-DATE-
19620717
-YEAR-
1962
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
SPEECH
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
VARADERO BEACH AWARD CEREMONY FOR SUGAR WORKERS
-PLACE-
CUBA
-SOURCE-
HAVANA IN SPANISH
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19620718
-TEXT-
CASTRO SPEAKS TO PRIZE SUGAR WORKERS

Havana in Spanish to the Americas 0105 GMT 17 July 1962--E

(Live speech by Fidel Castro at Varadero Beach award ceremony for sugar
workers)

(Text) Workers who triumphed in the sugar emulation, comrades; A simple but
beautiful ceremony has just taken place. One must stop to analyze the
revolutionary and human significance of the just homage that our country is
paying to its best sons. We have been observing each of the award-winning
workers. We have been observing the groups who, representing the centrals,
came to receive their trophies. There is much to think about in the example
that those men have set for our people. There is much to think about in the
merit that those workers have. There is much to think about and that must
be thought about by those who really want to know what a revolution is.

My attention was drawn, among other things, by the fact that a considerable
number of the workers who won awards as the best workers of the year of
each of the sugar central are of advanced age. Many of those men have spent
all their lives working. Among the workers who won worker-of-the-year
awards in one of the sugar centrals there came a worker who said he was 72
(applause) and he showed the enthusiasm of a youth of 20. But he was not
the only one. Other workers over 60 years of age came here for prizes as
the best workers of their respective work centers. I listened to some of
the words they said, what they said here or what they said to the public.
Those speeches were so eloquent because they were spontaneous. They can be
summarized in one phrase as in the case of some of them who came here
spontaneously to express what they felt. Some said here that it was the
most moving day of their lives.

We must think what it means to a man who has spent all his life working,
who has spent 30, 40, 50 years working, to say that the moment in which he
received that diploma was the most moving in his life; or the worker who,
expressing what the revolution is to him, said in a phrase what the
revolution means to him, that his sons no longer will have to beg alms; or
the aged worker who told us that he would like to be young to see the
revolution. I understood what he wanted to say; he wanted to say that he
wanted to be young to be able to see the future fruits of the revolution,
to see all that our country will be tomorrow. I said to him: "You are
already seeing the revolution." I heard him say: "I am seeing many things."

Another worker who came to receive his award spoke of the need to make dams
so that the water would not flow to the sea, that is to say, the importance
of hydraulic projects to our agriculture. And so, each of them said
something. Another said that he had once been in Varadero, in 1911, and he
was returning today. Another said: "At last I was able to come to this
place where once the (word indistinct) came."

One must enter the heart of a worker, one must enter the mind of a humble
man of the people to think of what motivates his feelings and his conduct;
one must enter within each feeling, within the infinite number of feelings
that a revolutionary process arouses, each of them, relating the revolution
with that which is closely to him, that which is dearest.

(Editor's Note: At this point Castro launches into a discussion of the
feelings and emotions of a worker who comes to Varadero Beach as the
results of his own efforts, contrasting them to those of the old privileged
class who used to come before the revolution. Castro said it means much
more to the worker than it could ever mean to the former privileged class.
This portion was about 4.5 minutes long.)

The worker who regretted not being young linked the revolution to a feeling
of nostalgia. He, an award-winning worker over 60 years of age, an
award-winning worker in spite of being aged, most certainly wanted to say:
"How much I could do if I were a youth." He most certainly wished for his
youthful years and regretted not being young when the revolution
began--this man who spent all his life suffering and working. It is natural
and human to wish to be young at a time like this.

But how eloquent are those words! How profound! What profound meaning!
Those words express more than a speech, for they come from the heart and
the feelings of the humble people, of the workers, of those who do their
duty toward their country and toward society.

It is logical that they spontaneously want to come here and say something.
It is logical that they want to express that feeling or idea that burns in
their hearts because the revolution has been precisely the following: Above
all and over all it has signified the liberation of men and women from
conditions of slavery and humiliation, of abandonment, from the lack of
hope in which our people lived.

