-DATE- 19630728 -YEAR- 1963 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- SPEECH -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- SUGAR WORKERS CONGRESS -PLACE- CHAPLIN THEATER -SOURCE- HAVANA DOMESTIC RADIO -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19630628 -TEXT- CASTRO ADDRESSES SUGAR WORKERS CONGRESS Havana Domestic Radio and Television Network in Spanish 0219 GMT 28 June 1963--F/E (Live speech by Fidel Castro at Chaplin Theater at the fifth and final checkup of the sugar harvest) (Text) Comrade sugar workers, the third sugarcane harvesting and milling season is over. It was the sugarcane harvesting and milling season with the least production since the revolution. It was the lowest and it will be the last one to be the lowest. (Applause) Our detractors, particularly abroad, have used our difficulties in sugar production as an important argument against our revolution. In the future they will not be able to use those arguments. It is true that it is in part important because of our inexperience, our deficiency, and our errors which did not come alone but joined the worst drought of the past 60 years. What is more, they also coincide with the most difficult and hardest years of the revolution; the years of the clash against the counterrevolution; the years of the mercenary attacks, the economic blockade, and the counterrevolution promoted from abroad by every means. It corresponded, it can be said, with the worst years through which the revolution had to pass. How do you feel today? This event today is not like any of the first events during the first times of the revolution, of the first or the second year of the revolution. The issues which concerned us then were not these. That was when the sugarcane workers did not meet for this purpose. Since they very noticeable changes have taken place. No longer is it the case when meetings would be held at which the representatives of the workers would desperately demand steps to resolve the tremendous problem of unemployment. That demand was backed by the workers because at that time it was their greatest need. At that time the sugarcane mills and plantations were not the people's property. The workers who would at that time request the application of four shifts in the sugarcane industry did so thinking of seizing from the private properties of those sugar mills and plantations the fruit of the exploitation of the workers. Those enterprises were still not the people's. However, we knew that in a not too distant day those enterprises would belong to the people. Today, the workers know much more than they did then, They understand much better than they did then. What worker, with all that he has learned in these almost five years of revolution, does not know what a great blunder it would have been if that measure had been placed in effect, what with the problems we have today in connection with work and manpower. (Passage as heard) What would have happened if several thousand sugar workers more had gone to fill that fourth shift? The workers today see things in a different light. Today it is not a desperate effort. Today it is not the desperate struggle against exploiters. Today we have another very different struggle. Today we understand these problems much better. Today we know what our true problems are and today if there is a desperate struggle to be waged, it is against ourselves. Against our disorganization, against our shortcomings, because what is our case today? Those smokestacks which we see row on row along the breadth and length of the island are no longer the symbol of foreign property, they are no longer the symbol of personal properties of the powerful magnates of the sugar industry. Today those smokestacks and those machines and those lands covered with cane, those seas of cane, are no longer the symbol of latifundism, of dead time, of unemployment, of iniquitous exploitation. Today the seas of cane, like the smokestacks, are symbols of the property of the people, symbols of the strength of the workers. And that means that today these enterprises are ours, that we are their workers and administrators. Before, the tasks of the worker was to know what the orders were from the overseer, what were the orders of the foreman, what were the orders of the representative of the mill owner. Things were more simple then. The worker received orders from the overseers and from the owners. However now the worker has a new problem before him. What is it? It is to administrate that wealth, organize the exploitation of that wealth, because those who used to give him orders are no longer here, those who pointed out his task. Today it is the workers themselves who have to organize and direct production and to produce. That is why we have met here. That is why we have met so many times, perhaps a little more than is necessary, because we have many important tasks ahead of us and what we can ask ourselves is whether the workers feel capable of organizing and directing production better then their former overseers, better than the former owners. It is true that they had the culture. It is true that they had had more schooling, more relations, more worldly experience, more knavery. It is true that from the time that those children of rich families were born in their golden cradles they were predestined to be administrators. None of you comrades, none of the workers here present, was predestined from the cradle to be an administrator