-DATE- 19700726 -YEAR- 1970 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- SPEECH -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- 17TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MONCADA ASSAULT -PLACE- CUBA -SOURCE- GRANMA -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19700727 -TEXT- SPEECH BY FIDEL CASTRO Delivered on the 17th anniversary of the Moncada assault. Abriged from Granma, July 27, 1970. Today I am not going to make a commemorative speech proper. In other words, I am not going to list the gains and achievements of the Revolution. Today I will speak of our problems and difficulties and reverses rather than our successes. I am going to present--in a nutshell if you will--the substance of our difficulties. What we want above all is to inform the masses, so that they will understand and prepare for struggle. For our problems cannot be miraculously solved by anybody--whether individuals or teams. It is only the people who can work wonders in any field. I will give you a few data by way of antecedents. In 1958, eve of the triumph of the Revolution, Cuba had 6,547,000 inhabitants. This year the population is expected to come close to 8,256,000. In other words, our population is expected to come close to this extra number of inhabitants, 844,000 are children or teenagers still below working age while 188,000 are, on the contrary, men and women past working age. As many as 1,032,000 people, or 60 per cent of the increase, have no share in production. Discounting those who must be discounted because they study or are incapacitated physically or socially, the net increase in labor power in these twelve years has been 580,000 people. On the other hand, the labor requirements of the economy arising from new economic and social activities plus the replacement of people who have reached retirement age total 1,200,000 people. By adding new labour power to the unemployed there were before the Revolution, we managed to meet in part--but only in part--this mounting demand for labour. Early in 1958 we had 686,000 unemployed. Many of them have jobs now while others are in advanced age and can no longer work. This situation will not begin improving until the need of this decade, somewhere about 1980. It is estimated that between 1975 and 1980 the population will grow by 828,000 resulting in a net manpower increase of 535,000 people. Let us see how some of the services have been growing due to this make-up of the population and to the elementary measures of justice that the Revolution had to take and that we thought indispensable. There is, first of all, social security. A total of 379,842 people have been pensioned since the victory of the Revolution. In other words, their right to a pension was recognized and put into effect as the revolutionary process went on. Furthermore, pensions were raised to a monthly minimum of 60 pesos in the case of 198,260 people, many of whom had been getting less than 10 pesos per month. Public spending on social security had gone up from 114.7m. in 1958 to 320m. this year. The health service in 1958 employed 8,209 people. In 1969 their number rose to 87,646. Public spending on health increased from 22.7m. pesos in 1958 to 236.1m. pesos in 1969. In 1958 the nations schools had 936,723 students. In 1969/70, they admitted 2,298,464 people, 1,560,193 of whom entered primary school. The number of scholarships has increased from 15,698 in 1958 to 277,505 now. Public spending on education was 77m. pesos in 1958 and 290.6m. pesos in 1969. Public expenditures on social security, health and education have risen from 213.8m. pesos in 1958 to at least 850m. pesos this year If we add defense expenditures to these, the total will approximate to 1,200m. pesos annually. Under the Urban Reform Law, 268,089 families were granted free use of houses and rooms totalling 3,500m. pesos in worth. In the same way, 100,000 peasants families which before the Revolution paid rent were granted a gratuitous title to the use of the lands held by them. The increase in the number of pensions and the expansion of educational facilities, medical service and the services indispensable to the country's defense plus the saving on house and land rent raised to roughly 3,000m. pesos the cash and the sums in savings-banks held by the population. A price policy designed to make up for this imbalance--and this will help us, as well as those abroad who are interested in these matters, understand the problems of rationing--would mean exacting enormous sacrifice from the lower income groups of the population. This would be in effect of a price policy designed to balance the total quantity of benefits and services not provided to the people gratuitously. Such a policy could be applied to luxury articles but never to the necessities. This is our opinion and I hope the people's as well. Devaluation or a change of currency--a device used in the early years--is correct if applied to the bourgeoisie, but it would be impermissible if it were to affect the working people's savings. This is our opinion and we hope the people's as well. It is one of the complicated problems our economy has to solve. Thus, for all these expenditures and efforts, there is still and immense need for more expenditures and efforts. I don't think there is a single Cuban, single revolutionary, who thinks this country should have faced, unarmed and inactive, the enormously powerful imperialist enemy we have 90 miles from our coast, an enemy who has not hesitated to use every means, all its arms, to destroy the Revolution. The vast majority of the people have learnt to use arms because they realize that the standing force of men and officers would not be enough if it came to defending the country against that enemy. This unavoidable task of the Revolution, too, necessitated the use of hundreds of thousands of men when the demand for manpower was at its highest on our fields, as at cane-cutting time. It is certain, however, that because our students in technological and secondary schools had to spend months cutting cane we will be so many months late in training the technologists we need so urgently. And because our servicemen had to lend a hand in cane-cutting for months on end we had to sacrifice their combat training against the emergency of war. Regrettably, we will have to do that again because of the level of our productive forces and our labour productivity. These are realities imposed on us by the Revolution itself. However, I do not list them as an excuse or a pretext, or as the only cause of our problems. I simply present them as factors to be considered in evaluating the overall situation. We have just fought a heroic battle. It may really be called a heroic battle land its heroes are present here. The hero was the people, who fought for 10 million tons by planting and harvesting. Practically 10 million tons of cane was cut, and it could have become a real 10 million tons given an adequate industry. It was not only by fulfilling this task that the people showed heroism. They showed still greater heroism by committing