-DATE- 19660502 -YEAR- 1966 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- SPEECH -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- MAY DAY CELEBRATION -PLACE- PLAZA DE LA REVOLUCION -SOURCE- HAVANA DOMESTIC RADIO -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19660502 -TEXT- Text of Castro Speech Havana Domestic Radio and Television Services in Spanish 2334 GMT 1 May 1966--F/E (Speech by Prime Minister Fidel Castro at Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion culminating the May Day celebration--live) (Text) Comrade guests, comrade macheteros of the millionaire brigades (prolonged applause), workers: If we have not lost count, this is the seventh May Day since the victory of the revolution (applause), and I do not believe that anyone who has witnessed this parade can doubt that it has undoubtedly been the greatest in terms of colorfulness, enthusiasm, and the number of workers participating. (applause) Why does happiness among the masses grow on this date? What is the difference between our first May Days and the old May Days? Those who cannot or do not want to understand revolutions and their power should have the opportunity to witness one of these May Days. Among the masses of our country the concept of work and the worker has changed profoundly. To the degree that the revolutionary awareness of all our people has developed, the idea of work and the honor of being a worker is something that is felt and understood by ever-increasing sectors of our population. Work in our country is no longer a means of enrichment for a privileged minority, nor will it ever be again. Work is no longer nor will it ever be again the object of exploitation. The sweat of the men and women of our country will never serve privilege again; it will never serve the exploiters. Moreover, it is not true that because of this, because of the revolution, we will have fewer millionaires in our country. Now we have more millionaires. (applause) However, the millionaires are not millionaires under that old concept of millionaires who amassed hundreds and hundreds of pesos and who acquired a fortune of millions of pesos and tens of millions of pesos through the blood and sweat of the people. There is no other way, nor could there ever be any other way in any era of history, to become a millionaire unless it is through the exploitation of work, because nobody with his own work alone creates enough wealth to accumulate millions of pesos. The millionaires of today are not those who exploit their neighbor's sweat, but rather those who with their sweat are very capable, as are the macheteros who have cut a million arrobas of sugarcane and are so honored here at this event. (applause) Here we have more than 3,000 macheteros who, by belonging to brigades that have surpassed the figure of 1 million arrobas, deserve the title of millionaire macheteros. They are not millionaires who possess another's fortune. They are millionaires by virtue of their work. They are millionaires because they give to the nation riches that can be measured in millions of pesos. Not one of them, not one worker, will ever be thought of in the old concept of a millionaire--and he does not need to be. Yet they will make the nation a millionaire; they will make the fatherland a millionaire. (applause) The very few millionaires who existed before did not cut sugarcane. They did not sweat one drop. Those who were millionaires were precisely those who never worked, but made others work for them. There were a few millionaires even though the nation was poor. The people were poor. To justify their right to exploit the nation, they alleged that society could not progress without their intelligence, leadership, or administrative ability. They alleged that they contributed their intelligence to society and furnished it with their intelligence, and business experience. And they alleged that man was not a species of animal moved by self-interest; that only a morbid interest could motivate men to make an effort in the battle of beasts, of men against men, and that society could advance only with such baseness and egoism. They considered that people were incapable of any virtue. They thought that man was incapable of any unselfish and generous sentiments. They thought that humans were beasts, and beasts in the double sense of the word who were capable of devouring each other and incapable of doing without that privileged minority of exploiters. Fine. Our people have dispensed with that minority, and our nation has not been sunk because of that, nor with everything that the Yankee imperialists have added to that to sink it. (applause) The nation has not gone backward. And it is true that that minority accumulated not the intelligence but the experience. It accumulated everything possible that was bad. It learned the art of deception, exploitation, and stealing. It had the opportunity to direct business establishments, factories, sugar centrals, large estates, and business establishments of all types. It is true that no worker, no laborer managed or learned to manage a sugar central, a factory, or productive farm. It is true that when a revolution takes places in a country such as ours, the first thing that happens is that the property of these gentlemen is confiscated, since it involved the fundamental means of production of the nation. (applause) But people do not acquire overnight all the necessary experience to replace that minority of exploiters which has the experience. The greatest hope the reactionaries harbor for the failure of revolutions is the idea that the workers, the exploited, our workers and our peasants, will be incapable of managing the nation. In turn, one of the important contraditions in a revolution--as we have said on other occasions--is the need to make everything in the country new: to make its administration entirely new, to make its state entirely new, to make its armed forces entirely new, to make its economic structure entirely new, to replace those who have been heading the public institutions, factories, and centers of production with the little, with the scarce, with the nonexistent experience available to workers during the first phase to implement that task. While it was true that a minority had the experience and a considerable part of the management and production known-how, what was untrue was that the minority had exclusive possession of the intelligence of the nation, because there was much greater intelligence in the masses of the people. There was much more potential capability, much more energy, a much better attitude to move the nation forward. The fact that at the end of seven years, or at the end of the seventh year, there has been such a considerable increase in the strength of our working people, of the Cuban revolution, shows how the initial obstacles, how the most difficult stages have been coped with. Because of this, because it was necessary to prepare the people, the revolution was undoubtedly correct in its basic interest in developing education, in raising the level of instruction and culture, and in raising the technical level of our people. Today, after seven years during which we had to do everything, anew, we no longer have the old, bourgeois state; we have the new socialist state. (applause) True enough it was that during the first phases this state was not and could not be very efficient; true though it also was that this new state still had many vestiges of the past; true enough it was that it was also permeated by the influence and