-DATE- 19651203 -YEAR- 1965 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- SPEECH -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- GRADUATING SCHOOL TEACHERS -PLACE- MARIANO'S PEDRO MARRERO STADIUM -SOURCE- HAVANA DOMESTIC RADIO -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19651203 -TEXT- CASTRO SPEAKS TO GRADUATING SCHOOL TEACHERS Havana Domestic Radio and Television Services in Spanish 0412 GMT 3 December 1965--F (Live speech by Premier Minister Fidel Castro at ceremonies making the graduation of the first group of Makarenko primary schoolteachers, held in Mariano's Pedro Marreor Stadium) (Text) Comrade teachers, or better yet, comrade professors, graduates, and pupils of the Makarenko Pedagogic Institute. Comrade teachers of the Frank Pais Vanguard Brigade, (applause) comrade students, peasant: (applause) Today a complete family of educators meets here--graduates, students, all forming part of the same effort. And as the ninth anniversary is observed on this day of the landing of the Granma, no other event could have more significance than the fact that the first students who, having taken part in the literacy campaign and taken courses at Topes de Collantes, and at the Pedagogic Institute, should graduate today. They are the first fruit of a new system, of a great plan, of an extraordinary ambitious effort in the field of education. It is not always a good custom to attribute the best to ourselves, the best successes. But we sincerely believe that our country is in the very forefront in the method, selection, in the system it uses for the training of teachers who will educate future generations of our country. In this respect, it will be very difficult for someone to beat us. And it is something that among all the social tasks of a country, this is, in our judgment, the most important of all. In the years to come we will be able to count on an every-increasing number of teachers who are splendidly trained in a human, revolutionary, ideological, and technical way. As we move ahead, these aspects of the training of future teachers will be increasingly accentuated and improved. And without false pride, we can feel deep satisfaction in the way we are preparing the future of our people and our society, marching toward a new world, infinitely different from the past, the characteristics of which, without further words, and much more eloquent than words, are decided by events such as we have had the privilege of seeing tonight. In the quality, the beauty, the perfection of the entire program, above all its deep significance, expressed by girls who were born, and who did so, in our mountains. And year after year, through this program, or through these schools, especially organized for them, through which some 44,000 have passed, and where each year a selection has been made of those who have shown the greatest interest and greatest vocation which, in turn, has created a large contingent of students whose improvement can be appreciated year after year. This is why, although at first these schools were organized with a provisional sense in mind, thanking that they would fill a momentary need, and that in the future, as educational centers were developed in the interior of the nation and in the mountains, particularly, with the prospects offered by the mountain boarding schools, and even though someday we will have basic secondary schools in the mountains, even under such circumstances we think that these schools should be continued as selection centers for students who are most outstanding in the schools of our countryside. If in these years many were in the first, second, or third year--the biggest majority were in these levels--in the future years we can select from these mountain schools whose help you know about and whose promotion, as the comrade vanguard teacher here has said. (Castro fails to complete though--ed.) She explained that it had been the highest ranking school in the nation and the highest ranking in the history of Cuba--in other words, a large number of country boys and girls, especially in the mountains, attend the schools and are promoted. Thus, we will have a large amount of talent from which to choose so that this scholastic institution will continue to develop and continue to be fed from that talent, choosing from those students who have the most interest and vocation for study. In this way the future requirement of the grades will be met, not less than the third grade and later, the fourth grade, later fifth, and then sixth so that in the future this will be practically a basic secondary school--this school with a capacity for 10,000 students. Some will choose one profession while others will chose another, and in this way this center they will be going to another center of preuniversity study. They will have the opportunity to study those fields which interest them most. I believe that the country will profit much by taking advantage of this talent and I believe that this school, so magnificently and brilliantly organized, will serve to channel that intelligence toward the different fields of science which will contribute to the future welfare and happiness of our nation. From among you, a considerable number has chosen to study as teachers and are already participating in the teaching of students at lower levels. Those of you choose to study as teachers even though our system of teacher training begins in the mountains, is continued for an additional 2 years, and ends in the pedagogic institute. In the case of you who are