-DATE-
19680611
-YEAR-
1968
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
SPEECH
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
CASTRO STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY
-PLACE-
RUBEN MARTINEZ VILLENA TECHNICAL INSTITUTE
-SOURCE-
HAVANA PRENSA LATINA
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19680612
-TEXT-
CASTRO STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY

Havana PRENSA LATINA in Spanish 1315 GMT 11 Jun 68 C (FOR OFFICIAL USE
ONLY)

[Text of Fidel Castro speech at the Ruben Martinez Villena Technical
Institute on 10 June]

[Text] Invited guests, comrade professors, comrade graduates and students
of the Technological Institute present here:

It has been a pleasant surprise for all of us to observe everything that
has been accomplished in regard to the organization and overall discipline
in every aspect of this school.

I was telling Comrade Major Anibal that actually, when we see the first
fruits of an effort such as is being put forth in the technological
institutes, the realities exceed what we had imagined. This does not mean,
of course, that we are going to become conformists, thinking we have
obtained everything already, for we are simply beginning, and we are
encouraged by the results.

This technological teaching plan has been developing notably, and it could
be said, hand-in-hand with the revolution. This institution is already
different from what it was in the beginning, and along with it, other
institutions of the country are developing and changing. Thus, for example,
the workers technological institutes began developing, and at a given
moment, changed from being technological institutes to military
technological teaching centers. The schools, the student technological
institutes, the preuniversity institutes, and also the workers
technological institutes also changed to that system.

The first to change were the centers where youths from the primary to the
secondary level studied their regular courses; workers from all over the
island, who had had no previous opportunity for systematic studies in any
primary or secondary school, went to study in the technological institutes.
Under this same plan, students from the basic scholarship secondary centers
and some national students centers entered some of these schools.

As we can observe, there is a small percentage of actual students in the
technological institutes plan, but the trend is practically toward a single
organization, so that in the future, there will be no youths who have not
had an opportunity to attend either primary or secondary schools.

Logically, then, within a few years everyone will come from the same
place--they will come from the primary and the secondary schools. Thus, at
a given time, the workers who study will be taking higher studies in the
factories or whenever they work.

The technological or various trades institutes have also developed. In the
future every factory will practically be converted into a workers school.
At this time, we have some well-equipped shops where technicians are being
trained for the country's industrial development. In the future, the
schools now in the factory areas will become workers schools.

In a metalworking industry ceremony one day, I said that some day the
entire country will become one huge university. Naturally this is no whim
nor a mania for studies, but rather a far reaching need for any modern
society.

Technology becomes increasingly complex, and it is increasingly difficult
to master and handle things without profound knowledge.

And if our country hopes for full development in all fields--and of course
that can only be attained in the extent that we master technology--the day
must come when all the workers will possess such technological knowledge.
The day must come when there is study in all the factories. The day must
come when study becomes a permanent need for all life, as the all-essential
condition for furthering the country, and for the constant increase of the
productivity of labor.

Voicing these things could appear somewhat utopian, but actually we do not
think it is impossible. If, for example, we analyze the group of students
which is graduating here this afternoon, the students who are graduating in
the study of soils, fertilizers, and cattle-raising in this institute, we
observe that of the 100 who are graduating, the great majority were once
workers. Today, after some 5 years of study--in some cases even more--61
farm workers, seven day laborers, four cowboys, seven operators, four
employees, two poultrymen, and so forth, are graduating.

And how much schooling had they had when they entered the institute? There
were four illiterates, two first graders, eight second graders, 24 third
graders, 16 fourth graders, 23 fifth graders, eight sixth graders, and only
seven with more than 6 years of schooling.

Nonetheless, they are graduating today as secondary-level technicians with
enough training for going into higher studies, which they should go into
under the plans drafted for the progress of those graduating from these
institutes. And just remember that there were some who were illiterate. If
this was possible to accomplish why should it not be possible one day for
all the workers and all the youths to attain middle-level preparation, so
they can continue on to advanced studies?

Why should it not one day be possible that around each factory and in each
of the specialized fields--whether it be a mechanical plant, a chemical or
any other type of plant, an electrical plant for example--that university
schools be organized where the workers are afforded facilities for study?
In other words, part work, and part study. And also that one day the
universities may become centers fundamentally devoted to evaluating
knowledge; that this be constantly furthered and offered in all the
country's working areas, and that the universities be attended by a small
number of students--who could well enough be students of a university
school or postgraduates of university schools--carrying out specific
studies for becoming researchers, professors, or for providing higher
learning, for which graduate students, university students, and workers
students would be selected.