by the participation of some elements of that minority which was never able to adapt itself to the revolution; true though it was that the spirit of that class did have a considerable influence on the low efficiency of the new socialist state, no one can doubt that this new state has increasingly rid itself of those elements who were unworthy of the revolution and the people, has increasingly rid itself of that bourgeois spirit, or of that petty bourgeois spirit, and has already begun to be an incomparably more sufficient state. And of course, without any doubt whatsoever, it is infinitely more efficient than the former state existing in our country. And anyone who assesses the situation dispassionately and objectively can understand how administrative efficiency grows year by year, month by month, day by day in each of the branches of revolutionary administration. Likewise, who could doubt that other tasks--our ability to create the new revolutionary armed forces, and in spite of the fact that when the war ended none of our fighters knew even how to march, stand at attention, salute, give commands to a squad, company, battalion or division; who could doubt that the revolution, faced with the need to defend itself from its imperialist enemies, the need to create a powerful army--not, as the imperialist detractors of our revolution write in their mercenary and lying press, to maintain the revolutionary regime or to oppress the people, because when there is identification between revolutionary power and the people in a country, as there is in ours (applause), when a revolution, when a new social system has such support from the masses, it does not have to arm itself to maintain that system, or that power .... (Castro fails to complete thought--ed.). That power would have no reason for being if it were not a power of the people and for the people. It would have no reason for being because, actually, that which characterizes the socialist state, the socialist revolution, is just the opposite of capitalist society, the capitalist state, which was an instrument of force in the hands of a minority to keep the great masses in ignorance, poverty, exploitation, oppression, and misery. (applause) The revolution is the power of the immense majority of the people against an insignificant minority. However, no great forces would be needed to confront those insignificant, weak forces. The reason for the development of the armed forces of our revolution is the need to defend ourselves from a powerful foreign enemy. What is more, that force of the revolution is great, is considerable, and is capable of resisting that enemy, because it is not a force separated from the people but rather precisely and essentially the force of the people. (applause) In the past seven years those who did not know, those who did not understand, those who had never gone to a military school learned their work. They acquired the training necessary to perform it and perform it with an infinitely greater efficiency than any officer educated in the military academies of the capitalists, to perform the tasks and the missions that defense of the country requires. And the same thing happens in the administration of our industry, in the administration of our agriculture, in the administration of our hospitals, in the administration of all the production centers of our country. In the early days there were very few who knew how to perform the tasks that the economy and production required. However, from everywhere there have risen men capable of resolving those tasks. An example is the countryside, whose progress can be seen simply by observing the parade of the various working sectors of our country. One no longer sees such a great mass of public administration workers. No, that mass has been reduced considerably, and instead, for the first time in the past seven years, there paraded today a very large contingent of workers from what is called the labor reserve and who are the men and women of our country (applause) who previously worked in various administrative or other types of centers and, where their work was not indispensable, were transferred to education and training centers. This was done so that we would know how to use all our resources rationally, so tens of thousands of young men and women who can study, who can acquire great knowledge which will be needed more and more by our country, went to those study centers, to those training centers. And what happened to those men and women was not what used to happen before when the manual or intellectual labor force was constantly deprived of its livelihood, as once happened whenever there was a political change, whenever there was any kind of elections. Those were not changes but political deals, because change is the description that can be given to the difference between the past and the present. What used to take place then were trades between crooked politicians. (applause) Then thousands and thousands of men and women were fired--left without jobs. They were replaced by others who belonged to the clique of the winning party in this political trade. Now those men and women are studying and continue to receive the same wages they received in their work centers. We have also been able to observe in today's parade how much the forces of some services have grown--medicine, for example, the ever-increasing number of doctors, nurses, and nurses aides (applause) who join the public health services of the nation. And even more impressive is the growth of our educational force, the extraordinarily large numbers by which our professional and teaching forces grow. This is the force at the service of educational workers. There are new sectors heretofore unknown. One of them is that of the women workers and the children's nurseries. (applause) In the past, naturally, there existed no facility to take care of the children of women who wanted to or could work. Today brigades of women agricultural workers paraded here, thousands and thousands of women of the capital who have gone to work in agricultural production plans. Another entirely new sector, for example, is the immense contingent from the national scholarship student centers. In the past, naturally, only the children of wealthy families could go to a high school or a preuniversity school if there were no schools in their town, and the majority of Cuba's towns did not have them. Today that is an opportunity any humble boy or girl has in this country, a country where everybody is humble. (applause) If there is something outstanding in these May day parades, and particularly on this May Day, it is to see that process of the incorporation of women into work. (applause) In the past the chances for a woman to obtain work were truly limited. In that sense discrimination truly existed. However, in addition to this it was logical that in a country where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of men were without work, no--or very few--opportunities existed for women. We already know what kind of work the capitalist society reserves for women. We already know how fond the bourgeoisie was of contracting women, driven by need, to work in amusement centers, to work in bars as one more commercial attraction. We already know the considerable number of women in our country who were dragged into that tragic way of survival which is prostitution. We already know that our bourgeoisie had developed and established many brothels in our country. There were bawdyhouses in every city in Cuba. There were