The revolution has signified the dawn of the humble. (Applause) What is now
dark night for the privileged, for the exploiters, for those who lived
well, enjoying the best--what is now eternal night for the privileged
signifies eternal day for the humble, for the exploited of yesterday, and
those words, those ideas can only be expressed by the workers.

Just as a worker says that today is the most moving day in his life, the
former owner of the central in which he worked--who, perhaps, began
listening to this ceremony over the radio and heard that the worker was in
Varadero and had received a prize, a diploma--could have said that it was
the bitterest afternoon of his life. This afternoon may be more bitter than
the day on which the revolutionary law nationalized the foreign sugar
centrals and then all the sugar centrals of the country.

But it is logical that only from the lips of the humble can such words be
heard, that only from the hearts of the humble can such feelings emerge;
just as only the hearts of the humble is the dignity and the courage with
which the sovereignty of the fatherland is defended today. (Applause) Only
in the hearts of the humble are the best virtues of our people; only in the
hearts of the humble is the honor and the strength of the revolution, just
as only in the arms of the humble is the production of the bread our people
consume, of the clothes, the shoes worn by each citizen, the house he lives
in, the material goods that each citizens consumes. These come only from
the sweat of the brow, from those hands come all the goods and riches of
the fatherland, from those hands comes the riches that are consumed by the
parasites that remain in the fatherland. (Applause)

There are still some parasites. Who does not know it? There are still some
profiteers, there are still some selfish persons. They still exist and it
is not possible to avoid their existence for some time. But it is time
that, in our country, we start putting things in order so that the profits
and the property of society and the riches of the nation can be more and
more for those who work for society and for those who produce riches for
society. That is very just of course, but what is just for the worker is
not just in the mind of the exploiter. Of course, what is just for our
people, what is just for the large majorities is not just in the minds of
the privileged minorities. But we must put things in such order that social
property cannot be enjoyed indiscriminately because it happens that many
times, social property, the best, the most abundant, is enjoyed by those
who do not lift a finger on behalf of society.

There are still many riches at the disposal of those who possess more. The
sugar worker, the farm worker who earns less than 3-peso wage, despite his
being the one who sustains the sugar industry, which is the basic of our
economy because without sugar--it is not that there would be no country,
let us understand it in a different sense; let us not understand it as the
latifundists wished in order to maintain a single crop. No, it is we who
can say: "Without sugar there would be no millions for the estate owners
and the landowners"--but what I wish to say is something else.

Sugar is hard currency. Sugar is the guarantee of all the imports that
arrive, from medicine and machinery, to fuel. Without the effort of the
workers who cultivate can and cut it and process it, no luxurious
automobile would run down the road. There would be no gasoline, no tires;
there would be nothing. But a worker, one of those agricultural workers,
may possibly not be able to come to Varadero. On the other hand, any
speculator who makes 30 or 40 pesos every day in some business can come in
Varadero, stay at the Internacional. His book? What does his book matter?
He buys for three days with his book, the other four days he eats in a
restaurant.

There are restaurants here. The prices used to be relatively high, so high
that the worker could not come. Well, the revolutionary government decided
to double prices in all the luxury restaurants because, if the workers
could not go, at least the wealthy would have a pay double. Was that
correct? But what does a speculator who makes 3,000 pesos per month care?
He is the one who pays 50 pesos for three turkeys. Of course, it creates
problems. He is the one who goes to the black market. He is the one who
foments corruption and ambition among the peasants.

The revolution does not want to impose restrictions to prevent
complications so as to give the peasants the most possible (word
indistinct) for their products. But if everyone were a worker, if there
were no parasites, then no one could present himself in an automobile with
50 pesos for three turkeys. If they we4re let alone, they alone would eat,
and they would eat everything. But what happens? It happens that the
wealthy--and there are wealthy people here--when on the occasion of a
counterrevolutionary show, the government of the revolution found it
necessary to confiscate all the (word indistinct) of the bourgeois, one of
those bourgeois was making 3,000 pesos per month. So what happens? The
bourgeois still have some privileges; one of those bourgeois, who does not
produce a grain of corn or sugar, stays at the Nacional, eats in the
restaurant. (Few words indistinct) If the revolution is going to build
anything, it should build a popular dining room. Anyone can understand we
cannot continue stealing this luxury.