Education Revolution

Fortunately, our country is on that path. And without a shadow of a doubt,
at the present time, when there is talk of educational reforms, we are
perhaps carrying out the greatest educational revolution every carried out
anywhere. It is not that we are pretending to do things better than others,
but that certain things are turning out well and we naturally feel
optimistic in this respect.

It is scarcely necessary to explain the huge obstacles we have to overcome.
It is scarcely necessary to explain how many difficulties this educational
revolution entails--not mainly because of a shortage of installations, for
there will be many--some are being built, like these, and others are being
improvised--but because of the problem of teachers, and cadres that are
needed for teaching millions of persons in different levels.

There are over 1.3 million primary school children. As you are aware, the
teachers we had could not cope with this tremendous number. Despite all the
plans made for training teachers, despite their scope, the number has
turned out to be insufficient. And I want to point out that there is more
than just the primary schools. For when it comes to graduating 60,000--and
every year more--sixth grade students, when it comes to providing teaching
for 60,000--and every year more--sixth grade students, when teaching must
be provided at the secondary or technological level, or for a preuniversity
institute, there must be sufficiently trained personnel.

And, logically, that huge corps of professors cannot be prepared in a few
short years. That perhaps today constitutes one of the biggest hurdles we
must overcome to carry out the revolution in education. Naturally, we have
resorted to various means, such as using higher-grade students for teaching
at lower levels, which is not the first time this has been done. For
instance, a few months before the Giron invasion, when there were many
militiamen, there were many artillery pieces and we had only a few to teach
how to operate them. Then it was necessary for the militiamen themselves to
teach how to operate militiamen, in the afternoon, what they had learned in
the morning. Thanks to that, it was possible to perform some teaching
which, if not the best, was sufficient for using those weapons.

In a certain sense, we now find the need to do something similar, using
students as teachers. But that still remains one of the biggest
difficulties we must surmount on the path of our country's future. There
are only a few graduating from the first courses in these institutes.
Furthermore, an important part of them must be used for teaching rather
than technical tasks. Also, many of your own teachers were preuniversity
graduate students, and some of them are terminating their university
studies. As can be seen, those who will work in production are actually
small in number. The technological institutes plan called for a
considerable volume of workers technological institutes, and today there
are over 35,000 students in these schools.

The plan is of tremendous scope. This implies that at some point, not
hundreds but actually thousands of technicians will be graduating. It is a
matter of having patience, as we have had so far and as you have had since
the plan began. Indeed, there is no reason to be too impatient, nor to
become so when one feels sure that the time will come. All we had in the
beginning was hope. Only a few graduated from the previous courses. We
remember the graduation at the university steps. Students have graduated
from the Alvaro Reynoso Technological Institute, some from other
technological institutes, and yet we cannot say that the results have been
100 percent good. In some schools, students have emerged better prepared
and more aware of their obligations.

However, the first to graduate in the workers technological institutes
showed a certain inability to grasp realitities and had not acquired the
maturity and awareness that had been expected of them; some clashed with
the reality of things. When they left school and went into the fields to
find them in the condition they are in and will be in for many
years--fields which were underdeveloped, dairies which had no splendid
buildings, many of them built of palm leaves, and often with no
communications, roads, electric power, or running water--when they arrived
there, they clashed headlong with realitities.

They did not find themselves in the fields which graduates 10 years from
now will find themselves in. They found fields in their actual state, bare
of any technical development.

They found that there, they had to work. Why? How can we make all the
people and students into workers if some imagine they are going to become a
type of social category, intellectuals who are always going to work only
with their heads--ordering, commanding, and holding office?

We would not be revolutionaries if we did not hope for the day when all the
country's citizens, logically those of the future and above all the new
generations, will consist of a people who are all trained for performing
intellectual as well as manual and physical labor.

Technician Class

What established a kind of special category for the technician in the
society of classes and privileges? The circumstance that there were only a
handful of technicians among an ignorant people. Such technicians
necessarily found they were the only ones who could solve certain mental
and intellectual, problems, such as now exist to an even higher degree.
Among an ignorant people, they were logically unique and therefore had to
perform such duties. When things are the reverse and they no longer can be
counted on the fingers of one hand, but when the great majority--someday
everyone--is capable of possessing knowledge in the different fields of
human activity; in other words, when technical mastery is the common
patrimony of all society, then there will be no need for the existence of
such beings exclusively endowed with knowledge who can become a class
within society.