houses of prostitution for the Yankee tourists. There were whorehouses for the Yankee marines. There were houses of ill-repute in Havana. There were sin houses in Guantanamo. We even know that in that area the bourgeoisie was so condescending that not only did it provide the Marines with whorehouses, but on many occasions it made its daughters available to them. There are many stories in Guantanamo about all this and about the parties at the naval base to which many of those people sent their daughters. In short, this type of activity, this type of work was, so to speak, one of the denigrating types of work which the capitalist society and all capitalist societies reserved for women. That evil could not be uprooted from our country overnight. Yet we can say proudly and with satisfaction that just as the revolution has overcome and eradicated many other vices, such as gambling; just as the revolution has eradicated mendicancy; just as one would now never expect to see a homeless child roaming the streets -- and there is not a capitalist society without beggars, homeless children, brothels, gambling houses, houses of vice, and corruption of all kinds! (applause)--just as the revolution has done all that, so it has also practically eradicated prostitution in our country. Today there are countless dignified activities, there are increasingly countless decent, attractive activities for Cuban women. Thousands upon thousands of Cuban women have entered public health work. In these years of the revolution many thousands of young women have been trained as nurses and nurse aides, or as general medical aides. Thousands of women have entered into work at centers for scholarship recipients. Tens of thousands of women have entered into teaching. The number of women who enter technological institutes and technical training centers is incomparably greater, and we get an idea of this by the fact that the number of women who have entered the school of medicine is almost as great as the number of men who have done so. Thousands of women have entered child nursery work. And thousands of women have not only entered into service areas of production but are also participating in the direct production of material goods. For example, women are planting trees at tree farms or planting coffee plants. Practically the entire poultry plan--which consists of 4 million, at this moment, something over 4 million laying hens, and by the end of this year, to maintain the necessary quantities for our year-round needs, will reach a total of 5.8 million hens--this entire foodstuff production item which is so important for our country is being managed by a female work force. Hundreds of poultry centers are being run by women. Women have entered farm production work, performing such suitable jobs as vegetable production. Women have gone into the raising of steers and rabbits. In short, countless activities are available to them, and an extraordinary number of women have found decent jobs, remunerative jobs, satisfying jobs. This used to be the agony of the majority of the citizens of the country; how to find work, how to make a living? It is truly incredible how much men suffer under capitalist society because of that essential problem, that elementary problem of finding a job to earn a decent living! That is why, on a day like today this phenomenon of which I am speaking can be witnessed directly when we see the composition of our labor force. However, there is something more. Not only are the women of our country going to work in production in large numbers, but they are turning out to be extremely efficient workers, and we have heard many words of praise for the women's work, their sense of responsibility, their lack of absenteeism. (applause) That is why the revolution makes efforts to build more schools, makes efforts to establish more school cafeterias to give women more and more opportunities to work. However, when we speak of creating facilities so that women can work in production, it is not only or simply that society wants to help women; it is not only that. Society has the duty to help the women, but at the same time society helps itself considerably by helping women (applause), because this means more and more workers who work in the production of goods and in the production of services for all the people. It is known, for example, that one of the means created to help women in work are children's nurseries. In the children's nursery the workers themselves pay a certain amount in proportion to their means for the care of their children. However, women who have already gone to work in agricultural tasks are receiving the benefit of not having to pay for the children's nursery. (applause) The Revolutionary Government intends by the end of this year--and that means in the coming year--to see that no working woman will have to pay for the children's nursery. (applause) We believe that this will give increased incentive to the Cuban woman in her work. We likewise believe that it is just. Society gains from the work of every woman. Society gains to the free that it allows a woman to receive her wages without having to use part of them to pay those expenses of the children's nursery. If, for example, all education is already free, if there are approximately 150,000 young people in the national schools, boarding or under scholarships without paying a centavo; if, for example, all medical services in national hospitals are free; if a large part of our people no longer pay rent in our country because five years ago the urban reform law was passed (applause); if more than 100,000 peasants received their land free; if any person who feels destitute, who needs help, can get it from the state merely by requesting it, what reason can we have for charging for the children's nurseries? Naturally we have not yet reached communism, and even in the early days we believe that these services should be paid for. However, experience has taught us daily more about the ever-increasing power of the people's labor force, the ever-increasing power in creating wealth for the people, the working people. We have been able to witness, for example, how much the entire nation earns as a whole by the incorporation of let us say, 1 million women in production--that those million women produce the equivalent of 1,000 pesos each per year. A million women means 1 billion pesos in created wealth. The part contributed for the costs of nurseries can be seen by this fact. Logically then, I repeat, all things absolutely cannot be free of charge, because that can come only when we arrive at what we visualize as communism. But thereupon, even though formulas are talked about, formulas are talked about, socialist formulas and communist formulas--and one says that, according to the formulas, in socialist society each one gives according to his capacity and receives according to his work, and in communism each one contributes according to his capacity and receives according to his needs--I ask myself, I ask myself: What do we do at this stage, while we are building socialism, in the case of a family in which a woman, for example becomes a widow and she has seven children whose capacity for work is little? If she receives according to her capacity, she could in no way feed and clothe her seven children. Could the socialist state then wash its hands of the fate of that woman's seven children? Could it allow those children to grow up barefoot, rickety, and undernourished simply because we are going to apply that formula and