Of course if we had tourism--but imperialism, which has committed so many
aggressions against us, has, among other things, prohibited U.S. citizens
from traveling to Cuba. But what do the people care about a luxury
restaurant? The people will never go there: They want a more modest and
clean kind of dining room. But luxury? What do the people want with luxury?
We will grow economically and improve everything, but we will in a balanced
manner. But capitalism left us all these things. Of course many of those
places are being used for schools, and they serve for everything, for
national and foreign delegates at congresses.

We have been using them in the best possible way but there are still many
places that are only within the reach of the privileged. (Editor's Note: At
this point Fidel gives as an example what the government did with
apartments and houses abandoned by millionaires at the Santo Maria del Mar
beach. The facilities were set aside for organized workers, members of the
revolutionary armed forces, pensioners, and the retired.)

We should do the same in the future--not this year--with other things. We
gave scholarships to the youths because of their service in the literacy
campaign. In that case we did not ask--justly so--if their families had
other income. All those youths who did good work were given an opportunity
to enjoy a scholarship. But in the future, who will get the scholarships?
The sons of workers and the poor peasants. (Applause)

Another thing, I spoke to the director of INIT about a number of tourists
who go every week to the socialist countries, that is to say some 1,200 per
year. I said to him:: "Look comrade, those seats we have in the planes
should be given to those who have no money." (Word indistinct), the
bourgeoisie used to go to Moscow and it was too much that our tourism
should be used to take the bourgeoisie to Moscow. No, (applause) to the
country of the workers, to the countries of the workers none of the
bourgeoisie should go; (would you go to Miami)? (Laughter)

To whom should we give those seats in the planes? To the workers, good, but
to which workers? The exemplary workers, both those given awards by the
Ministry of Industry and those selected in assemblies, exemplary workers of
whom we have many thousands. Then, by virtue of an agreement between the
INIT and the CTC, if a credit must be given, it will be given; part will be
covered by the unions and part by the worker from credit given him by the
state for as long as his income requires. If he has high income it will be
for a short time. If his income is low, he will get the time needs to pay
it. But that seat on the plane for a trip to Europe, let it be for an
exemplary worker. (Applause)

Gentlemen: We have said that this is a socialist revolution. We have said
that we are constructing a new society, that is, the society of the
workers. It is a society in which all social benefits and all the social
advantages and wealth must go to the workers, the children, and the old
folks. The only one who in the future will have the right to receive what
they need from society without working will be the children, the ailing,
and the old folks.

We have too many parasites in our country. How long will the parasites last
as a parasitic class in our country? We are ready to tolerate them as long
as they want us to do so. Of course, the bourgeois in our country live with
their hopes placed in the Yankee empire and know that those hopes are
becoming more unfounded and remote. We know that they will last as long as
the revolution is disposed to tolerate them and the revolution will
tolerate this parasitic class the minimum length of time necessary, or to
the degree they tolerate the revolution.

These gentlemen are playing with fire, that is, the revolution; they do not
have their (feet?) on the ground; they do not know that this a revolution
of the proletariat and peasants; they do not know that this is a revolution
with a infinite source of energy, modesty, and dignity of its
people--because it is right, because it is defending a just principle,
because it incarnates the aspirations of the masses. Those people are
intoxicated with gossip, rumors, and tales which they themselves originate
and disseminate; they live in the vicious circle of dear friends repeating
what they have heard. They had illusions before Giron, as they did when we
had the Escambray bands, as they had illusions at Costa Rica and Punta del
Este, and as they had illusions when they took away our oil and when they
took away our sugar quota.

