for their sons, for their children, for their wives (applause). And this is the future we have ahead, a promising future, a brilliant future, a happy future, full of triumph for all the people, opportunities for all the men and women of the people, triumphs in the cultural, economic and sports sectors. There will be collective triumphs, not individual triumphs, but triumphs of the collective. These will be triumphs of the entire people, and there are no true triumphs which are not collective. The victory of a battalion is to that of the commander who leads it, but of all the soldiers who make it up (applause). Yesterday we saw an impressive spectacle in which thousands of athletes formed a word, writing a thought on the hot pavement of our revolutionary square. National and foreign dances can not be interpreted by a single man. They are spectacles which eloquently reflect the great collective triumphs, the great victories in which hundreds of men, thousands of men or an entire people participate. And this parade yesterday was marvelous and instructive, because it teaches us what collectives can do. Only organized groups, societies and peoples can achieve such great successes in the field of sports or arts or education or culture or economics or any other sector, because only an organized people can achieve such great things. And as we need triumphs in sports, in culture, in economics and in art, in the defense of the revolution, these will be the triumphs of a collective for the collective. Because in the past the reactionary classes organized the collective to suit their interests and to defend their interests. They organized a professional army. They trained it well. They educated its officers in reactionary schools. They made the soldiers into helmeted enemies of the people, into mercenaries, and here we had an armed force defending its privileges against the people. But the revolution, no -- the revolution has converted the entire people into an army. It has given the militiamen and the soldiers the mentality of true revolutionaries, servants of the cause, servants of the nation, servants of their people, and it has armed all these people so that the entire people will be a single force. Because there must be a single interest, not group interests, not class interests, not private interests. There must be an interest above all the others, and this is the collective interest, the interest of all, the interest which embraces the rights and the aspirations of each of us (applause). And it is only this force which can provide bread for all, education for all, work for all, homes for all, books for all, clothing for all, shoes for all, medicines for all, happiness for all, joy for all, well-being for all (applause). For this reason, we proclaim the right of all to work, the right of all to education. Indeed, we point to this figure -- 1,250,000 illiterates, at least. This figures alone more than suffices to justify the revolution. Our of 6 million Cubans, a million and a quarter never had a teacher, never had a pencil in their hands, never had a book, and it is these people the revolution is teaching. Because the revolution believes that this is a crime, that each individual who was left unable to learn even to write his own name represented a crime, as did each child who died without a doctor, without medicine, each child, each man or woman who went without shoes, each home without bread, each young person without education, each head of a family without work, each Negro without rights (applause and shouts of "Fidel"). The revolution believes that this was a crime. And the great justification for the revolution is the struggle against these injustices, against these crimes, to give to the men who had nothing, everything, and everything for a man is bread, bread to nourish him and bread to nourish his mind -- knowledge. Everything for man is his right to health, to culture, to work, to a roof, to respect, to an opportunity to grow and to be educated, to be useful, to help others with his work and also to receive the help of the work of others. Everything for man is bread, culture, a home, work, happiness, respect. And these things are for all, who in the past has only some of them, and who lacked bread, or books, or shoes, or health, or work, or a roof, which was the case with the vast majority of our people. This is what the revolution is trying to provide and will provide to each Cuban, to the extent that our people become masters of their fate, to the extent that our people become owners of their own wealth, their natural resources, their land, their factories. And all people can truly say for the first time in their history: "The future is in our hands, because the land is ours, the mines are ours, the schools are ours, the factories are ours, and universities are ours, the regime is ours, the weapons are ours, the fatherland is ours" (applause). This they could not say in the past. "And our enemies will be those who do not want the factories to be ours, the mines to be ours, the land to be ours, the hospitals to be ours, the bathhouses and the recreation centers to be ours, the schools to be ours, the industries to be ours, the finances to be ours, the roofs to be ours, the pieces of land we work independently, as independent peasants or cooperatives, to be ours (applause). The future is ours, the guns and the tanks and the planes and the weapons are ours, not to attack anyone, not to take anything from anyone, but to defend that is ours, to defend it against those who want to take it from us (applause and shouts), to defend the revolution against necessary