give to that woman according to her capacity while forgetting about her needs, waiting for communism to arrive to apply the formula for needs? No, we cannot wait. That woman would lose and the children would lose. That would be cruel. Moreover, society itself would also lose. Society should be interested in seeing that it produces healthy citizens, that each human being has the necessary things to live decently. A child would need much more. This, then demonstrates that no formula can always be applied literally. And generally, in political and social matters, the formulas are always bad. We believe that as far as all these problems of socialism and communism are concerned one must meditate, reflect upon, study, investigate, and analyze a great deal. Even though industrial technique and science in general has developed to an incredible degree, social science is still greatly underdeveloped. We hear formulas, we read manuals, but nothing reveals as clearly as a revolution that while we must learn and evaluate the experience of other nations in all its importance, each nation should try not to imitate but to contribute to such underdeveloped sciences as the political and social sciences. (applause) We are developing our own ideas. We understand that Marxist-Leninist ideas require an incessant development. We understand that a certain stagnation has resulted in that area. And we also see that at times formulas are quite universally accepted which in our opinion can move away from the essence of Marxism-Leninism. (scattered applause) We believe that the construction and development of socialism, that the march toward a superior society such as a communist society, should necessarily have its laws and its methods, and that those methods should in no way be the same as those of a capitalist society. We believe that the methods and laws do not come together in blind laws or in automatic rules. We believe that they should be based more and more on the ability of the nations to plan, to improve the methods of production, to foresee--in two words, to rule over and dominate those laws and not merely be playthings of those laws. Of course, this Plaza de la Revolucion is not a professorship of economy, nor do I pretend to be a professor on this question. I must say much more honestly (applause) that I feel like an apprentice, like another student, like a curious bystander in regard to these problems. On a certain occasion, on the constitution of the Central Committee, we said that (applause)--that we did not believe that communism could be conceived of entirely independent of the building of socialism, that communism and socialism should be built, in a certain sense, in parallel, and that (?words indistinct) the process and say, "Up to this point we build socialism," and then say, "Here we build communism" can be an error, a great error. Moreover, among other things, in the eagerness to attain socialist goals one should not renounce or put off the dependent and training of the communist man. (applause) When I said this, which after all is not the remark of a master, or of an apostle, or of a professor, or of an authority in revolutionary theory, and much less of a kind of small ideological pope (applause), some foreigners--not a few readers of manuals--were astonished; not a few--few persons--and it is not because I have counted them but because I estimate the amount by the number of those whose curiosity was aroused by this statement. Persons accustomed to having their thoughts and ideas as well arranged as they may have their clothes in the closets of their houses were connected by this statement. I do not doubt that some might have (?questioned it), if perhaps they were not making statements with so much sacrilege concerning this order of things. After all, I believe that in this order of things this is the worst sacrilege. When I talk of sacriliege--the catechism taught me when I was a child, at least in words, that that is the worst sacriliege--and it seems that Marx also studied the catechism, since on many occasions he uses terms of this kind--these words, after all, are not an imitation, but something which I have been able to see by reading Marx's words--the worst sacrilege is the stagnation of thought, the thought that is staggered, the thought that rots. (applause) We should not permit revolutionary thought to stagnate, much less to rot. And when we made these statements were were simply (?replying to) some questions, questions about which we need to meditate and which all of us should study. Some things in our peculiar Cuban experience teach us that this attitude can be very helpful, (?as in) our own experience in effecting agrarian reform in Cuba, which was different from all the practical and traditional canons. This was when we made the peasant evicted by the leaseholder an owner of land, but on the other hand we did not divide the latifundia to create minifundia, and we preserved those lands in the same status as the factory, as great centers of agricultural production. If we had not done this, in a country like ours, which depends and will depend on agriculture for the attainment of its fundamental programs and as a fundamental source of sources for its development, we could not possibly have achieved any solution. The great plans we are carrying forward will increase our agricultural production to an impressive degree--and not precisely with those little machines which passed through here, because those little machines are too small to express our potential, in quantity and quality, in agricultural machinery--because here, comrade announcer (applause), whom we can in all justice excuse, because he is not only a good announcer but also a good worker and a good worker in (word indistinct) works, but we cannot demand that he know anything about tractors (applause) or that he know about plows, plows which in reality are the worst plows we have, and in our agriculture we are increasing the number of 17,000-pound plows which are dragged by powerful tractors. With the amount of agricultural machinery and the quality of agricultural machinery (?used) today and whose management, whose (two words indistinct) we attain through considerable efforts in reorganization, thanks to the use of technology and machinery, we can doubtlessly assure that our country will attain extraordinary successes in agriculture. If anyone doubts this, let him consider at this time in the technological institute alone there are 20,000 youths studying agriculture. In 1970 we shall graduate our 20,000 students and (?enroll) 40,000 more. (applause). This means that we advance, but we need a much more powerful force--a technical force of incredible magnitude--(?to guide) us in consolidating and strengthening the positions we attain. None of these things, which constitute a hope for the country, could have been attained if we had used the scholastic formula of dividing into fractions the big cattle and sugar latifundia and other large agricultural areas. We would not have been able to even to accomplish what we have done in the rural area, where, thanks to some development, unemployment has totally disappeared. The millionaire canecutters present here can, better than anyone else, bear witness to the fact that formerly (applause) the farm workers worked only three or four months, and that even in three or four months they had less work than they now have any work day of the year. Could we have resolved the problem of unemployment? We must say that our revolution in its early days had