And yet, apparently there are some persons who long for what a technician
used to be--who at the instant they thought they would become technicians,
imagined themselves freed from any other activity, though this activity be
in no sense dishonorable nor affect man's intelligence nor health. The fact
is that if there is anything that can affect man's health, it is to be
entirely devoted to an intellectual-type job, never doing any manual labor.

Apparently some fixed that idea in their minds and believed they had been
made into old-style technicians. And, going against reality, they said:
"But I am a technician." They then expected to be named to at least a
position of provincial chief of cattle-raising or some such post.

However, we had recommended precisely the opposite. We told the comrades in
the province: "When some of these comrades make too much of a show, do not
promote them. Hold them down a while so they can learn all the activities
that must be performed here, where man must face up to work in the worst
conditions. For if they do not at least know what is happening here, they
will be no good for assignment to some other type of task, as they do not
realize the situation."

And we also told the comrades: "And do not promote them, because naturally
it will not be long before many try to show off by working hard and showing
how much they know. If you move them up too fast, you will stifle the
possibility of their progressively acquiring knowledge. Furthermore, we
should not even rush that either." We are not going to blot out the sun
with one finger. We will resolve our need for many technicians by using a
few. Of course, we cannot now spread high-level technicians all over the
country. We must centralize them and serve the country with a small team of
technicians--drafting instructions for general application. We are indeed
in the throes of a vast development. The lack of field technicians is felt,
but we will make out as we can, using the highest level technicians in a
centralized manner, and thereby trying to solve our problems.

I want to remind you of this because we and the schools have always been
displeased when we hear that a graduate has misbehaved or has not adapted
well to the work, just as we feel happy when we hear praiseworthy reports
of the graduate. Nonetheless, these schools were conceived as centers where
work goes hand-in-hand with study, and the work needed here is the hardest
that there is in the country. that has been necessary at this time, because
logically, our economy cannot be deterred. So too, the country could not
escape the need to employ hundreds of thousands of men in the harvest to
prevent a contradiction between economic development and the educational
plan.

In the not too distant future, machines will relieve us of that kind of
work. These are already designed, and they solve perfectly the problem of
canecutting which seemed so difficult for a machine to solve. I mean
gathering the cane here and there, and worst of all, when it is heavy and
lies flat. Nonetheless, the machines have appeared and they solved that
problem.

Student Workers

Also true is the fact that for entire months, the long months that the
technological institute students had to spend in battle training,
contributed toward delaying graduations. The same thing happens in the
army. We have need of cadres, yet helping out with work delays this. In
other words, if we had not faced that need of having so many men working,
we could have reduced the time and taken other steps so that studies could
be accelerated, since we are greatly interested in them. However, in one
way or another, as an instructive concept, students will have to
participate in some kind of productive activity.

And this goes for all students. Because, with the "school in the field,"
all of the secondary school students are working. There are also other
endeavors, like the tree nurseries and other simple tasks, in which even
fifth and sixth-grade students work. Whenever certain persons ask who is
going to harvest all that coffee being planted in the Havana greenbelt, the
answer is; the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students could do it easily
on their vacations, harvesting coffee around Havana. [applause] That kind
of harvesting will not be mechanized. For if we mechanized it, there would
be nothing to do in school, and we must always leave some small chore for
the children to perform.

It looks like we are going to have a little storm here, although we already
had one which left the fields in bad condition recently. Year by year, we
expect the students to emerge better trained, with a better idea of
adopting to realities, and with a much more advanced grasp of what their
role should be in the country. At the present time, under this plan, we
have workers' technological institutes, other technological institutes, and
preuniversity institutes, which are part of the plan for military
technological teaching and preuniversity centers--a total of 47 schools.

Military Education

I have said that to develop these institute causes others to be developed.
Our armed forces are also developing progressively. In the future, military
service will be demanded. For as the youths go through secondary schools,
then to preuniversity and technological schools, they will pass through a
phase of receiving military training in the later two educational centers.

Thus military training will become a kind of assignment among the other
fields that are essential for all citizens--men and women. Just as they
learn mathematics, geography, chemistry, and physics to prepare for life,
they will also learn how to handle arms, which likewise are nowadays
indispensable for living.

We do not believe that there is anyone who wants us to have an unarmed
country, unable to defend itself, for a people who are not prepared to
defend themselves have no right even to exist; only the right to be slaves.
A people that are not prepared to defend themselves have no right to be
free, much less a revolutionary people. Nor can one speak of a free people
unless it is revolutionary, because one cannot conceive of liberty in the
midst of injustice. Nor can one be revolutionary and therefore really free,
unless he is prepared to know how to defend that right. And therefore, only
enemies, who will be getting increasingly fewer and increasingly less
aggressive, will oppose every citizen's learning to use weapons.