going to enter the Pedagogic Institute when you reach the level where you study and teach without having to go through the intermediate stage of Tope de Collantes, in other words, through the mountain sage, this can be readily done since you really come from the mountains anyway. (applause) Furthermore, you will have to return to the mountains, because when you graduate as teachers, no matter how many teachers we graduate, we will have a rotation, if not in the mountains then in the countryside. We know that you understand this. In the past the problem was to find someone to go to teach in the mountains. But in the future we will not only have all the teachers who are trained for the largest part in the mountains, but we have many teachers who were born in the mountains and so are not intimidated by the countryside and the mountains, much less when they have the opportunity to return as teachers to teach peasant children. This problem was resolved in the early part of the revolution because of the enthusiasm of our youth, because of the revolutionary spirit of the large contingent of student youths who answered the call to teach in the mountains. Those are the teachers who later formed the Frank Pais Vanguard Teacher Brigade and who have now spent five years teaching in our mountains. Because of the need for teachers at the beginning, we considered promoting the intermediate stage students, in other words, after the first year of study, to study--no, to teach (Castro corrects himself--ed.) and later to continue their studies. We came to the conclusion that this would lead to inconveniencies and would probably discourage many from returning later to study. That is why we decided to exercise a little patience. But this was not simply a matter of our having patience; it was rather that the teachers of the Frank Pais brigades have patience, because to wait for five years meant for them two additional years in the mountains. Nevertheless, we were able to get their cooperation and, thanks to them, the teachers who are graduating today are being graduated after having completed all their studies and after having participated in the educational practice during two years. The teachers who are graduating today are not teachers who are going to come face to face with a classroom for the first time, or to teach for the first time--a task which among the social tasks is one of the most beautiful, and from time to time requires more vocation and more dedication. For two years they have taken part in teaching and have participate din more than 1,000 classes which are presently being attended by students who will teach. They have gained great successes in that task, high promotions of students, and are going forward not only with all the value of theory, but with the value of practice and experience with which they will become further enriched while they teach in the future years. In graduating close to 800 students, 764 teachers will permit us to attend to not only new needs, such as the technological worker institutes, where presently there are close to 10,000 students even though most of them naturally are in leveling courses, but also to substitute already 510 teachers of the Frank Pais Brigade who, having taught for five years in the mountains, are not marching toward other tasks, which will permit them to continue their studies, thereby improving themselves, continuing in the educational tasks. This is to say, of the 1,250 students of that brigade, 510 students will be replaced this year, a similar number will be replaced the following year, and in two years new teachers will be occupying their positions, that is, the positions of all the teachers of the Frank Pais Brigade. As the new graduations take place in the mountains, replacing those who are now going into the mountains, I know that his is not going to be met with much happiness when the Frank Pais Brigade teachers receive their replacements. They are naturally proud of the fruits of their labors for five years, of the successes which they have achieved, but I am sure that they will not leave the mountains without sadness and without a profound love for the people there with whom they have become integrated and for the atmosphere of our mountains which awakens everyone who has in one way or another lived, fought, or worked there. But it will also be necessary that our new teachers pass through that school. What are the future prospects? How many new teachers will graduate in the coming years? This year, as I have said, there are 764. Next year there will not be more than this one because it is one of the first courses. But in the third course, in Mina del Frio the enrollment is considerably higher. The number which is going through Tope de Collante is several thousands. The number which will pass from Tope de Collante to the teaching institute is approximately three times higher than this year. The following year the institute will have more than 5,000 students--5,000 students who will be able to join those who study in the classrooms of our capital. They will be able to satisfy the increasing need of teachers as the number of secondary and preuniversity schools increases. Many of the present teachers will teach in some of those schools and the students of the teaching institute will be replacing those teachers, and hence the new schools which come forth because of the plans of the increasing population. This year how many asked to enroll in Minas del Frio? Well, no less than 9,100. (applause) From that number, many had to