various tendencies toward mechanical imitation. We copied from some advanced country, and later we changed the imitated system because it did not work. Consider the consequences of those who imitate. To imitate is always bad. To copy in life, to copy revolution is like copying in an examination. (applause) No one can graduate as a revolutionary by copying. (applause) However, fortunately we did not copy in the matter of agrarian reform. We have always considered this a great piece of wiscon, as the avoidance of a great error which might have been committed. Throughout the world formulas are drafted--economic and political--and logically some countries have more experience than others. I repeat: We should not underestimate, much less scorn, experience, but we should guard against mechanically copying formulas. (applause) It is said that if some countries are going to build communism--it is even said that not a few communist parties, when a country said that it was going to build communism, repeated after it that they too were going to build communism. Nevertheless, we humbly believe that communism must still be developed and completely in a world divided between countries with (?abundant) work productivity and countries without any work productivity. Can anyone, can any nation bring about the building of communism in a single country without the productive forces and technology being first developed in the other underdeveloped countries of the world? (applause) Because, repeating once more that I consider myself only an apprentice revolutionary, I think that socialism can be built in a single country. Communism, up to a certain point, can be built, but communism as a form of absolute abundance cannot be built in a single country in the midst of an underdeveloped world without the risk that involuntarily, without wishing it, immensely rich peoples will in future years (?exchange with them), trading immensely poor countries, peoples under communism and peoples in loincloths. We ask ourselves--we who want the best for our people, who who want no child in the country to be without all the proteins, the vitamins, the minerals, and the food he needs, and to insure that he received a complete education--we ask ourselves: If, in the midst of a world full of poverty, tomorrow we can think only about ourselves, only and exclusively about ourselves, about living in the land of abundance with our scores of thousands of agronomists, engineers, teachers, and our superdeveloped technology, how can we live in that abundance, (?with) a communism based on abundance or on superabundance, when we see about us other nations which did not have the opportunity or the luck of waging a revolution in the age in which we are waging it and which within 10 years may be living in even poorer conditions than those in which they live today? And I think that we should aspire to find satisfactory levels in the feeing of our people, in the education of our people, so that citizens can be fully developed physically and mentally and enjoy the satisfaction of our medical assistance, of housing. We do not need much to achieve this. I am sure that with the natural resources of this nation, with the work, and with the little technique, we will not be long in reaching these levels. (Applause) But from there on, let us not think that our duty is to struggle so that each of us may own an automobile. We should be concerned that each of the families of those nations which have stayed behind us will at least have a plow. (applause) Our duty today as a poor, underdeveloped nation is to develop the maximum effort to rise above that poverty, above that need, above that underdevelopment. But in the future we will not be able to think about complete abundance while there are other nations which need our help. It is necessary that beginning today we educate our people and our sons so that tomorrow, when we have fulfilled those needs, tomorrow our ideal will not be wealth (applause); our ideal and our first duty will be to aid those nations which have stayed behind us. (prolonged applause) Let us educate our people in that concept of international duty. Let us educate our people in that sense of international duty so that in this nation, within 10 years, there will not be a single person who will say that we do not have more because we are helping someone else--so that we can have a kind of man who will think that others are human being just as he is and that he believes it is better to give than to receive. (applause) If in future years some of our people think in this manner, it will undoubtedly be because we, the leaders of this people, were not able to fully educate our people politically. It will be because our party was not able to educate the people in that profound sense of internationalism without which no one can be called a Marxist-Leninist. And even this May Day--the International Labor Day -- would lack sense if the people did not have that profound sense of internationalism. (applause). For this reason we are deeply satisfied, we are deeply satisfied by that profoundly internationalist content which our workers have given their international date. We have had Vietnam and Santo Domingo in the center of all this great and impressive parade and meeting today. They have been in the center of everything. (applause) That indicates that our party is moving ahead well and that it is educating our people in the most profound sentiment of internationalist duty and in the area that we are brothers of the same blood and the same flesh of the other peoples of the world who are exploited or attacked by the imperialists. This has become imbedded in the hearts of each one of the sons of this country. I present these thoughts because I find myself in need of explaining that as yet we have not arrived--and we will have a delay in arriving, and we will delay even more in arriving--at the highest forms of what we could call a communist way of life, to the degree that the rest of the world lags behind in this march, and that therefore all may not be pleasant. However, we do believe that those things essential to the human being--health, adequate food, physical and mental education, cultural development, housing, all those things essential to man--we must seek to satisfy at the earliest opportunity with the resources of all of society, with the goods produced by society, in such a manner that we may be able to say that within 10 years we will have sufficient school cafeterias where all children may eat free of charge (applause); and that the shoes, clothing, and toys that the child will receive will not depend on the mother having 10 children and being able to work, but rather will depend on the needs--including health and housing needs--that this child has as a human being. And like this child, every person unable to work because of age will have his needs satisfied. Within 10 years this old person--he is old and cannot work -- should not continue to want for anything because he is a member of a family which depends on a worker whose working capacity is very limited. It will not be the fault of the old man, who needs to eat and dress, that his son on whom he depends has a very limited working capacity. Applying the socialist formula to him, the old man would go hungry, we may be able to say within 10 years that not only every worker who retires will receive a pension, but also every man and woman in our country, by virtue of the fact that he is a human being and because he is too old to work, will have the