In the class society, a society of privileges, knowing how to use weapons
is also a privilege, for logically, the exploiting minorities tenaciously
oppose having the masses learning to use weapons, for an armed people would
imply the disappearance of the privileges. When those privileges disappear,
and the classes march toward their extinction, then the possession of arms,
knowing how to employ and use them, must be common knowledge for all
citizens.

When we were observing today the maneuver that you were conducting with two
of the multiple rocket-launcher pieces--a small representation of the great
number of weapons of that type that this brigade has--we were thinking
about the world situation today, in which the students of all countries are
practically rebelling, rebelling against irritating privileges and
injustices.

We encounter precisely the same thing in our country, which is converting
all its armed institutions into institutions where all infantry units, and
many of the most complicated technical units like this very one, are
managed by students. Our armed institutions are also moving toward a
situation in which their most complicated motor-mechanized techniques will
be in case of war, employed by the operators of the construction brigades
for highways, dams, and bulldozing; in short, of all the units equipped
with tractors and complex machines. It will also be those who, in a war
situation will one day operate our tanks and all our complex technical
machinery.

In this way, our armed institutions will be, in the future, institutions of
cadres whose force will be the working people, whose tanks will be operated
by those workers, and whose infantry, artillery equipment, and other
similar types will be operated by the students of the country--the
technological and preuniversity students.

This gives us an idea of the enormous transformation which has taken place
in Cuban society, and how, with exploitation, class privileges, and class
exploitation gone, it is possible to create in the people such a unity as
that which today exists in our country; such an invincible force as that
which today exists in our country and such an offensive toward the future
as that which is being conducted today in our country.

Dairy Programs

Now some of you are going to carry out certain activities. The women
comrades have enough work in the insemination laboratories, because that is
one of the activities that has grown most.

We now have some 3,000 technicians. By the end of this year, 1,000 more are
to graduate in that field. We already have approximately 1.5 million cows
for those programs, and by the end of next year, practically all the cattle
herds of the country will be included in the insemination plans. We also
hope that all will be cared for by physiopathological bridages. Already,
certain control norms regulated by electronic equipment are being
introduced in cattle-raising.

It must be said that there are already some provinces in which all the cows
are being given ear tags. Obviously, the cows have also progressed in that
field and already use earrings. Some plastic earrings, on which each little
cow has the number that corresponds to her, are certainly very pretty. That
is to say, the cow practically acquires a social personality. [laughter] By
virtue of this, she is registered in a control center, has her card, and
each of the events in the life of that cow is registered--the births from
those cows, when she had a calf, when she is pregnant, and when she must be
inseminated.

Thus, in each of the dairies using that type of control, it will be
known--or if one wishes to know how many cows are pregnant--the machine
will be asked, and it will tell how many cows it must have pregnant and how
may it must have in production. It also tells how many there are, how many
are not there, and which cows are not there. so in the future, from a
certain center, every one in control of a herd can be told which cows are
behind time, which should be inseminated, and the reasons why they are not
inseminated. That is to say, here is the introduction of modern techniques
to the problems of administration which permit the establishment of some
tremendous controls that can considerably help to develop our
cattle-raising.

Thus, you will also have to prepare yourselves. You will also have to leave
behind old ideas of what a diary is or is not, both in construction--which
will be new--as well as in milking machines. Because, just as it was now
fundamental to resolve the problem of cane mechanization, it is also
fundamental, in view of the enormous number of cows that we shall have in
production in the future, to have mechanization of milking.

It must be said that at this moment, they are already counting heifers and
F-1 calves--you already know what the F-1's are--and also counting some
heifers and calves of pure milk breed, there are approximately some 400,000
cattle at this time. That enormous number of cattle--400,000--must be in
production--some of them calves and cows [as received]--in 1970. so in
1970, at that time, we must have at least three times as much milk as we
have at this time. That is because the insemination plans, at a certain
time, became mass plans.

As soon as we had 1,000 inseminators, the program got underway, and
hundreds of thousands of cows were inseminated. As a result, in almost 2
years, some 400,000 cows are going to become productive, producing enough
milk. At the same time, feeding techniques are being developed. You will
find new techniques that have been under development. Those techniques are
continually developing new types of grass, grassy food, and new types of
legumes which have their own methods of cultivation and their special
characteristics.