traitors, mercenary invaders, the imperialists warmongers, the exploiter monopolies." Yes, and we must always bear in mind that they want to destroy this hope, this future which lies ahead of us, they want to put out this light we glimpse. Who does? The bandits, the freebooters, the attackers of peoples, those who deal and profit from the sweat of the blood of the American Indian, the African Negro, the peoples of Asia, Latin America, Spain and Africa (applause). Those who profit from and trade in sweat and blood, that is to say, in the labor of the workers on all the continents of the world, those who trade in blood, those who traffic in the millions of bodies resulting from wars, the dealers in destruction and death -- these, these are the people who do not want the peoples to have everything. In other words, they do not want the peoples to have culture, bread, work, homes, hospitals, rights, opportunities, happiness. They want to destroy the fruits of the labor of the Soviet people, the Chinese people, the Korean people, all of the socialist peoples (applause). They want to prevent colonialism from disappearing from the face of the earth. They want to prevent imperialism from disappearing, exploitation from disappearing. They do not want our people to have bread, homes, health, work and happiness. And it is for this reason that we have had so often to take up arms. It is for this reason we must be always alert. Because they will not pardon us, the imperialists do not want to pardon us for our successes. And the more they see the people united, the people organized, the revolution advancing and progressing, the more angry the happiness and the hope of the people makes them, the more radical the growing strength of the revolution renders them, the fuller of fury they become because of the sympathy in Latin America for the revolution, the resistance they encounter not only from the peoples, but also from the governments, because except for the governments which have broken off relations with us, yielding in cowardly and servile fashion to the imperialists who are killing their peoples with hunger, many American governments have resisted the imperialist pressures, the extortionist plans, and have maintained diplomatic relations with the Cuban revolutionary government. But also, not only many governments, but all the peoples without exception, despite all of the campaigns and all of the efforts of the imperialists, have remained faithful to the revolution. This was demonstrated to Stevenson, fully demonstrated, and it was communicated to Kennedy (shouts of "out!"), and the imperialists have found this out. And as this becomes a reality, the hatred of the imperialists grows, and not a day passes but that an irrational, alcoholic member of the United States Senate, or a mercenary editor sold out to the imperialists, does not launch the worst threats against our revolution or demand that we be invaded. Not a day passes but that someone demands military intervention, and every day their hysteria against us is more pronounced. And as the warmongers gain ground in the United States, as the international crisis becomes more acute as a result of these bellicose and warlike plans, as a result of the refusal of the United States government to propose plans for the solution of the various points of crisis throughout the world, the danger to us will become ever more threatening, on any pretext. You know, for example, that on innumerable occasions Cuban planes have been hijacked in full flight by traitors and have landed in the United States, at the risk of the lives of our passengers. You know that recently a number of Cuban planes, ten in all, which were hijacked in flight, were confiscated in the United States. Well, then, on 1 May, a US plane was hijacked by one of the passengers and landed in Rancho Boyeros. The revolutionary government, in its readiness to give proof of its peaceful intentions, in its desire to avoid pretext and excuses for acts committed against us, proceeded to return that plane with all of its passengers on 1 May. Not a week had passed before they took one of our planes, and immediately confiscated it in the United States. Numerous other planes have been confiscated. Well, then, on the 24th, a passenger also hijacked a plane belonging to a US line in the air, and it landed here (shouts). Now, then, has the revolutionary government an obligation to return this plane? (Shouts of "no!"). Ten Cuban planes have been confiscated, and yet we have returned a plane. Therefore, by virtue of what principle are we obliged to return the planes while they have the right to confiscate the planes hijacked in the air by traitors to our fatherland? What principles of equity prevails? What principle of equality? Why should we be obliged to tolerate their confiscation of our planes when someone hijacks them in the air, while on the other hand, calmly and courteously returning to them their planes when they have a similar problem? Well, then, the revolutionary government has not decided anything about the plane, but had turned it over to the pilots. And immediately, the threats began, immediately the alcoholics and evil-minded reactionaries in the Senate -- yes, alcoholics, yes, brutish imperialists, indeed, brutish beasts, because they merit no better name (applause), Smathers and company, a company by the fumes of the whiskey they had been drinking up until the moment they seated themselves in the Senate Chamber, got up to ask for the recovery of the plane by force, an invasion of our country by the Marines, a military expedition against us, more bloodshed