of a sugar central, a department of that central! Or a cane farm or any production organization and they from the time they were children were being prepared and educated and initiated into the task of giving orders, organizing, and directing those enterprises. That is true. And to us it should mean, to the workers who were not born with the predestination, that is, with that family predestination, but who were born into modern society with the historic predestination of one day being administrator of the riches of the nation (Castro interrupted by applause at this point--Ed.) that they must learn, that they must know, and that they must overcome the difficulties inherent in their own inexperience and their lack of organizing habits. And no one doubts, no one doubts that the historically predestined will know how to carry out that task much better than the overseers of the past, then the owners of the past. To meet with sugar workers, with those who have in their hands the production of sugar, really means meeting with the most vital part of our workers. It could be said that, historically, within our country, both before and now, the economy was elevated or sustained on the shoulders of someone, on the shoulders of a sector of the people. The shoulders that sustained and sustain the economy of this country are the shoulders of the sugar workers. (Applause) It is one of the hardest jobs, and the economy of Cuba depends, fundamentally, on sugar. And the sector of the working and dedicated people which bears the main weight of the economy is that of the sugar workers. It is possible that many people in our country still do not realize that, that they do not know from where those resources come. Many, who even have a more comfortable job, a higher standard of living, are unaware, or live as if they are unaware, of this truth, as if they did not know who really are the heroes of the economy of the country and the principal props of the economy of the country. Our sugar has a sad history because it was an instrument of progress but also an instrument of exploitation. It was the principal source of the income of our country throughout the history of the republic and the principal source, also, of the injustices against the country. Of course, there came a time when our sugar industry became stagnant. And so it happened that when the population of Cuba had doubled, it continued to live off almost the same amount of sugar it lived off when it had half the number of people. As a result, our economy became stagnant and our sugar suffered the ups and downs of the markets. This was apart from the fact that a large part and the best of the centrals and the best of the lands were foreign property. Moreover, as an agricultural product exported by our country, it was a means for enrichment for the imperialists who exported industrialist products that always had higher prices while the price of our product diminished. We, in that sense, have suffered the same tragedy of all Latin America. What causes the poverty of Latin America? Why its progressive impoverishment? Why? Because they have experienced the same thing as we, that every year they exported a greater volume of agricultural product and imported a lesser volume of industrial products. But the industrial products increased in price. So, for example, I asked a comrade of the consolidated sugar enterprise about the prices in the year 25, and he said that they were around four cents. They had their ups and downs, as you know, but four cents of what a dollar was worth in the year 25. The dollar of the year 50 or the year 60 was worth three times less than the dollar of the year 25, but the price of sugar was not 12 cents. The price was five and so much cents. That is to say that they were practically paying us the same price with a dollar that was worth three times less. That is a clear example that illustrates the reason for the economic situation of our country. Anyone may ask: Why the unemployment if in those years there was migration of people from Jamaica, Haiti, and other countries to cut the cane, but when the revolution triumphed, there were tens and hundreds of thousands of persons without work in the country. These examples illustrate, not only our case, but the case of all of Latin America. And the revolution encountered those problems when it reached power, but not with just those problems. When the revolution tried to resolve these problems, liberate itself from that yoke, improve the situation of the masses of the country, it then encountered even greater problems because those who were the owners of our lands and our centrals, those who maintained trade with us that was profitable for them and exploited our economy suddenly deprived us of markets and imposed against our country a steel-like economic blockade. Those aggressive measures by imperialism plus the bitter history of the sugar contributed, to a greater or lesser degree, to the creation of a feeling adverse to sugar. At that time, absolutely no one in our country foresaw the possibility of finding a market for all the sugar that was suddenly rejected by the United States market. And you will remember that there was a surplus of sugar in the world, so that the last harvests had been restricted harvests. When the suppression of the quota came, the decision was taken to cut that cane and reduce sugar production. But the reductions went beyond what was necessary. All those events created a