Sugar Cane Processing

Techniques will also be found, for example, by which cane, in sugar or
syrup form, is converted into a important source of carbohydrate for the
feeding of cattle.

But something already more advanced will be found, not the final syrups as
a byproduct, but in the (?converted) syrups, much richer in sugar, and also
the whole syrups, a food that has been used these past few months--as early
as in May--to help feed cattle in view of the enormous drought which we
had. This [whole syrup] is the cane juice, already practically in a state
of processing in the industry, which does not pass through the clarifiers;
that is, it is the unclassified syrup of the sugarmills, richer in sugar,
even in protein elements, than the final syrups.

And one thing more, a torula production plant is now fully operating in
Camaguey Province. This is an industrial plant that converts the final
syrup into a protein, a product that contains 50 percent protein, and which
is able to convert 5 tons of final syrup--by adding ammonia water,
sulfurate ammonia, superphosphate, and some cultivated bacteria through a
mechanical biological process--making a product that is very rich in
proteins; I was saying 50 percent, very rich in vitamins and other
elements. The plant is already producing protein from cane.

The cane, therefore, is becoming Cuba's corn, barley, and soy bean. The
cane is like the soy bean in two ways, because through similar processes
not only a richer protein than is obtained from the soy bean or from the
soy flour may be produced, but also because a lard similar to animal lard
may also be produced. Let us say that 10 tons of final syrup may be
converted into 1 ton of lard. This gives you an idea of the whole process
and its meaning.

So the day will come, apart from the sugar or the cane to produce 10
million tons of sugar, when large areas of cane will be necessary to
produce proteins to add to grass and hay for the production and raising
fowl and the feeding of milk cows and pigs, for the production of vitamins,
and perhaps for the production of lard. And those proteins I have told you
about may be used by human beings. As food for human beings, it is richer
than any other food. One pound of beef contains, as an example,
approximately 20 percent proteins, while 1 pound of torula contains 50
percent. It is used many times as a vitamin supplement and as a protein
supplement. In other words, it is possible to transform cane into protein
that may be eaten by humans and into lard that may also be used by humans.

Of course, since no one wants to consume only one kind of protein, he
prefers to receive his protein in the form of meat, milk, egg, chicken, and
fish. Although, naturally, we will not be able to feed the fish with this
protein--at least not those in the sea. But I do not doubt that some of
those artificial breeds in the lagoons could use this protein from the
cane. This means that the cane produces even fish! [laughter] This will
serve to give us an idea. Yes, because in Guines there was a breed of
(?fish) and everyone talked about carp breeding, formidable breed of carps!
Good, but what did they feed them? Oh, well, they feed them soy. I know not
what else--corn, a carp feed, fish flour, and all that. I am almost certain
that the same thing can be done.

This shows how techniques have changed. So you will have to be up-to-date
on all the techniques that are developing. Of course, you have been
acquiring basic knowledge, but in the centers of investigation, this kind
of study has been developing. In the agriculture combine, in the National
Institute of Animal Science, and in other centers, this type of
investigation is being made.

You have been acquiring basic knowledge here, but you will have to acquire
the new techniques as you go along. Of course, we have only one plant that
produces these proteins. Another protein is produced in the alcohol
distilleries, as a byproduct of alcohol. But everything seems to indicate
that we shall have to install many plants in keeping with our general
farming development plans and that it will be necessary to set aside large
portions of land for cane production.

Now, nothing can beat cane in the production of carbohydrates. One
caballerias of 100,000 arrobas can produce approximately not less than 200
tons of whole syrup, 200 of whole syrup! And I have some doubts, if I am
not mistaken . . . I must be mistaken, for 100 arrobas produce 21 arrobas
of whole syrup, and 21 arrobas is more than 5,000 quintals--it is possible
to produce 240 tons. I was not too mistaken, only by 5,000 quintals.
[laughter]

But no 1 caballeria of corn can produce 5,000 quintals. No 1 caballeria of
corn can produce 5,000 quintals! Now, the caballeria of cane may have a
little more than 100,000 arrobas. It is not impossible to reach in 18
months the production of 200,000 arrobas of 1 caballeria of cane. There is
no plant on earth that is capable of synthesizing so much solar energy as
cane. And we still have the bagasse, which may be converted into paper
pulp. Today, it is used as firewood at sugarmills. The shoot may be used
during droughts, like the one that has just ended, to save the cattle of
our country.