They have deluded themselves with every one of the tricks played by the
imperialist gringos and with every stab delivered to the fatherland without
having learned or understood that the revolution is in irreversible event
in the history of the Cuban nation. They have rejoiced at the blood shed by
the best children of the fatherland; they have applauded the murder of a
teacher; they are the accomplices of imperialism who have not been deterred
by any reasoning, horror, and crime--the crimes of imperialism.

And this we can see every day because they not only killed yesterday when
the youths were murdered on the street corners, in the parks, and the
outskirts of towns, because they not only tortured yesterday, but even
today the imperialists are organizing thousands of conspirators and
criminals to repeat the crimes of the Batistianos and the agents of Yankee
imperialism are in every corner of the country.

For this reason I was saying that they had no qualms in killing a volunteer
teacher, a brigadist a peasant who was being taught. They killed a popular
teacher with an icepick, or they killed young children 14 and 15, or they
killed an entire family of farmers. The other day they kidnapped a
fisherman and killed him with blows and torture.

These are the deeds of imperialism; this is their political mentality that
brings them to murder a corporal of the revolutionary army. Yet they know
that our sergeant and our soldier are not the parasitic corporal, sergeant,
and soldier of yesterday but the soldier who cuts cane, who competes in an
emulation, who constructs s school city for the citizen farmers. The man in
uniform is not yesterday's parasite. He is knot the machete-wielding man of
yesterday. He is not the man who abuses the peasant and the worker. These
soldiers of the fatherland are exemplary soldiers today and they are being
cowardly murdered.

They give him a ride an automobile and then murder our soldier. They murder
a 62-year-old man in Guines. They think that they are going to frighten the
people with these acts. They think that they are going to intimidate a
nation like ours (applause, shouts, chanting). How can the revolution, how
can the people be intimidated if they were not intimidated yesterday when
they were disarmed, when they faced the crimes of the myrmidons? How can
the people be intimidated today when they are armed to the teeth?

The crimes committed against the brigadists, women, children, and old folks
is a good example of imperialism. That is why the revolution and the
people, who fought crime yesterday, must fight crime today. They must
continue fighting against the tortures, against those who kill a brigadist
with a dagger, against those who beat a fisherman to death. In order to
fight against today's myrmidons and the criminals of imperialism, the
revolution, of course, must not have recourse to crime and torture because
these are the weapons of the myrmidons, the imperialists and their agents.

The revolution does not murder anyone, it does not torture anyone.
Revolution faces its enemies with legal means, in an upright fashion. It
shoots them in the name of justice. (Applause, shouts of "paredon") They
must murder. They must employ torture and the dagger. They must work in the
shadows, killing a worker, a soldier, a militiaman, a brigadist, a
volunteer, teacher, a fisherman, and a member of the anti- illiteracy
campaign because they act in the name of exploitation. They cannot be
guided by any just principle; they must act like criminals and kill anyone,
and brigadist, the first one even though he may be 15 years old; anyone,
even though he may be a worker; any woman, any fisherman.

They do not punish anyone for committing crimes because they do not know
what crimes they must punish one for; they incarnate crime. They want to
assassinate a symbol; they want to punish one for being a worker, a
revolutionary, a teacher, a member of the anti-illiteracy brigade. They,
the paid assassins of the exploiters and the monopolies, want to punish the
unpunishable ones, those who cannot be punished. They want to torture the
labor class. When they murder any worker at all, they commit a crime
against a class. It is a demonstration of hatred against a class.

The workers do not act in that fashion. The workers do not shoot a
bourgeois because he is a bourgeois. The workers shoot a bourgeois because
he is a saboteur, a terrorist, a counterrevolutionary, a helper of the
counterrevolutionaries. The labor class punishes one for committing a
crime, such as a crime against the fatherland. The labor class pinpoints
the crime to those responsible for it.

They do not do so. They act as they would in time war. They act as they did
in the Sierra Maestra, as they did under the tyranny when they murdered
peasants. Did they kill them because they were evildoers? No! they killed
them simply because they were peasants. They did it to sow terror. That is
the way they act today in order to sow terror, to sow fear. These assassins
are agents whom, in many cases, imperialism trains in the United States and
infiltrates in our coasts so that they commit sabotage and crimes, so that
they may dishearten and intimidate, so they may sow terror.