pessimistic feeling with regard to sugar, scorn for sugar. And that factor contributed importantly to the reduction of our production. New prospects have emerged from our trade with the socialist camp. Today, the vital importance of sugar to our country and our progress is absolutely clear to all of us. It is only now that it is a matter beyond any sort of doubt whatsoever that the basis of our economy and our development is sugar and that it is necessary that in the same way that a pessimistic opinion was created to create an optimistic opinion based on real possibilities with respect to sugar. And for all the comrades of the revolutionary leadership and of the government, it is an indisputable fact that we must push by every means possible, the development of the sugarcane industry. For the Cuban sugarcane industry not only has guaranteed markets for all it is able to produce and that therefore we will never again have to face that classic problem of the Latin American nations under capitalism and imperialism, which is to find markets for its products, or country under socialism and by virtue of its relations with the socialist camp, has markets which are even greater than we are able to produce for. (Applause) This does not take into account the market available to us in the non-socialist camp; in the possibilities for trade with numerous nations in all the continents which need sugar and in turn produce articles which we need. Previously, has problem was to find a market to sell what was produced and consequently not to produce more than could be sold: The result was limited sugarcane production. Because for the greatest part of the nation's history, sugarcane production was curtailed and our problem today is how to produce all we can sell. As anyone can see circumstances are very different. Just as our problem previously was how to find work our problem today is how to find manpower. Just as the problem of yesterday's workers was to struggle against the machines because they replaced workers, their problem today is too get many machines to help them. (Applause) This is the rest of the changes that have occurred in the past few years. What happened was the previously the machine was an enemy. It was a tool for the profit of the capitalists. It replaced workers but nonetheless the machine is the liberator of mankind under socialist production conditions. What a sad situation for man to have to fight the machines and say "No!" to bulk sugar. "No!" to machines which manufactured cigars. Whoever dared talk about a sugarcane cutting machine quite possibly may have been lynched. (Applause) Still, what is a canecutting machine? It is the tool that frees man from one of the hardest jobs existing: which is to cut sugarcane under tropical sunshine and humidity conditions. Such was the democracy and the free world in which a hungry man had to fight the machines that would free him from that hard job. There are the freedoms of which the humbugs of imperialism and capitalism talk about to the world's masses. When one thinks about the fact that under socialist conditions man cries for the machine and that those machines are going to free hundreds of thousands of workers from such hard jobs, that is when one begins to get a truly different and real concept of what the liberation of man is all about. Everything is different today from what it was yesterday. Everything has changed. Today homage is rendered by the people and the people admire the worker who comes up with a planting machine. Everyone is grateful to that worker for having invented a planting machine. He is not lynched! No! (Applause) He is not damned! No! Because it does not mean hunger for the children of any worker and each worker understands, sees, feels, that the machine means more food and more goods for the children of each worker. Before a worker could not invent, because to use his human intelligence was to prejudice his class comrades. Intelligence died in inaction. Today any worker who is capable of inventing something, a part, a machine, a procedure, receives acknowledgement and the honors of all the people. Why? Why is it like that toady and before it was not? These are the lessons life gives us and the lessons in Marxism-Leninism that the great teacher, life, explains to us. We must learn them and be good disciples of experience and of life. Those are our problems because we are facing new problems and new situations. Will we not be capable of resolving them. Will we not be capable of facing these situations with success? Will we not be capable of administering and developing that wealth that today is in our hands? Magnificent perspectives are opening for us now in the sugar industry, but above all, in fields devoid of natural limits restricting our sugar production--in the field of sugar derivatives, the chemical treatment of sugar. That is where lie our limitless perspectives which promise for our country magnificent fruits if we work diligently. It is entirely possible that in the future sugar might not be the most important thing, that sugar will be of less importance than the limitless sugar derivatives--syrup, bagasse, and first froth of the sugarcane juice (cachaza) that we might be able to produce. Very well, it is necessary for us to work in order to attain such goals. It is necessary for us to apply drive to projects that have already been initiated. First, (we must work hard?) to produce a great deal of sugar, and secondly, to