directed against Cuba, a military attack upon Cuba. Immediately, the mercenary editors began to print similar exhortations, issuing us an ultimatum demanding the return of the plane. Thus, we are supposed to tolerate their confiscation of our planes, remaining silent while we are robbed with the complicity of the US authorities, but when they have a problem, and we return a plane to them, they retaliate by confiscating ours. And what if another plane comes, if it is hijacked -- we do not give orders for planes to be hijacked, because we are not accustomed to engaging in these acts of piracy, which are characteristic only of the imperialists, of the freebooters, we have no need to order the theft of planes. A passenger hijacked on of his own account. We returned the plane, and what better proof could there be? Another US plane was hijacked and landed here. We have sent the passengers back, but as they have confiscated ten of our planes, let them not expect us to be in a hurry to return their to them (applause)! Thus, we do not hijack planes and we do not order this to be done. We have never ordered the hijacking of planes or ships, first because this is against our principles, and second because this would merely serve to provide the imperialists with a pretext for aggression and propaganda against us. But if someone steals a plane there and comes here, what do they expect? They have murdered Cubans here. There have been shootings in planes, people have been taken dying to the hospitals. They have murdered soldiers here before stealing boats. They welcome the murdered soldiers here before stealing boats. They welcome the murderers as heroes, arm them and send them on their mercenary expeditions. If they hijack something there, in violation of the law, and come here after having committee the crime, let them not indeed expect that we, too, will return the property to those who committed the crime, because they have grown tired of aiding the criminals there. The conditions, therefore, must be equal. The fact that the Yankee empire is large and that we are a small country does not give anyone the right to this kind of unequal law, in accordance with which we would have to tolerate all their evil deeds, and on top of this return the criminals and the planes to them (applause). The position of the Cuban government is this. The Cuban government is ready to return the plane if in turn the US government will promise that any plane hijacked in the future and taken to US territory will be returned. This means that they must match our readiness to return the plane with readiness on their part to return our planes if they are hijacked and taken there. The Cuban state is not to blame if the Yankee plane is stolen. Now the Cuban state has no obligation to return these planes if the US government does not return the planes stolen from Cuba (applause). We never steal planes, we never hijack planes. The Cuban government will never pay anyone or subsidize anyone or induce anyone to steal planes, but while they maintain a policy of piracy against us they cannot ask us to return their planes. Are the Senators threatening us? Are the warmongers threatening us? Are the alcoholics and the Senators and the newspaper editors threatening us? Well, then, in the face of their threats, we remain as calm and as unconcerned as all of their hysterical and cowardly shouting of threats against our country leaves us (applause). Let the problem be taken to any international organ, to the United Nations. Let the situation be discussed in law, their position and ours. If we have had to support their attacks in silence, and if in addition they steal planes, planes which they give to mercenaries to bomb, to kill women and children here, to kill the sons of our fatherland here -- they have done many worse things than this, and the Cuban people have had to tolerate them. And when someone, in violation of their laws, commits a crime and steals a plane from them, then they cannot ask us to act other than the way they act toward us. We will maintain the same standards from them as they do for us (applause)! If they want to attack us or invade us, they do not need so many pretexts. Let them attack us when they want. Let them invade us when they want. If it is our fate to have to tolerate a blow, what can we do? If it is our fate to suffer bloodshed here at the hands of the imperialists, all we can do is to try to ensure that they shed more blood than we and that they pay dear (applause). If our fate is in imperialist aggression, we will meet our fate calmly, but the blame is not ours. And as we cannot surrender and we cannot retreat, as we cannot kneel to the imperialists, we can only stand firm, stand adamant (extensive applause and shouts of "we will triumph!"). The imperialists have already taught the world to resign itself to living in the midst of the risks they represent to the world, and all the risks to peace they represent. This system, the hysteria and the evil intent, the alcoholics now directing this system, their evil deeds, their threats to the world are the affliction of mankind, and some peoples have had to pay dear in blood and in sacrifice for their attacks. If this is our destiny, we accept it, we will adapt to it, and we will simply continue working and creating and struggling, without worrying about what may happen and when it may happen. What we must do, each one of us, is to prepare ourselves better every day in order to make the aggressor pay dear, to make the aggressor pay a high price for any attack, at any time, on any pretext, against us, whenever it may come. It is our misfortune