Well, there is nothing new about it. Reactionary bands have always
performed in this way throughout the history of humanity. A bird is known,
as we say, by its colors. The reactionaries also give themselves away
solely because of their deeds, their crimes, their savagery. However, that
is a symptom of impotence--impotence in the face of our people, for our
people are firm, heroic, and dignified. They face difficulties and overcome
them. We do not deny that we have our difficulties but we are sure than we
shall overcome them. We know that our path has obstacles, big difficulties.
Yet most of our difficulties come from the presence of parasitical segments
in our country.

These are the parasitical segments of which I spoke previously. Those
well-to-to bourgeois, those who enjoy the best available in the country are
the ones who try to demoralize the people, who try to create chaotic
conditions in distribution, and who seek out a friendly doctor to give them
a certificate that he requires certain foods because he is ill. These are
the people who seek out the owner of as store and ask for (clothes?) and
shoes. These are the people who get the best meat. These people, who
produce nothing and who enjoy the best, are the social basis of the
counterrevolution.

When you wonder, ask yourself who supports the counterrevolutionaries. They
are the bourgeois. The bourgeois support them, that is, the urban and rural
bourgeois. They give them money, the lend them their little (automobiles?),
the give them help. In the same degree that the revolution has the support
of the labor class, the counterrevolution has the support of the parasites
represented by the urban and rural bourgeoisie.

I was telling you a short while ago that the length of time the bourgeoisie
will remain as a class will depend on their behavior and their posture. I
also told you that the revolution of the workers and the peasants does not
fear the bourgeois. They do not fear them. The revolution of the workers
and the peasants knows that it has the power to liquidate them as an
economic class in our country, that is can do without their services when
it becomes necessary. In the meantime, however what we must do is to
organize our republic and our country still more so that those who work
will get more and the parasites less benefits.

The revolution will do what is just. Here at this beach, the refuge of a
good many parasites and bourgeois, it would be appropriate if the comrades
of INIT were to start thinking how to place this marvelous beach at the
service of the workers. (Applause, cheers, chanting) During the era of
capitalism, a worker could not come here. Of course not. During the era of
capitalism, a bourgeois could come here. Well and good. This we understand.
Yet, we cannot explain why this place should be enjoyed mainly by the
bourgeois during the era of our socialist revolution. We cannot explain it!
What good is the money to the bourgeois if their privileges are decreasing?

This will require much organization, a great effort, a greater ideological
awareness on the part of the worker. It is not sufficient that we merely
enumerate our aspirations and our rights. We know that we are creating a
new world. We know that this world will belong to the people, that it will
belong to those who produce, to the future generations. For this reason we
can look serenely at our difficulties. Today we cannot say we can laugh:
let us say rather that we must look serenely at our difficulties and that
tomorrow we shall laugh at them because we know we are on the right road.
What we have ahead of us now is work. Comrade Beguer was saying that the
future of abundance is at hand. I said to him: "No, Comrade Bequer,
abundance is not at hand. Abundance is still far away." This is true. They
took away all the money; there was nothing left. The rich invested their
money in palaces and took the rest abroad. They left the people without the
tools with which to work. Now they say that socialism has difficulties.

They are impudent because they do not say that these are difficulties left
to us by capitalism. Poverty, the lack of culture, the lack of working
tools were left to us. They could have left us a metallurgical industry,
they could have left us an industry developed in every sense, they could
have left us a developed agriculture. We would then have a marvelous
abundance of things.

Yes, what did they leave us? They left us vice, theft, cheap politics, and
evil ideas. This is what they left us. They are not going (to deceive?)
anyone. Like the imperialists, they are happy that we are suffering hunger
and serious difficulties. This, after they cut our sugar quota, banned
imports, and sabotaged our country's trade--a country with one crop, with
one market.