develop all possibilities of the sugar-chemical industry. There is an organization devoted to sugarcane research and an institute doing research on sugarcane derivatives. A series of experiments have been conducted, and a series of very valuable products have been developed in the laboratories. However, we must carry on this research to the utmost degree. We must facilitate resources for them and something more, we must contract for the best technicians from all over the world to give impetus to these research projects. There is no doubt that sugar is (our?) natural product, a product of the land in which we live. Just as other countries develop other products, nature has endowed our land with the privilege and the conditions to produce sugar, more sugar, at lower prices than anywhere else. Nature also favored us with certain kinds of land for certain kinds of tobacco. Inasmuch as that is the product most favored by our natural conditions and the product which we can better than anyone else and at lower cost than anyone else, on the basis of this reality and starting with that product, we should exhaust all possibilities. It will not be the only product, of course, and it will not be the only economic branch to be developed since we have optimum conditions for the development of other economic branches--for instance the livestock industry--which we should also develop to the utmost. In the measure that we intensify our technical development of the livestock industry we will have added land for our sugar production. We must orient our efforts in that direction and turn immediately to the task of developing this research whose results will be immediate. In Cuba, for instance, nearly 50 varieties of sugarcane were planted previously. However, thanks to the efforts of the organization devoted to sugarcane research, today we plant only 10 varieties--that is, the 10 best varieties. There are kinds of sugarcane that resist drought better than others. Some produce a higher sugar content per land unit. Some yield earlier or later. A good selection of the varieties would allow us to plant the sugarcane that yields the greatest sugar content by land unit. That would also allow us to plant drought resistant sugarcane in those areas where it rains the least and various types of the better sugarcane which yield earlier than others. We would then have more time to do our harvesting. Of course, this is easy to say but it will require enormous organization in the people's sugarcane plantation collectives, even in private sugarcane production. Of course, it is much easier in the people's sugarcane plantation collectives. Each time that the sugarcane is replanted or new sugarcane is developed, one should be guided by the regulations set forth by the organization for the improvement of sugarcane production. It is more difficult in private sugarcane production, in the sugarcane minifundia. Logically, greater obstacles are found here for organization. However, much progress can be made in that direction in sugarcane agriculture. Of course, a much better organization is needed. What is more, discipline in harvesting is also needed. And each sugarcane ought to be cut not as sometimes happens because it is the prettiest but according to the degree of ripeness of the sugarcane. Only with the development of varieties or with the selection of existing varieties can sugarcane production be greatly stepped up per land unit. We have all the prospects ahead of us. We have the lands to plant the sugarcane, the possibilities for the development of new varieties, selection of the best varieties, distribution of sugarcane according to the characteristics of the land, and development of hydraulic plans in order to increase the extension of irrigated sugarcane lands. We will have the machines because this very day a committee of technicians from the Soviet Union have arrived in our country (applause) to work on the solution of the mechanization of sugarcane harvesting. This was basic. From the moment we resolve the problem of mechanization, we will have overcome the greatest obstacle of having a large harvest, and in this manner have a great sugar industry based on canes of the best quality, of the highest yields, and on a cultivation and harvest that is entirely mechanized. How much can can we produce? How much sugar can we produce? Practically any amount we want, speaking figuratively. Logically it has a limit determined by nature, but we can establish very high goals of production for ourselves and have a sugar industry of incomparably superior conditions to the sugar industry in our country under capitalism. The attainment of those goals is in our hands. We can do it and it is clear to all of us that we must do it. Of course there are factors which we have to take into account. Not all cane is produced in people's farms. A large part of the cane is still produced by small farmers and in some cases by medium farmers. We find the problem of medium private farmers who sabotage sugar production. They do not cultivate. (Applause) Of course all those gentlemen who do not cultivate are going to have the clauses of the agrarian reform applied to the individual. (Applause) There is also an infinity of small farmers. The small agricultural enterprise--small landholdings are inefficient but the peasants are our allies and we must have a policy with the small farmers and we must insure that the small farmers make efforts to produce. Of course