right for society to give him a pension--whether or not he belonged to a specific sector of industry--more importantly because he belongs to the human race, more importantly because he belongs to our society (applause). Within 10 years the worker will not endure any family burdens, because the old man who lives in his home is not a burden. Nor will he be a burden to the worker economically speaking. No will any old person feel that he is a burden to anyone. Society, using all resources of its production, will be able to give every child, every old person--altogether, any person unable to work--what he needs from the resources of all of society. In other words, (several words indistinct) if we incorporate all active people in work, if we are able to organize our human resources so that all active people produce something, if we are able to (?incorporate) 1 million women into labor, if we are able to raise the productivity of our work through technology and to the degree that the youths and students also participate in their training (passage indistinct). This year we are giving away any textbooks free, while technical books will be sold at cost to all those who want them, to all those who need them. Why? Because of a principle which we can reduce to this phase: inexpensive books and expensive beer. Furthermore, we have a good-quality beer. But technology is much more important to us. It is more important that we acquire technology for our jobs to increase our job productivity. This is more important than to drink beer. Free books for students, the rest at cost, and the price of beer high. This way the beer will subsidize the books. This way, those who drink beer not only will enjoy their beer on a summer afternoon, but also will enjoy the satisfaction that they are contributing to the development of technology and the students. (applause) (word indistinct) that not only has the revolution freed the worker from exploitation -- not only has it eradicated forever the system by which man and his work are bought and sold like merchandise--but also the revolution has made special efforts. It has pushed the educational development of an entire (?nation), so that presently nearly 40 percent of our nation's population studies. Some 1.3 million children, approximately 250,000 (?students of) institutes and technological schools, preuniversities, and secondary schools, 28,000 university students, and 900,000 adults are in improvement courses, so that 2.5 million people are studying in this country. Farewell to the millions of the enemy; because if ignorance and the lack of education are the instruments which the exploiting capitalists used, farewell dreams. Because an entire nation is dedicated to overcoming them, to studying, to organizing itself, to arming itself, and to working, they will never recover that past. Let them not even dream about it! This is not a mere statement. It is logical and clear--we cannot say as clear as night, but as clear as daylight and as obvious as night--that this will never be, never! Enemies are busy weaving schemes. They are busy weaving schemes, but they do this to console themselves. Well, after all, if they want to console themselves, let it be. A certain McCloskey--or I do not know what the hell his name is--one of those idiots, (?paranoids) who are constantly issuing statements in behalf of the U.S. Government, was saying what a terrible situation Cuba is in. What tension and how (?sad). What a terrible thing. Poor idiot. Poor devil. We sometimes ask ourselves: Does he really believe this? Or does he make believe that he does? Or maybe he does believe it. This is nothing odd. At the time of Giron they believed and believed and believed, and later they bemoaned and bemoaned, and they are still bemoaning. What did they believe? What did those idiots believe? What did those idiots believe? That all they had to do was to land a few dandies from the country club, from the yacht club, from the (beaver--phonetic) and other clubs, and the sons of millionaire landowners--millionaires not by arrobas but by pesos stolen from the people (applause): that a mercenary band of dandies would land and the entire people, acclaiming them as liberators, would carry them on their soldiers and give them all--the bars, the houses, the income from the land; would reopen the gambling dens, the houses of prostitution, and the centers of vice; would deliver to them the women and children? What did these imbeciles believe--without having any idea of what a liberated people (?thinks), without having the least idea of the suffering of the masses, the hunger, the uncertainty, the fear of everything, because in that monstruous society, if a man died, if a poor worker died, what became of his wife, what became of his parents, what became of his children? The least that he could hope was that one day they would traffic with his daughters, so that would become prostitutes. What did they believe, those who do not have the slightest idea of what a free people (?wants)? Imbeciles, charlatans. Did they believe that at the first signal of the landing of the slavedrivers the slaves would run to put themselves at their feet? So that they might again put on the chains? They still believe that these people want those chains, that these people long for those chains! No! They do not want chains. Those who want chains, those few who want chains--but not chains for themselves, because they never worked, because they were never slaves, but were slave drivers--these are the ones who want chains, but not for themselves, but chains for the others. These should be (word indistinct) by force so that they may leave this country. (applause) Convicts who wish chains for the others make their report to the imperialists, saying that there were so many left. They count those who go, but the big imbeciles do not count those who remain. In this case they even exaggerate the number of those who go. They exaggerate, saying that a million want to leave, and it is not we who put a limit on those who go; it is they. They have estimated all the relatives or acquaintances they have in the United States, and they have said a million, and there are many people they put on the list of acquaintances who, when asked if they want to go, say, I'm crazy to go there." Apparently this is the way they count things. They do not count, for example, the Puerto Rican who went to the United States. They do not take into consideration the immigration from other countries, while they try to make it attractive to get a greater number to leave Cuba so they can make propaganda. But we are not losing; we are gaining. It is not a million or a half million.. We count between 100,000 and 200,000 persons, many of them having relatives there. Many of them go because (several words indistinct), because they are incapable of (?feeling) all the warmth and all the greatness of a revolution. In the United States, during its war for independence, many North Americans who did not want independence went to Canada. We estimate between 100,000 and 200,000. But it was not we who set a limit; it was not we who forced them to stay here for many months. It is they, and when we (?summon them to go and make it possible), they cynically say that we (?opened the doors) to make propaganda. (applause) And they opened them. Now we say to them: Why don't they take all those who want to go and be done with it? (applause) For every one that goes we shall have the necessary funds to give another scholarship to the child of an agricultural