After the blows dealt to our economy by imperialism, it is not astonishing
that we should have difficulties. What is astonishing is that we have been
able to resist. This is what is astonishing. What government could have
resisted here? What bourgeois government could have resisted such acts of
aggression? (Crowd starts singing to the tune of "jingle bells" a song
praising socialism and deriding imperialism--Ed.)

They rejoice in our difficulties. They tried to make the world believe that
those difficulties were the result of the revolution. (They did not say?)
that the aggression is aimed at destroying the revolution. The admirable
thing is this nation, which had been taught to look at things in such a way
that if the Americans said "yes," it would say "yes" and if they said "no"
it would say "no". It had been taught to jump with fright when the
Americans moved a finger. Now the Americans have not only moved a finger,
but a hand, and ever an whole paws and they have not frightened anyone. In
addition all their aggressions, they organized a military expedition which
we defeated in less than 72 hours.

Those who are frightened are the bourgeois. It is the medium and small
bourgeoisie who are having trouble. The proletarians fear nothing.
(Applause and shouts of "paredon") The workers are afraid of nothing. Let
us stop fearing the bourgeois; Let us not be influenced the bourgeois. Let
us never forget that they have left us a very poor country and that we must
build a new country through our own effort. Yet they should know that we
are overcoming our difficulties. We have had a little more experience, we
have more organization, we have overcome many defects and deficiencies in
labor, and we are continuing to do so on all fronts in every field.

Yet, we still have much to do. We still have to acquire more education, to
learn more, to raise the level of awareness of the workers, their political
awareness. We must carry out a campaign to explain this obligation. (It is
not right?) that only tens of thousands of persons engage in voluntary
work, sacrifice themselves, and do well. We should have hundreds of
thousands. We must carry this conviction to the hearts of millions.

The bourgeois are conspiring against the moral uplift of the people. Those
who are (lazy?), those who complain about everything, those who sow
disorganization are like those who, in a besieged fort and surrounded by an
army of the enemy, sow defeatism. Our island is surrounded by imperialism
and these bourgeois are the ones who are sowing defeatism. They and their
prostitutes must be attacked when they try to attack the moral of the
revolution. Indeed, they are the ones who (created?) difficulties and
supplies; they are the ones who promoted the "show." Whom did they recruit?
They recruited (scornful?) people: the gamblers, the licentious ones, the
small politicians, the prostitutes, and the bourgeois.

(Editor's note: At this point Castro again states that Cuba, which he calls
a "fortress besieged by the enemy," a weakened by treachery from within.)

We shall treat them as traitors are treated; we, a people incapable of
kneeling, a people who will never surrender, will treat the enemy, the
fifth columnist, and the betrayers as traitors. Let them not cheer too
much. (We have?) difficulties but difficulties also make people strong. The
more we have to fight, the less (yielding?) we have to do and the better we
can get rid of bourgeois (trickery?), of the cowardice with which the
bourgeoisie tries to infuse the people, and of the lack of spirit of
sacrifice which they try to instill in the people.

(Editor's note: At this point Castro refers to the two years of fighting in
the Sierra Maestra when his soldiers continued to resist although they had
no food, clothing, or shoes.)

The people have a tremendous capacity of fighting. This is what the
bourgeoisie does not know; they do not know how far a people's sacrifice
may go, what a revolutionary is capable of doing, how the revolutionaries
get ready for any event, however it may come, because this a virtue heroic
people, of people who have a right to occupy a place in history.

The bourgeois despise our people, undermine our people. They feel contempt
for them. They believe that the people are like them. They believe that the
proletariat spirit is the spirit of the air-conditioned, foam rubber
bourgeois. That is where they are wrong. They do not know that the people
will overcome obstacles. The people have better organization, better
experience, (and many bad things?) against which we must fight--
inefficiency and the wrong way of doing things. But this be a battle for
all the people, for all mass organizations, for all of the people--and the
people will triumph!