that we have the imperialists 90 miles from our coastline! And this must always be our position. We must not be affected by the hysterical shouting of the warmongers. We must not be frightened by the threats of the alcoholic centers. We must not be concerned and we must now lose our calm. We must continue our work. I say alcoholic not with the intent to offend but those who read the things these gentlemen say will realize that they were probably drunk when they said them. And this is the situation. They are not only going to have the problem with Cuba, but with the opinion of other peoples, too, with the dignity of the peoples and the governments of Latin America which have defended the principle of self-determination, defended it as a right which is very important to them. Why? Ah! Because if the self-determination of Cuba is not safeguarded, no Latin American government can then maintain an independent policy, no Latin American government will have the right to trade with all the countries of the world, no Latin American government will have the right or will be able later to hope to have its own policy, because the destruction of the right of self-determination for Cuba would mean the disappearance of this right for all the peoples and all the governments of Latin America. Thus, it is, then, that we must accustom ourselves to listening to threats, and to living always in the midst of these dangers. In any case, this is not the only danger which threatens the world. There are serious problems, serious tensions, caused by the warmongers who are constantly pushing the world to the brink of the catastrophe of world war. The world must calm its nerves. The people must calm their nerves, so that they will be of steel and so that the people can withstand all the contingencies and the risks which the backward, reactionary, exploiting and warmongering forces of the world will create for mankind with nerves of steel. Thus, we must continue to awaken the awareness of the peoples in favor of peace, the universal desire for peace. The peoples have much to lose in wars. The imperialists have everything to lose, but the peoples have much to lose, and therefore the people must interest themselves in peace. The peoples must mobilize the universal awareness in favor of peace, in order to block the maneuvers of the imperialists, so that the imperialists cannot continue advancing along the path toward war and cannot force mankind to pay the price which would have to be paid for the extermination of the imperialists. We are certain that if the imperialists launch a war, they will be defeated. We are certain that the imperialists will be exterminated. But the cruel, the harsh, the terrible thing is to think of the price which the peoples would have to pay. Thus, universal awareness must be mobilized to counteract the risks of war and the threat which the imperialists represent to us and to the world in effective fashion. Certainly we Cubans are exposed to the problems which world crisis involves, but we are also exposed to the direct and indirect attacks organized against us by the imperialist government of the United States. For this reason we, the Cubans, must have nerves of steel, more than anyone, and we Cubans will have these nerves of steel, we need now (applause). Eight years ago, on a day like today, that episode we are commemorating, the attack on the Moncada Barracks, occurred. That battle meant a reverse for us. It was not a victory of weapons, but it was a moral victory, a triumph of dignity. The sethack was not important, what the revolution had to tolerate in its long advance was not only a sethack. The liberating revolution had suffered other reverses in the preceding century. It had suffered a great sethack at the end of its heroic struggle for independence, with the US intervention. The revolution had suffered sethacks, the liberation had suffered reverses. And that on 26 July was but another skirmish in the long struggle through which our country had to pass to achieve its freedom. But the sethacks were not important. That reverse, which made the military clique and its imperialist masters believe it had guaranteed forever the continuation of its privileges and its interests was just the beginning of the battle. Eight years is not long. But from that spark to the present day, in a period of eight years, something has happened. The people have won political power. The people destroyed the military clique. The people freed themselves from the imperialist monopolies. The people, with power in their own hands, began to resolve the most urgent and pressing problems, and they have established their conditions for the new steps forward and they are taking those steps. The reactionaries, the counterrevolutionaries and the imperialists should study the history of our revolution. They should study the history of the revolutionary combatants. And it is worthwhile for them to remember that revolution began without weapons, without resources, that the revolution developed out of nothing and that this revolution was advancing with each reverse. This revolution, that is to say, the revolutionary concept, the revolution goal, was developing and growing and winning the support of the masses, and it has come to be what it is today. Thus, the revolutionary regime is not a thing which has been imposed. The revolutionary regime is not a produce of an adventuristic coup, of a mutiny. The revolutionary regime is the product of a long process of struggle, the culmination of a great desire of all of our people, who began to struggle in the past century without ever having truly