pass the necessary tests so that there are now 6,888 students enrolled. Then let 4,500 students pass from Minas del Frio to Topes de Collantes (applause), so that the number of students from Topes de Collante will increase to about 8,000, according to the data I have before me. With graduates totalling 1,300 in Topes de Collantes and an increase of 4,500 the total number of students will be 8,400. A total of 764 are graduating from Tarara, that is, from the Pedagogic Institute. A total of 1,300 are admitted, for a grand total of 3,200. But by the next term, some 4,000 will be admitted. And in two more years--we have two more graduations yet--something less or close to 1,000, but we hope that by the third graduation after this one, it will be at least 3,000. At this rate, in addition to the peasant girls who have also chosen to take these courses, by 1968 there will be at least 3,000. And at the rate of enrollments at Minas del Frio, we should figure that between 1970 and 1980, 50,000 teachers will graduate from the Pedagogic Institute. (applause) Fifty thousand teachers is quite a respectable figure. And above all, there is the caliber of teachers who will graduate. Not only will it allow us to (satisfy our needs, which are great, because our programs are very extensive, but it also will enable us to offer our cooperation in this field to other nations (applause), to other nations which need (applause), which need our technical assistance. Naturally the need for teachers in the world is immense. Just think about sister nations in this continent which in some cases have a percentage of illiteracy higher than 70 percent--tens of millions of people who cannot read or write. Millions and millions of children lack schools and teachers. Naturally, these peoples, these revolutionary peoples with their own revolutions, must of necessity fill this need. Our cooperation will be essentially in regard to the methods we have used to cope with these problems by highly qualified technical cadres. Because we have acquired a splendid experience in this field of education that was proved in the literacy campaign four years ago; that was proved in the colossal triumphs we have achieved. An experience as to how to cope with this problem amid a revolutionary process, and how to resolve it not only as regard quantity but also as regards quality. I believe that these methods, this experience and all the wealth of experience we have been obtaining in various fields has only been possible because of the revolution itself, which was the first great experience, the mother of all experiences. The very fact of the revolution was the first experience. Anything can be done with the revolution; anything can be resolved. Without revolution, peoples who are still in the same situation, or even worse than we were in, can accomplish nothing; can resolve nothing. And we are winning. Not only are we glad about our successes today, but above all, we are, thinking about the triumphs of tomorrow. And this was not achieved without the efforts of many, without the intelligence and contributions of many, without the persistent, competent, and capable work of many revolutionary cadres of our education. It has been the result of the efforts of many, of having our youth as raw material and their enthusiasm, the comrades of the Education Ministry, the comrades from the mass organizations amid the teachers, in the first place the union educations workers. We have always stressed the real special and meritorious effort that our worthy comrade Elena Gil has undertaken, (applause, unison clapping; a smiling Elena Gil, sitting near Castro, rises to acknowledge the ovation--ed.) The collaboration of several professors and teachers. Because we must say that the largest majority of the teachers that the revolution found when it was victorious joined the revolutionary process; they marched together with the revolution and they have improved themselves extraordinarily. Today's graduation means that the family of teachers is growing. This means that the family is improving from year to year. This has not only been the result of work, of effort, it has also been the fruit of heroic sacrifices, of good revolutionary blood spilled, of the fighters who in the midst of the literacy campaign in 1961 met the mercenary invaders, of the youths who came from the ranks of the teachers--and the literacy teachers were examples of sacrifice and heroism, some of whom gave their lives for this cause while being cowardly and criminally murdered, like Conrado Benitez, of Manuel Ascunce, of (Delfin Sen--phonetic) or the other teacher mentioned here, Gomez, who in fulfilling their duties gave their lives and became examples, seeds, and banners. Those who committed those cowardly and inhuman deeds though they were going to strike home at the spirit of your youths. They thought that they were going to make the revolutionary plans fail. Yes, they did wound the revolution emotionally because the whole nation felt it and cried for them. But they were way off in gaining their objectives. They were way off in halting that most outstanding education campaign, the most outstanding effort being carried out, because this event, today, is proof that no one or nothing will be able to impede the victorious progress of our country, that no one or nothing will be able to prohibit us from building our future, that no one or nothing will keep us from working--the nation--to create a better world, happier, without injustices, without humiliations, without