there are certain circumstances such as the one resulting from the various prices of products by virtue of which it is more profitable to plant crops other than cane. We must take these realities into account. When the new prices of sugar on the world market were spoken about and the new prices that the socialist camp was going to pay for our sugar, there were certain--what we might call--conditioned reflexes deriving from the custom that prices of products in the country were determined by prices on the world market. That belongs to the era when a national economy did not exist but rather there existed many economies, and when the price of tobacco rose, only one sector profited: The tobacco growers. When the price of coffee rose, the coffee growers profited. If the price of sugar rose, another sector profited and our economy under socialism cannot be an economy of sectors because our economy is a single one and it must watch over the interests of all the people. It could very well happen that we could need a product which has a price on the world market that is very much below the price being paid in the country for the same product. In that case it would not be the price on the world market which would be the determining factor but rather the interest of the country's economy which would determine the price to be paid within the country for each product. We said that we were in an inflationary situation, that the problem was not to put more money in circulation but rather to produce more goods. However there is a special situation with respect to the small farmer which results from the face that according to the standards of the past prices were fixed at 3.75. (As heard) This year we have a harvest with a great drought and the situation of those small farmers is very tight. What must we do. We must raise that price. That means giving them some help, some encouragement. That is what we referred to when we spoke of the rational use of our resources and that is why the decision has been made to raise the price for the cane from the small farmers from 3.75 to 4 centavos. (As heard) And so that the small farmers will not be subjected to the ups and downs of the market, a price policy will be studied and a price will be set for them, for example, for the coming four years so that they will be encouraged to clean and cultivate their cane. Since an important part of the cane comes from private agriculture, particularly from small farmers, it is necessary to have that cane and it is necessary to be able to count on the efforts of that sector production. I was saying that the third people's sugar harvest was over and that, in reality, what must concern us now and from now on is not the past harvest, but the coming harvest. (Applause) Already, this year, we have accumulated much knowledge on all the weak points in agriculture, industry, and the harvest of cane. We are not now going to list all those points; you know that in one form or another. But the committee should gather all those reports, all the details, and begin as of now to work with the masses and with the basic organizations in order to resolve the problems of the coming sugar harvest, as of now. Let not even a honing stone, a file, or a machete be lacking. And let every effort be made to resolve, in the first place, all the problems of work supplies, (applause) all organizational problems, and all organizational failures. Let the work of each be specified and defined, preventing duplication of functions and trying to foresee the slightest detail, from the distribution of the work force to the order in which each cane stalk must be cut. (Applause) Of course, to the slogan: "Let not a single stalk of cane remain standing," we must add the slogan: "Let no cane remain down," and "Leave no cane on the ground," and, also "Leave no cane on the ground more than 24 hours" and "Pick it all up immediately." All the problems of (cars?), trucks, tires, and ropes--resolve them. That is to say that since we well know on which foot we must limp, since we well know all our deficiencies, we can wage a battle against all of they and overcome them. Now we have other tasks. The task now, above all, in that of agriculture. Industry must support the agricultural sector in the fulfillment of its tasks because if we want cane in the coming harvest, that cane must be cultivated and prepared now. (Applause) The goal for 26 July must be that all the cane, all the cane be given the first cleaning, (Applause) and that all the fertilizer be spread by that date. That is to say, that the cane be cultivated. We should set and meet that goal--but, of course, not by cleaning only the edges. It should not be only cleaning, but also replacing anything that is missing. Clean, cultivate the cane, attend to all the cultivation norms issued, and center all attention on that! We must begin to give the great push on behalf of the sugar industry right now. We must proclaim, or course, as the most important tasks in the country the cultivation of the cane, the preparation of the harvest, and the development of the sugar industry. And to attain an awareness of this. It is not enough that the sugarcane workers alone have this but all the rest of the workers who in one way or another push and contribute to sugar production, as for example, the workers who by fulfilling in July the goal of 1 million pairs of shoes will also be helping the sugarcane harvesting and milling season (applause) and