achieved this revolutionary regime. And the last battles in this long struggle were waged by this generation. The last battles were fought by this generation, beginning eights years ago on a 26 July. Fighting, bleeding, struggling and making sacrifices, the people won power, after paying the very high price of their finest sons. And the revolutionary people in power have organized. The revolutionary people in power have realized the hopes of the nation. The revolutionary people have achieved their goals and are advancing toward new stages of progress and justice. Thus, the revolutionary regime is solid. Thus, the reactionaries, the adventurers, the terrorists, the saboteurs in th service of the enemy can never wrest power from the revolutionary people (applause). For this reason, the counterrevolutionaries were defeated in the Escambray, they were defeated at the Bay of Pigs, and they will be defeated wherever they raise their heads (applause)! The revolution has been generous. The revolution has been more magnanimous than could be expected. It has been perhaps more generous than even its enemies hoped. The revolution knows that it has the right to defend itself. The revolution knows that it is a life or death struggle, and once more we repeat that it is a life or death struggle which can only end in the death and destruction of the revolution or the death and total destruction of the counterrevolution (applause). But this generosity of the revolution gives us a greater right and more moral authority still to combat the counterrevolutionaries, the traitors. And in particular, all the magnanimity and generosity the revolution has shown, and which it does not regret, gives the revolution the right to be more harsh and gives the revolution the right to be more inflexible if the mercenary agents of the counterrevolutionaries sold out to the imperialists, their terrorists, their saboteurs, their mercenaries do not heed our warnings. If the mercenaries, the saboteurs, the territories, the counterrevolutionaries sold out to the imperialists do not heed us, let them not to expect the magnanimity and the generosity of the revolution to continue forever. The revolution, with the right it enjoys because it has been magnanimous and generous will be able to deal firmly, increasingly firmly, with the enemy, because to the extent that the people gain in revolutionary awareness, to the extent that the people acquire a more precise idea of the justice of the cause they defend, the greater their repugnance, the greater their hatred and their disgust for the counterrevolutionaries become. And thus, the traitors, the saboteurs and the terrorists, should not expect magnanimity from the revolution as it advances. Even in the implementation of its laws ordering harsh sanctions for a whole series of crimes, the revolution has been mild. But this has not been because of the hypocritical and shameful shouting of the imperialist masters and those who gave the terrorists and the saboteurs, who organize campaigns soliciting pity, soliciting commiseration with those who had no pity or sympathy at the time they committed the worst of crimes against the country and against the people. It is not because of them, but because of a matter of principle, a question of magnanimity and generosity born of our desire to advance without having to be harsh. And the revolution has not wanted to be harsh, even when its enemies have tried to force the revolution into the realm of the drastic, even in the midst of aggression, even in the midst of the waves of sabotage organized by the Central Intelligence Agency, the revolution has not been severe. But once again we want to state here that the revolution -- and let the worms, the parasites be warned -- the revolution will not be tolerant of the traitors, the agents of the imperialists. The revolution will not be tolerant of those who want to destroy the lives of the revolutionaries or the wealth of our people. It is good that we should warn them of this, so that the counterrevolutionaries will not congratulate themselves, so that they will know what awaits them, so that they will know what will happen when, as a result of the continuation of the plans of the imperialists and the Central Intelligence Agency in our country in their attempts to promote terrorism, sabotage, and the organization of counterrevolutionary bands, they are confronted with the most severe, the harshest application of the laws by the revolutionary courts when their anti-patriotic campaigns are at their peak (applause). In other words, the revolution has been magnanimous, it has been generous, but it has not abandoned nor will it abandon punishment. The revolution has an obligation to be much more harsh with its enemies when they repeat their crimes (applause). We turn our thoughts to all of those who have made these triumphs of the people possible. We turn our thoughts to the comrades who fell on this day, and to the memory of those heroic comrades, we joint that of all those who have fallen throughout this long struggle prior to the conquest of power, and even since that conquest. We turn our thoughts to the heroic combatants who fell at the Bay of Pigs. We turn our thoughts toward those martyrs of the fatherland joined in sacrifice and joined also in triumph in our memory, and in the fruits they have won for us and in glory. Eternal glory to all those who fell in the revolution (applause)! Eternal glory to those who made possible this just revolution, this free fatherland and this heroic, enthusiastic and happy people (applause)! Fatherland or death! We will triumph (ovation)! -END-