exploitations, without ignorance, without poverty--a world from which we work in the middle of all these difficulties, in the midst of need and poverty which we inherited from the past. We have freed ourselves from many of those shackles. We were a poor nation, economically underdeveloped. We were also an uncluttered nation, a nation very backward educationally with more than one million illiterates and with 600,000 children who needed schooling. Poverty is not easily overcome. Many years of work are needed to keep creating the economic base which permits the people to acquire a higher standard of living. But we are progressing, we are overcoming ignorance if we compare out situation today with the situation as it was seven years ago. It is unbelievable what we have achieved. We are leaving ignorance far behind and every year the problem will not be simply to read or write, but to acquire the sixth-grade level of education. Already, for practically all our youth teaching (presumably "learning"--ed.) is at the secondary level. It is an obligation for each youth year after year, the cultural and educational level for all the people will continue to increase. The value that this has will have to be seen in the coming years in order to prove it with experience. The grade of education for the people and the technical capacity of the people is important to a nation. So let us be a capable nation taking advantage of the natural resources of our fatherland, a capable nation producing all the goods we need, all the riches we need to reach the abundance of material goods and the abundance of cultural goods. Without study and learning, nations cannot progress. Only on this path, can a nation achieve the highest goals, the highest aspirations, because ignorance will not ever make any nation rich. The lack of knowledge and technical capability will not permit a nation to resolve its problems. That is why we are so sure that we will resolve our problems and that we will solve these problems well. That is why we are so sure of the future without ignoring the difficulties or the dangers. We are working for the future with a people who are increasingly united, with a people who are increasingly more aware, and with a people who are increasingly stronger. It would not occur to our enemies any more to start expeditions such as the one at Giron, because if they were mistaken on that occasion, and very much mistaken, today they are not so mistaken. They know how much the people have increased their unity, their awareness, and their strength. The force of the people can teach them other lessons, such as the extraordinary lesson which the imperialists are receiving in Vietnam (applause) as well as the impossibility of crushing revolutions and revolutionary people. Our strength has increased considerably, not only in awareness, but also in technical ability and in the weapons we have to defend our revolution We are incomparably stronger thanks to international solidarity, and particularly to the extraordinary assistance we have received in weapons from the Soviet union, (applause) which enables us to work with greater security, which gives us something with which to defend our revolutionary work, to defend our schools, to defend the work of our teachers, to defend the work of all our workers and peasants, of all the intellectual workers in our country and of those who are working with their hands; it gives us something to defend the results of the revolution and the future of the revolution. There is an extraordinary difference between these people of seven years ago and the people of today. We saw this in the mountain recently, when our teachers graduated at the Turquino Peak. We saw it among our peasants and our mountain militia (word indistinct), which gave us an impression of their discipline and of their strength. We saw it in the organization of our party, in the degree of experience they achieved in their work, in the efficiency of their effort, in the prestige and in the experience of their cadres. We have seen the day by day consolidation of the revolution and its progress, without this meaning that all problems have been solved and without this meaning at all that we have no difficulties, for we do have difficulties. However, everything we have done until today, amid the dangers, threats, blockades, and difficulties, teaches us that nothing prevents us from progressing, that nothing prevents us from advancing and that we shall advance constantly and with greater rapidity. Today on the ninth anniversary of the Granma landing, of which this evening's program reminds us so much, and after almost seven years of revolution, we can subscribe to the statement which Comrade Alemida made a few moments ago to Comrade Elna Hill, when he said that on a day like today he was happier than ever. But he was not referring to the happy circumstance of today's commemoration of the Granma landing. Comrade Almeida, comrade of the Moncada Barracks, the Granma, and the Sierra, received the happy news that his family had increased with the arrival of a boy. (applause) Not only was he born on the same day, but almost at the same hour of the landing (applause), thereby giving proof of almost strict military punctuality. (laughter) However, he did not say it for that reason, as he perhaps thought some of us believed. He did not say it for that reason. He said it after he had attended this evening's ceremony. He said it after he had seen the performance of our peasant girls, the same peasant girls (applause) whom we met