worker or a canecutter. (applause) Next year we shall create 20,000 scholarships for families of workers and canecutters who still live in shacks and under very difficult living conditions. We will be organizing an ever more united people, a more homogeneous people, a people more compact, enthusiastic, and revolutionary. We will, more and more, have a people who will live up to the slogan of "Fatherland or death," because, as when someone wants to clean rice, beans, or whatever is to be cooked from time to time, above all, as housewives know, they get water, put the food in the water, stir it up, and the dirt comes to the top. In the same manner the imperialists--and we should say this once and for all -- committed a strategic error in their effort to take our technicians away. In their effort to wage propaganda they facilitated the emigration from this country of the class of people which they wanted to use for the counterrevolution. They took the counterrevolutionary class. They took almost all of them, and they might as well take the few remaining once and for all. They should take them. We challenge that cretin who spoke on behalf of the U.S. Government to take once and for all those who want to leave. It is not we who set limits; it is they who set the limits. Their mask was removed a while back. They cannot remove their mask because they have virtually no mask to take off. I said that they were creating this sort of illusion regarding the revolution, regarding its force, regarding revolutionary cohesion. The revolution has never been stronger; the people have never been more united with the revolution; the revolution has never been more invincible and firm. Never have the perspectives of the revolution--in regard to advancement, organization, and work--been better than at this very time. A factor which has been fully exploited in waging what type of campaign was the problem of sugar production during this harvest. We explained thoroughly what happened the previous year. We reached a level of 6 million tons and (few words indistinct). At the beginning of the year we explained that our country had suffered the worst drought since statistical data began 60 years ago. We explained all the data. We explained how much rain fell in Las Villas, how the drought was especially severe throughout Las Villas, Camaguey, and Oriente, where the bulk of the cane plantations are located, where the bulk of our cane production is located. We explained how in Las Villas only 50 percent of the average rainfull occurred. We explained that in Camaguey and Oriente a little over 50 percent of the average rainfall occurred, and that this necessarily would not affect the production of vegetables, potatoes, and other crops raised by irrigation, but that it would substantially affect cane production. No lies were told. No judgment was concealed. Everyone certainly knows that we have not been remiss in making the necessary criticism or self-criticism. On this occasion, unfortunately, a natural factor intervened to interrupt the process we wre carrying out. It affected cane production substantially, even over and above the initial estimate. Production in Las Villas Province--a single province which suffered most from the drought--was affected to the extent of 500,000 tons of sugar. In other words, in Las Villas Province alone production decreased--it was the province that had the greatest decrease--by almost half a million tons of sugar. An equally substantial decrease was experienced in Camaguey Province despite the enormous effort, despite the fact that according to data supplied by the Sugar Industry Ministry the average sugar yield for this date was 12.08 compared with 11.8 last year at this date. We reached 4 million tons on the 27th, but we will not reach 5 million tons. It is painful, but we are not discouraged nor do we hide it. What do our enemies do when last year we said we produced 6.05 million tons? They said it was a lie, it was a lie. They have exaggerated the figure even when we say that the production will be so much and when we admit that the estimates have not been very exact and the production figure is whatever it is. Now they say that last year's figure was true. They have already begun to say that last year 6.05 tons were produced. That which they said was not true they now accept as true to take advantage of the present conditions. It is necessary that our canecutters, our farm administrators, exert themselves to insure that the last cane is cut except that whose yield does not exceed 40,000 arrobas. This is because to cut 40,000-arroba cane would be a mistake. This would affect the production of the coming year. All the 40,000-arroba cane is being cut so that we can come as close as we can to the 5 million tons. Though our enemies sing about victory, that does not make a difference. We know what is being done. We know the amount of cane which has been planted. We know how well advanced the fields are, the amount of fertilizer we have this year. We know the number of cultivators, the amount of fertilizer we have. We also know that if this year's weather conditions are maintained in the coming year by a wide margin, it will be we who will laugh at our enemies. Our athletes have adopted a slogan, one of those which you see around here which says, "We will see you in Puerto Rico," and we say, "We will see you in 1967. We will see you with the sugar production of 1967." (applause) In the coming year, if we struggle, we will struggle to achieve the highest figure in our history. We fight, we exert ourselves for this, and it will be, beyond any doubt, a great harvest. We will not take all the credit. We still do not control the rains. We still have not mastered the technique of artificial rain. We are working on it. We are not going to achieve that victory in a coming big harvest. Part of that victory will be because of the best year, the best rainfall year which we are experiencing. Part of the victory will be because of this. The other part of the victory will be because of the intensive effort being made in the planting, in the fertilization, at the farms, in the fields, in such a way that in almost all the provinces we have made the party comrades and agricultural cadres commit themselves to end the first weeding on 26 July but to struggle for the second weeding and in many places the third weeding by 26 July. (applause) The sugar cane will be fertilized as never before in our country. It will be cultivated as it has never been cultivated before. We will have greater yields per caballeria than any attained before. When the capitalists produced more than 7 million, they cut almost 120,000 arrobas. They cut all the reserve cane. We will reach similar figures with fewer caballerias of cane. As far as the sugar industry, which is and will be for some time the fundamental base of our agriculture, the most serious problem, the hardest problem to reach--the 10 million--has been solved, technically. It has been solved with the collection center. (applause) Here are the millionaire canecutters. Some of these brigades have been cutting for the collection centers, and they have cut twice the amount for the collection centers than they previously cut with the traditional method. Of course, it will be 1970 when we have collection centers in the largest part of the nation's sugarmills. Here we have data from a brigade present here which has taken as a basis for estimating the cutting yield in one system over another system. In the international brigade of the sugar