they will be helping in the cultivation of sugar cane because there is a shortage of shoes in the countryside. There is a need of shoes for farm work and for harvesting as well as for agriculture in general. This is why we must exert ourselves on all fronts. All workers must have this awareness. This is much more so when it comes to those who are seated in an office (applause) behind a desk. They must have greater awareness because their work is much more comfortable than the work of sugarcane cultivation and cutting! (Applause) Everyone ought to make an effort that is proportional to his strength, wherever he is located, on behalf of the economy. Because today the economy is not private patrimony. It is the patrimony of all the people and the goods that are produced are not the goods for a class but the goods for all the people and he who still has the privilege of receiving more perhaps for work that is lighter, ought at least to strive more, at least exert himself more on behalf of those who do the harder work and earn less! (Applause) No one has the right to kill time because he who kills time is living off something. He is living off the time that others work. He who east, wears shoes, is clothed, and sleeps in a house must live off something. And every citizen who has the right to eat also has the duty to produce, and to work. We must continue to strive to eradicate the last vestige of parasitical mentality. (Applause) We have inherited the mentality of parasites from capitalism. How many evils has (capitalism--Ed.) left us. How many vices and how many pernicious customs it has left us. But among others (they left us--Ed.) a parasitical mentality. Because the parasite is the hero of capitalism. And there are still many reminders of this mentality. It is translated into the idea of living comfortably and doing nothing. Making a big salary and doing nothing. (Shouting from the audience) And of course, they should know, the parasites should know that the nonparasites out-number them. (Commotion and applause) And let the parasites know that the nonparasites are stronger then they are. (Applause) And we do not have to tolerate parasitism. We must persuade ourselves that these are the times that call for efforts. These are the times for doing and for using time as it should be used and not (he chuckles) to lose time miserably and parasitically. Today, the heroes, the real heroes, are those who work and they are the ones who produce. And we have seen one of those heroes tonight here. Because they introduced two sugarcane workers from the Guantanamo zone to us. They went out and cut cane after having already put in an eight-hour day. They cut an average of some 15,000 arrobas. (Applause) One of those workers was in the 1900 to 0300 shift and when he finished his shift we went to the fields to cut cane. Does not this put the lazy to shame? Does not this shame the parasites? And is it possible that there are those here who ride about in a Cadillac with gasoline bought with the sweat of that worker! (Applause) These are injustices that unfortunately still persist. One starts to think how much that worker, that real anonymous hero earned, and it will add up to a few pesos, and perhaps you will find a taxi driver, and let the taxi drivers forgive me. I use them as examples very frequently, and they make 50 pesos in just one day. (Shouting) And in addition many are counterrevolutionaries. (More shouting) Injustices which prevail and nevertheless they pay 34 centavos for a gasoline which must be brought from 10,000 kilometers away and paid for by sugar produced by that sugarcane worker. (Applause) Many things like that. Someday we will have to take measures so that our economy will come out of the inflationary condition it is in, that inflation that benefits the one who has a lot and which harms the one who has little because the taxicab driver can find a chicken for which he pays 10 pesos which the cane worker cannot find. (Shouting applause) We have cases where the small farmer sells a chicken for three pesos and then goes to fight at the butchershop so that the revolution, the people, the state, will sell him meat at 43 centavos. Those are the problems. They sell chickens, pigs, and everything at two and three pesos and then they want to buy meat at 43 centavos, meat which is sold below cost because we have the problem of prices left us by the capitalists, when consumption was not something for the masses but for a privileged minority. Some day we must make a conscientious study of all these problems because if not, rationing will never end amid a sea of money. In order that we may have a legitimate hope, to the degree in which we increase production will come the day when we will be free of the ration book, and that is why one day we must make a serious joint study of prices and wages, which would be to the advantage of those with lower incomes. Now we are already working on the problem of norms and wage scales and all those problems because the economy belongs to the people. Today the people have to administer their economy with a scientific mentality with a technical mentality, with a correct mentality, and not with the mentality of a storekeeper, although of course there are storekeepers who have a magnificent economic sense and their economy functions perfectly well, but there are others who owe everybody and pay nobody, and MINCIN has had to ask for an accounting from some storekeepers because they