Let me go back what I was telling you abut Comrade Bocquer: Abundance is
still distant. Our future engineers are now in high schools and
pre-university schools. Our technicians are just now training. We will have
a metallurgical industry. The entire program of industrialization has
already been set in motion. However, that (industrialization--Ed.) will not
be achieved tomorrow or the day after. We have already been operating for a
year and you must be aware of this. We must look for the best way to
utilize what we now have while we prepare a generation of technicians,
while we carry out our plans for industrialization, so that tomorrow we can
have what we do not have today, so that tomorrow we can laugh at today's
difficulties.

Two days ago, I was moved by curiosity to visit the gigantic Soviet
airplane, the Tu-114. (Applause) I arrived there unannounced and I met with
the plane's technicians who do not speak Spanish. We understood each other
through sign language. I admired that gigantic machine with perfect lines,
capable of carrying more than 200 passengers--a real flying train. I looked
at the perfect machine, a luxurious thing, soft seats, table for all kinds
of service. And I recalled the first years of the Soviet Union, its
struggle against interventionists and reactionaries of all sorts.

My mind went back to a film that showed their first tractor--a small
tractor. Today they manufacture such tractors by the millions. I saw that
perfect machine and could not help but thing that it was the work of a
revolution of workers and peasants, who forged their own technicians, their
engineers, their factories, who did this all. I thought of how much
sacrifice has gone to attain this--how much hunger, how much poverty, how
much luxury they endured in others. They were attacked by the reactionaries
of the entire world, but today they can display throughout the world a
machine as perfect as this which leaves nothing to be desired from the best
machines of imperialism or capitalism.

I also thought about ourselves. Today we are living in our first years. We
must display our joy today and we will also express it when we manufacture
our first tractor, the first vessel in our docks, the first motor to be
developed completely from our mines, our own steel manufactured here by our
own technicians.

Some day we will get rid of these old sugar mills. Some day we will be able
to make our own sugar mills much more modern by using our own steel plants.
Then we will enjoy the fruits of our labors. We cannot, however, begin to
compare our situation with the hard years experienced by other countries.
We will not manufacture our first tractor until perhaps three or four years
from now. We are getting them by the millions, just as we are receiving
trucks and machinery (applause). We are getting lathes by the millions,
machinery and equipment by the millions.

We are already drawing up plans for the machinery and equipment we will
issue to the schools and technological institutes--enormous quantities of
equipment, factories. We are receiving tremendous aid. They (presumably
other socialist states--Ed.) did not get anyone's help, and we have
received so many tractors that at times we have not appreciated their
value. That is why we have careless operators, because we have them in
abundance.

That is why I want our people to learn through struggle and in their work
that they may see (words indistinct) between a revolution devoid of
difficulties where everything comes easily and a revolution full of
difficulties (applause). Difficulties are the factors that train and make a
people great and we will have a great people organized, disciplined,
hard-working, fighting, and we will attain unusual success in the future
only if today we learn to become a people unresentful of sacrifices. If we
had an easy revolution, perhaps tomorrow we would regret that fact, because
we would not have had an opportunity to develop the strength, the energy,
and the capabilities which we need for the really great and ambitious
tomorrow that we dream about. Welcome difficulties, welcome struggle,
because they will make us strong. (Applause) We will become very strong,
all of us, without exception. We will become better through struggle and
difficulties. We will get farther.

It is fitting to talk about this with profound conviction in this
atmosphere of rewarded workers, of workers who (words indistinct) of
vanguard workers, of workers who point the way. Our deepest and warmest
congratulations to those workers over 50 years old (applause) who received
awards, who were designated exemplary workers. Our congratulations to the
youths who were also so distinguished. Our embrace, as revolutionary
comrades, to our working comrades, vivid examples of dignity and sacrifice,
of patriotism. You are the biggest heroes of the fatherland (applause) and
on your shoulders, my dear exemplary workers, anonymous heroes, the same
emotion with which some of your spoke here--on your shoulders we will
construct the stanch and indestructible fatherland of your sons, and future
generations. Fatherland or Death, We Will Win!
-END-