workers trade union battalion--I believe this brigade must be here; raise your hands, comrades--from 16 to 28 February, these comrades cut clean cane for lifters. Working from 16 to 27 February, 378 hours, or rather 378 man-days, they cut 155,350 arrobas. Cutting for a collection center, from 1 to 15 March, in 442 man-days, they cut 372,089 arrobas. Average cane cut without a collection center was 411 arrobas a day per man. Cutting for a collection center, these same men cut an average of 842 arrobas per day (applause). In other words, they cut twice as much cane. This bears out what we have verified with many workers--the opinion that while cutting for a production center a worker yields twice as much with 25 percent less effort. With the collection center, the workers will produce more with less effort. Consequently, they will receive a larger income, and 150,000 macheteros will suffice, at the rate of 400 arrobas per day--no, 800, assuming an absentee rate of 20,000 per day. In other words, with 130,000 macheteros at the rate of 400 arrobas per day per machetero, this means that with virtually half of the macheteros a harvest of 10 million tons of sugar cane be obtained. (applause) Hence, the task of building collection centers, 50 of which will be built next year in Camaguey Province, not only entails an enormous savings in manpower and not only raises work productivity, but also promotes savings in railroad transportation and promotes substantial savings in vehicle transport for the movement of cane to the collection center. It will, perhaps, also increase production in the sugarmills. Furthermore, it will facilitate mechanization in fields that can be worked with machinery, with a much simpler machine which can even be manufactured in our own country. In other words, for us the most difficult problem of harvesting a 10-million-ton harvest is already a solved problem. This, naturally, will insolve a substantial increase in the millionaire brigades, because it will be much easier to become a millionaire brigade with a yield which is twice as large as the usual yield. Furthermore, in agriculture this year, because of the better rate of rainfall and because larger areas have been planted, there is a considerable increase in tobacco production, a considerable increase in coffee production, a considerable increase in milk production. We have already had a considerable increase in vegetable production. Some 50 caballerias of tomatoes are being planted in the Oriente mountains, so that early this summer we will have salad tomatoes which are being grown in the Oriente mountains (applause). For that reason I was telling you that under present circumstances we will be able to face the future with optimism--not a false optimism, not an illusory optimism, but an optimism based on concrete facts, on clear realities. This is our situation. This is our situation in the subjective order of things; that is, regard to the conscious force of the revolution and the organization, greater knowledge, greater experience, greater resources. Our situation is quite good. As to outside matters, the dangers threatening us from abroad are the same that have always threatened us, with the difference that we are increasingly stronger, that we are and shall be increasingly better armed and better trained--better prepared in all ways to resist any imperialist aggression. And in this matter of imperialist aggression we count primarily on our own forces. We must not go on expecting from anyone (applause) but from ourselves. We do not think that it is good for a people to entrust their defense security to others, but rather to themselves, especially when we see what is happening in Vietnam. (applause) To tell the truth, it neither frightens nor discourages us. It teaches us and prepares us. (applause) It strengthens our spirit, and we know (?what we can do). We are a hard bone, a very hard bone to gnaw. (applause) But we can not do less than feel indignation at seeing the aggressive, barbarous, and criminal acts of the imperialists against the Vietnamese people--the criminal, repugnant, and cowardly aggression, the piratical aggression which places Mr. Johnson among the greatest criminals humanity has known (applause), among the greatest pirates (applause), because there is a little difference between Yankee barbarity in Vietnam and what the Nazis did in Austria when they annexed Austria, or when they tore Czechslovakia to pieces, or when they invaded Poland. We know well those brutes and that barbarous aggressive policy. Farther yet, thousands of kilometers away, the imperialists bomb in the very heart of Asia. With hundreds of planes they massacre women and children. They carry out chemical warfare, no less against a socialist country, and they do so with sufficient impunity. Regardless of the causes and the reasons, the imperialists boast of tremendous aggressiveness, of a criminal aggressiveness. We know the imperialists well, how cowardly they are, how opportunist they are, how they take advantage of others. Therefore, (words indistinct) and they commit all kinds of abuses. And they will continue to do so. We said this at the time of the October crisis; they will continue to do so as long as they do so with impunity, until they are halted. And we really believe that peace depends much more on making the imperialists see what they can do and what they cannot do. (applause) And if in the long run they are permitted to do what they want, to carry out their piratical acts of vandalism, this does not contribute to peace. This is an enormous error. It contributes to increasing the dangers of war. The crime of Vietnam hangs on Johnson's conscience, and the crime of Santo Domingo--but not on Johnson; Johnson is nothing more than the representative of the financial oligarchy, of Yankee imperialism. These crimes, these vandalic actions weigh on its filthy conscience. Do they, perhaps, intend with this to intimidate the people? Do they perhaps intend to scare the people this way? Here is a good example--the example of Cuba--that vandalism no longer scares the people but prepares them for the struggle. (applause) Imperialist vandalism makes our people more firm and determined. Imperialist vandalism shows us its criminal and savage entrails. It reaps the hatred and indignation of the people and prepares them for the struggle. That is what they will achieve with their vandalism. In Vietnam, Santo Domingo, and throughout that world which is attacked, inflamed, and harrassed by the imperialist generals, the thoughts of our people, our revolution today, the International Labor Day, to to the fighting people--our message of solidarity to Vietnam, to Santo Domingo, the revolutionary fighters of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. (applause) Today our people fulfill the dictates of their conscience and their internationalist duty in an examplary manner and place in their hearts and thoughts the heroic fighting people who will defeat the imperialists, because all the people united, carrying out that order, that mandate of Karl Marx--to unite against the imperialists in the struggle against imperialism, to help each other, to support each other--will be more powerful than the imperialists. Today we shout with more feeling than ever before: Long live the heroic people of Vietnam! (audience shouts: Long live!) Long live the heroic people of Santo Domingo! (audience shouts: Long live!) Long live Marxism-Leninism! (audience shouts: Long live!) Fatherland or death, we will win! -END-