in the mountains, unshod and poorly dressed, these same daughters of those exploited peasants who opened their arms to us during the difficult days which followed the landing of the Granma; those same peasants of those rugged mountains where there were no hospitals or schools, doctors or teachers, but rather large landholders, foremen, rural guards, exploitation, abuses, mass assassinations, burned homes, and bombed hamlets. He was expressing the feeling of all of us, the emotion of all of us upon seeing, particularly with that clarity with which one sees on days such as this, the result of the struggle, the result of the effort, upon seeing, with that clarity with which one sees on days such as this, that the blood of the good men was not shed in vain; that those who died in the Moncada Barracks (applause) or on the Granma (applause), in the Sierra or in the lowlands (applause), in the cities, and in the various revolutionary actions, those who died following the victory defending the nation against imperialism, those who died in Giron or fighting the bandit assassins in the Escambray Mountains, the teachers who sacrificed themselves did not do so in vain; and that thanks to those sacrifices on a day like today we can remember them with profound respect, with profound veneration, and gratitude, for in the work of the revolution, in the successes of the revolution our heroes live and will live eternally. Those who fell will live eternally, as well as those who are absent performing their duty, such as our Comrade Ernesto Guevara. (applause) And I say absent, I do not say dead, for our enemies rejoice at the idea that Comrade Ernesto Guevara is dead. Naturally, no revolutionary is eternal. Revolutionaries are always running great risks. However, in order to undeceive our enemies and for the benefit of our fellow nationals who wonder or have wondered if he is dead or alive, we can say with infinite satisfaction that he is alive and in good health. (applause) However, evidently the imperialists have not been able to ascertain this with their U-2's. And we also remembered him very much today, because we are thinking of and remembering all those who fought--the men who had faith in their people, who had faith in their cause--and that was the main thing. The number of men is not important. The idea is important, the conviction, the will, and the firmness. That is the main thing. That is why we believe so firmly that the other nations will free themselves. That is why we believe in the future of this continent and of all continents, for while the difficulties are great, our history proves that they are not great enough to prevent the victory of the people. If in the beginning there are not many of them, it is enough that a few have this conviction, and this faith which will soon become the faith and the conviction of many, will at a given moment be that of all the people. The history of Vietnam teaches us this very thing. The hundreds of thousands of Yankee soldiers, their armies, their swarms of planes, and their criminal weapons have been dashed to pieces against its heroic resistance. The greater their defeat, the more they threaten to send more and more soldiers, obviously worried in the face of the fact that an unexpected growing resistance to this criminal war has arisen among the American people. And so they threaten to send more and more soldiers. But we believe in the victory of the people of Vietnam and the solidarity of the socialist camp. And in the face of those threats, we reiterate our position and our promise to help Vietnam, to help it with men and arms. (applause) There are many persons in this country who would gladly enroll to go fight there against the criminal soldiers of Yankee imperialism, and there are many men all over the world who would be inclined to do the same. Therefore we believe in the victory of the people of Vietnam against all the imperialists' threats, because even though the Vietnamese have sufficed by themselves up until now, they know that they are not alone and that the day they say "volunteers for Vietnam" there will be, not hundreds of thousands of men throughout the world, but millions of men, (applause) millions of men ready to go there and fight and clip the criminal, aggressive claws of the imperialists. That is why victory will belong to the heroic people of Vietnam, thanks to their own efforts, which have been more than enough to deal the imperialists tremendous defeats, and furthermore thanks to what I was just saying; because for every imperialist soldier there, for every soldier the Yankees send, there are dozens of men all over the world ready to go fight him. And so the imperialists have gotten into a blind alley there, from which the only way out is defeat. (applause) They thought they could take unfair advantage of their might and numbers with impunity. They thought the Vietnamese belonged to a small nation and were few in number. And they are face to face with the reality that the people of Vietnam number many more than the imperialists, because with Vietnam all are revolutionaries in the world, all the enemies of the imperialists, with all the honor and courage of revolutionaries, the right of revolutionaries; for there is where the importance of ideas is demonstrated, the importance of what each individual represents, and that all the resources of oppressive and exploiters, no matter how great, shatter on a people fighting for a just cause. And in that blind alley the imperialists find themselves, facing those risks, and