did not pay it. Therefore the problems of our economy, the economy of the people, is a problem that the people must face with a correct mentality. Some day we are going to have to begin on all those paths. Speaking of this problem of gasoline, we would ask some comrades of the government and the comrades of the Jucieplan why this gasoline is sold at 34 centavos. After all those who have private vehicles work only a few hours. They do not have to work more and gasoline is so cheap, and I would propose who do we not sell gasoline at 60 centavos? (Applause) That gasoline that comes from 10,000 kilometers away and we pay for with sugar. Why do we not spend that money for the people, to strengthen our economy, to decrease inflation? We would take a little bit of profit away from those who are making 30 and 40 pesos every day and even more because the one who has an automobile (Castro uses the word "machine"--Ed.) has a little more income. It is probably (he chuckles) that most of you do not have an automobile. (Shouting) If we look about us we will see the following: Here in Cuba there were many, many automobiles. Those automobiles were all bought with sugar, but none of those who produced sugar has an automobile. Is that not true? (Crowd answers "Yes") What canecutter or worker in the central had an automobile? (Shouting) Unless he won a prize in the lottery, that is on the day that the lotter did not have a prize that went into the pocket of a politician who even used to cheat with the lottery. That was the way it was with many automobiles in the capital. Traffic was thick. But what about the rural areas? Sandals when they were available and in the capital automobiles. Sandals in the rural areas and those who produced the sugar with which automobiles were purchased were the ones who walked in sandals. What was their share of the automobile? The soles of the sandals, (applause) because the soles of the sandals were made out of old automobile tires. These are truths. Great truths. The imperialists and reactionaries count automobiles but our problem is not that of many automobiles because there was a great injustice. Machines to cut cane, that is what we need. First of all machines to cut cane, instruments of work to satisfy the needs of the masses and then those other things. What canecutter is going to have an automobile soon? Reynaldo Castro. (Applause shouting) We had read in an interview that he had said that he had thought of someday buying an automobile to take his mama to the beach, or for a trip or something like that and I asked him "have you brought the machine yet?" And he said "no, not yet." (He laughs) And I thought about it and remembered that the Ministry of Industries had assembled some automobiles that had come from Czechoslovakia. Then I remembered that the comrade minister of industries sent the first automobile to be seen and tested. So I wondered: Is that automobile still around, because if it is we will use that first automobile as a prize for the first of the canecutters. Then we sent for the automobile, which was found, and there it is. When we leave, he will go on with his automobile and he will one day be able to realize that dream of being able to ask his mother to the beach on Sundays. (Prolonged applause) I want to tell you that I was very much impressed by Comrade Reynaldo Castro when I met him tonight. I was on a trip when he won first place as canecutter. And he made a big impression on me, not just the way anybody is impressed on learning that a man has cut 25 tons of cane in a day, something that i a veritable feat from any point of view, but because of his modesty, his simplicity, the things he said. We were talking about that, and he said: "But I am not asking for a car," (and again?), "I am not asking for a car." He said he was not asking for one, and he said: "See here, all my life I have worked. I am 23 years old, and at 21 I had not been to a movie. I have been working since I was seven, and I am in love with work. And to live I do not need more than four pesos. That is what I need." And it seemed to me I was seeing the pattern of man, not of today, but of from 30 to 40 years from now. We were seeing a man of the future; we were seeing a communist in body and soul, (applause) because he said "I only need four pesos," and when it comes to cutting he cuts more than 1,000 (no unit given--Ed.) as a daily average. Is that not a model citizen, an example? How many can compare to him? How many with his nature, with his simplicity; and that is the type of citizen the country wants to have. That is the way it hopes to shape the new generations. And it shows that our rich and fertile land produces the communist man as a native product. This man, who at the age of 21 had never been to the movies, did not learn (few words indistinct); nature furnished it, life provided it, and he came with those qualities. And, similarly, the case of a woman comrade who cut 1,400 arrobas of cane in one day. (Applause) It is or is it not that kind of citizen that deserves our people's admiration, respect, affection, and gratitude? Are they or are they not the true heroes of our society and our country? And it is encouraging, because in these battles of production, in these battles against disorganization and against our shortcomings (few words indistinct), many heroes have been forthcoming, men and women of this temper. And we should feel proud that our people produces men and women of that