Agricultural Expansion

Because of our climate, we are privileged to have at our disposal a plant
with so many uses in human nourishment. Of course, we are not planting only
cane in this country. We are also planting large quantities of rice and
many other things--some more, some less--much coffee and citrus. We have
begun to considerably develop the pineapple and plantain fruit. This is not
being developed so fast because, as all of you know, it depends on the
sprouts produced by each plant. It is not like coffee, one plant can yield
thousands of other plants. Only a few pineapples may be reaped from a
pineapple plant. For this reason, accelerated plans cannot be made as one
would wish.

The same thing is true with cattle. It is not possible to reproduce a heard
faster then is allowed by nature; although it is being said that a new
technique will cause cows to give birth to four calves, three calves, and
five calves. Some seem inclined to have twins, but that is a somewhat
complicated matter. It seems that some techniques are being developed.

It would be a pity that if they are really going to develop or invent such
techniques, they should not have done so before. Then, we could advance
even faster because our machinery is making it possible to plant much more
grass than the natural growth of the cattle calls for. This is because our
country in recent years has equipped itself with many modern
machines--large numbers of bulldozers with a great planting capacity, for
example. There has been an enormous development of roads and hydraulic
works, so that we can increase our productivity and eliminate those
caballerias of 40,000 and 50,000 arrobas. The day will come when we shall
never be satisfied with less than 100,000 arrobas yearly. We shall have
large quantities of land at our disposal, because of fertilization.

As all of you know, large fertilizing plants are being built in Cuba. Many
more will be built, and productivity--since we started at a low technical
level--will double, triple, become five times as large--in some cases even
10 times more than today. Our agriculture is undergoing a multiple
development. And our technological institutes are not mere cattle
institutes, as in the past. We now have technological institutes on
forestry, citrus, coffee, and rice, for example, and we are going to have
institutes on plantain fruit and pineapple. We must also build others for
smaller cattle, not only for cows. The first technological institutes on
irrigation are about to be created. For just like that, in 5 years we shall
increase our irrigation to include a little more than 300,000 caballerias
of land. Imagine how many persons qualified in this field our country will
need! Irrigation may appear to be an easy task, but is is necessary to
calculate every cubic meter that flows through an 8-inch pipe, to calculate
the surface and the distribution of the irrigation, for which a broad
specialized knowledge is necessary.

More Technicians

That is why technological institutions of all kinds have multiplied to such
a high degree--because of the enormous need for technicians. It is
sufficient to say that cattle-raising by the year 1980 will need
approximately 100,000 technicians of the middle and superior level
distributed among veterinarian, soil, and cattle nutrition technicians,
that is, those who are going to manage the herds and are going to produce
feed.

Something more than 20,000 insemination technicians will be needed by the
year 1980. In fact, more than 35,000 are now studying--all in
cattle-raising. There must be 30,000 studying, and 100,000 are needed. Of
course, when that time comes, the fields of this country will not even be
recognized; your extensive influence will be (?felt). There will be other
times--the times of fat, not skinny, cows. These times have been harder,
times of skinny cows that do not give milk.

Thus, all our fields in a very short period of time will be transformed,
and you will have the opportunity of participating in a decisive manner in
this transformation. Today, a great amount of work is being done with very
few technicians, bases are being created, development is being carried out,
fertilized factories are being built, and new techniques are being
developed. However, you will have to participate to a high degree in that
development and undoubtedly will leave an indelible footprint on the fields
of our country. What magnificent times will come when we can count by the
tens of thousands the technicians in our fields! How different it will be!

And you among those graduating from "Martinez Villena," whose average age
is 24 years, and you among those graduating, men and women comrades, from
the "Ivanov" Institute, whose average age is 20 years, are boys and girls.
The girls are very happy; the boys are sad because they want to be older.
[laughter] Then you will have an average age of 36 years in 1980--those
here, those there--an average of 32, and if you will, 28. Three or 4 years
less is not going to be noticed. Thus, according to tradition, the girls
will have an average age of 28 in 1980. So you will be really young. I
imagine that there will be no pensioners at that age. We shall have an
enormous mass of technicians and of young technicians.

A young revolution, a young people, well organized, well prepared,
undoubtedly has an extraordinary future, and not only will they be able to
build the future of their nation, but according to their strength, they
will also be able to help other peoples.

Therefore, we congratulate you all. We especially congratulate the
professors, and we wish all kinds of success to the comrades who are
graduating, and all kinds of success to the comrades who continue studying.
Fatherland or death! We shall win!
-END-