the risk, which worries the Yankee politicians, of the reaction from the North American people themselves; because since their leaders are low politicians, wretches who deceive the people, as long as they can go on committing these evil deeds and these crimes and following the people they feel good; but when the people begin to wake up to reality, when the people begin to see the truth, when the demagogues and low politicians begin to tremble, and they lose their coolness, as demonstrated by the U.S. secretary of state at the ridiculous conference just held at Rio de Janeiro, where he said that the Vietnam affair had him worried because it might end in a nuclear holocaust. He still dares put forward that scarecrow of a nuclear holocaust, but it is mostly a sham, for it would no longer be a nuclear holocaust for their enemies; it would be a nuclear holocaust for them. This is to say, when they talk about a nuclear holocaust, they are trying to ignore the facts, and seeing themselves defeated over there, they threaten with this, and they talk of these dangers, which, by being mentioned there, reveal the fear felt by the imperialist oligarchy in the United States of this blind alley, this defeat they are facing and which they will be unable to prevent with their allusions and references to dangers of a nuclear holocaust, because the holocaust that will take place there is a holocaust of imperialist soldiers, dying at the hands of the heroic guerrillas in the jungles of Vietnam. That is the holocaust that is taking place and will take place. And therefore the imperialist leaders, after they had recourse to force, escalating aggression and increasing air raids, are showing their feeling of frustration and failure in ever field, in every corner of the world. At the foreign ministers conference they were unable to impose the plan for a hemispheric interventionist force. What must have been the position of failure, weakness, and discredit of the imperialists, accustomed to such easy handling of the governments of Latin America. Despite support from the Brazilian gorillas and a few other gorillas, they were unable to get approval for the plan, because the Latin American governments, no matter how weak their positions may have been, no matter what great concessions may have been made by the imperialists, no matter how great the complicity of the majority of these governments--with some few exceptions--with Yankee imperialism in its aggressions against Cuba--to the extent that the imperialists have shown their claws, to the extent the imperialists show their lack of scruples or respect for the sovereignty of peoples, it become more and more difficult for these governments to accept imperialist plans, because as soon as they sign an agreement setting up a repressive, interventionist force, they will be renouncing what little independence is left them, and they will be consecrating the right of the Yankee armies to land in any country of America just as they did at Santo Domingo. And so they could not get the plan adopted. Nevertheless, one cannot speak of this as being a big moral victory, a moral feat. Even though it is true that they did not yield entirely to Yankee demands, it is also true that no condemnation was issued there of the Yankee intervention at Santo Domingo. There was no honorable denunciation of the crime committed against the Dominican people. Withdrawal of the Yankee soldiers from Santo Domingo was not demanded there. Hence, in reality, one cannot say that those governments upheld a correct moral position there. One cannot say that they assumed a becoming attitude. The limit would have been for the intervention to be capped by an agreement to consecrate the right to intervene. Imperialism is becoming more and more discredited, and the peoples are opening their eyes more and more. And many of those governments that were accomplices in the aggressions against Cuba are quaking now for fear of what may happen to them. They are trembling at the fact that they have been gradually giving up what little independence they still have, and they are trembling over the reaction of the peoples, over the people's awakening. And Cuba, whom in a happy moment they expelled from that garbage which is the OAS, as if thereby they would offend us, as if thereby they would dishonor us, as if thereby they would insult us--and when we see this spectacle, government representatives meeting there and keeping quiet about the Dominican crime, and they are subjected to every kind of pressure and obliged to fill such a shameful role, we feel all the more satisfied and proud at not belonging to that chorus of dishonorable, accessorial voices. We are all the prouder of not belonging to that organization, and we are more than ever convinced that membership in an organization of Latin American states would be for us the day it is an organization of revolutionary Latin American states. (applause) And we fell all the more the legitimacy of the little "Cuba, free territory of America." (applause) Of course, not all those governments are exactly alike; some very few exceptions hold to a more becoming position. We recognize this. But nobody could deny the fact that we are the country that most legitimately can call ourselves "free territory of America." (applause) And this territory will continue to be free. And the revolution will continue advancing in this territory, and this people will go on being an example to its brothers on this continent. Fatherland or death; we will win. (applause) -END-