timber. And it is the revolution that plows the furrow, that cultivates the possibility for such men and women to spring up and become tempered. Over and above our shortcomings, lack of experience, and mistakes, we see a spirit of responsibility arise. There are qualitative changes in the minds of our people, our men, (our brothers?) And those who hold back from doing their duty, from performing the task that falls to them, will be smashed by this awakening consciousness and removed from the road of the revolution and the people (applause). It is a tremendous force. And that spirit must be formed in each and every one of us, in the great battle we have ahead. For we have won this right. It has cost us no few struggles, no little work, but the revolution is winning. Who can fail to see it? Its enemies on the home front are crushed, and even the bitterest enemies on the outside have to admit the Cuban revolution is an indisputable fact. Even the imperialists are abandoning their hopes and illusions about destroying the Cuban revolution (applause), because it has turned out to be a fact mightier than their forces, their cunning, their tricks, their aggressions. In the reality of today's world, they have received the great lesson of the epoch in which they are living and of the change that is taking place in the world. The organized strength of the people, the might of the workers, the strength of the patriots, the men of strong, tempered spirit, have been overcoming the pusillanimous, the pessimist, and crushing the counterrevolutionary, crushing those who turned against the country, who took the side of the homeland's enemies. From the days when they murdered workers with their acts of sabotage and thought they could have free rein with aid from the outside, with foreign weapons and foreign explosives; from the days when they thought they could have the run of our rural areas up until today, they have been progressively more thoroughly crushed. In the cities, the strength of the masses, organized in the Committees for Defense of the Revolution, and the effective action of our security bodies, kept closing in on them more and more. As a result they dropped their activity in the cities and took to the countryside, to commit their black deeds there. But other organizations arose; there arose the battalions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces for the fight against outlaws. These battalions have been gradually clearing them from our rural areas, have literally swept them from Matanzas, reduced them by 50 percent in Las Villas and will now undertake the final drive on the remaining 50 percent, and there will not be a single band,a single outlaw, left, because the last days are coming for the efforts made by imperialism, which for almost four years harassed the revolution by infiltrating counterrevolutionaries, dropping weapons, and promoting the outlawry that murdered teachers, that murdered literacy brigade members, that murdered workers and peasants. Their time has been coming for all of them, alone and now forgotten and abandoned t their fate the men who one day thought that the empire would come to impose its rule, the men who one day took up arms not to fight-- for they have never fought a battle--but to murder, to sow terror in our rural areas and gain merit for the time of the invasion. Their lot is the only one there could be for traitors, for mercenaries, for dreamers. They were abandoned to their fate, and the last ones left are facing the justice of the revolution and the bullets of our fighters. The island will be cleaned of bandits in this manner. The counterrevolution has been crushed and now abandoned by those who impelled them to those a adventures, demoralized in the face of the triumphant reality of the revolution, the propelling force of the revolution which has more organization and more experience,more control over technology, because the imperialists resorted to tactics of irregular fighting and the revolution has developed its fighting tactics against such irregular attacks. Meanwhile, the revolution also developed its armed forces, ready to defend the country against any enemy attack. In the face of every action by imperialism, the result was the strengthening of our forces. We are now reaching the fifth anniversary of the revolution. The revolution will be five years old. When a child becomes five years old, it is said it will survive. We have won the right to fight now in the main battlefield, which is in the field of economy, the field of production. We must now win the battle over shortages. We must create and produce the things that we need and devote ourselves wholeheartedly to that struggle, with all of our strength. In the revolution's history, when the enemy was advancing in the war, the revolutionaries prepared to win battles which they won. When the fatherland was being threatened in moments of greatest danger, at the most critical times, every one appeared to carry a gun and to fight the battle against the imperialists. Today the call is not to arms, but to work. The cry of fatherland of death is not a cry of the trenches, but a cry of the factories today, of the fields and production centers. Faced with production problems, faced with problems of the economy, let us be as we were in the hours of danger, in the hours of mortal danger; let us be the same on the production front; let us be workers in the style of "fatherland or death; we will win!" -END-