themselves to cut all the cane to the last stem, even though they knew they could not reach the 10 million target. Our sugar production increased notably. We produced over four million tons more than last year. This increase is a real record hard to beat as an increase--and this is not to say these quantities of sugar cannot be topped some day but that it's difficult to take leaps as big as that in sugar production. this is all the more so if account is taken, in speaking of population structure and labour requirements, of the fact that needs have grown both quantitatively and qualitatively. In fact, time was when hundreds of thousands of Cubans in our countryside had to work 15, 16 or 17 hours cutting and lifting cane by hand. They carted it away with oxen that had to be put in harness at daybreak. Only by working 15 or 16 hours a day could they cope with assignments. We must not forget that at first we were merely a people in revolt. We were ardently revolutionary but as regards political and social problems we were really misled and indoctrinated by the imperialists' press and films and books and other information media. We must not forget that and must say it, not in shame but in pride. For it shows what a people can do and reveals the potentialities of revolutions. We must say that early in 1959 the majority of our people were not even anti-imperialist and had no class consciousness. What they did have was a class instinct, which isn't the same. It must be remembered that the early years were years of big political and ideological battles between the capitalist and the socialist roads, between the bourgeois and the proletarian roads. And the very first task of the small revolutionary vanguard was to win over the masses. There was no talk at the time about production--that was the capitalists' concern--or about figures or statistics of structures. We were thinking of the needs created by unemployment, exploitation and every manner of abuse and injustice. We fought against the enemies of the Revolution in the field of facts and in the ideological field. As I have said, both quantitative and qualitative changes have occurred in requirements. We must go on carrying our various tasks, such as cutting cane, doing it, moreover, by hand. For some time now, many of the old people who cut cane in past years have been pension, and many other Cubans who had to work 15 or 16 hours have turned to other opportunities and switched to other activities. Nor could anybody have stopped them. No revolution could tell a man he was condemned to do this work all his life, without hope of ever learning to operate a machine, of taking some other job. Today these tasks are not carried out by those who in the past had to carry them out so as not to starve. In the immense majority of cases, they are carried out by people engaged in industry and other fields, by students and servicemen. In these new conditions tensions are building up, as we have said and we are waging a heroic battle. But we proved unable to wage a parallel battle. This phrase, "parallel battle", was used very often before while we planted cane to harvest 10 million tons. It meant this necessary effort, not by way of a sport as we explained it at one time, but because it was an imperative economic need, because we required it for out development,a s a means of defeating our poverty and doing away with it. We must not forget that in spite everything we have during these years had great imbalances in our foreign trade, mainly with the Soviet Union. We have to import almost or a little over five million tons of fuel because we need and because drilling for oil, discovering it and starting to work oil wells require serious and deep-going research that cannot be done overnight. Our country has no coal and hardly any hydraulic energy. Our rivers are small and the best use they can be put to in our climate and our conditions is irrigation. Thus we import all the power we need. We have yet to meet a citizen who would ask us: "What do we need so much light for? Why not use a little less light?" What citizens tell us is: "There's no electricity, we want more electricity. We need power stations, this, that and the other. We need machinery and transport. We haven't got this, we haven't got that." Of course, the enemy made ample use of the augment that the effort to grow 10 million tons of cane would entail some of these problems. It was our duty to do all in our power to prevent that but we couldn't do it. Our enemies say we are having difficulties and they are right in this respect. They say we have problems and indeed we do. They say there is discontent and they are right. They say there is resentment and they are right. As you see, we aren't afraid to admit it when our enemies are right. Let us look into the problems by sectors. As regards farming, I have spoken about cane, sugar output, and the records set. The rice area was considerably expanded and we increased output. but we are still very far from feeling satisfied,a s regards both quantity and quality, with the fulfillment of rice production plans. Beef. Deliveries of cattle in live weight were like last year's. Average weight is still low. Meat deliveries were 485,000 head in 1968 and 466,000 in 1969. This year's outlook is for 466,000 head again. Deliveries of fresh milk between January and May made up 71.3 million litres, that is, fell 25 per cent short of deliveries in the same period of 1969, when 95.1 million litres was supplied. Deliveries have decreased in the state and private sector alike. But the drop is relatively greater in the private sector. This decline is due to the limited scale of building and the fact that lost capacities were not restored. The milk-producing potential is not fully used for lack of installed capacities. This year's imports add up t 56,000 tons land their total worth is $12m. We plan to import a similar quantity in 1971. For the same reason, we have to import fresh butter. Although the half-year's fishing plan was fulfilled 78 per cent, this is only about 8,000 tons more than in the same period of 1969. In output of the fertilizer we mix in our country, we were some 32 per cent, or 130,000 tons, short of the target in June. This was mainly due to our limited capacity for transporting the finished product. The plan for supplying agriculture with domestic equipment was fulfilled by a mere eight per cent as of May. This year's plan provides for nickel exports worth 217.9m. pesos. As of June the Moa and Nicaro plants had fulfilled their six months' plan by 96 per cent. We may say, therefore, that in nickel production we have had no problems, speaking generally. Nor have we had any difficulties with fuels land lubricants, that is, in oil refining. This industry has been fulfilling its plan. Power generation as of May was roughly 11 per cent higher than in the corresponding period of 1969. At the same time there was a big increase in demand, which reached a maximum of 17 per cent. The critical situation in regard to labour power compelled us to reduce rayon production targets, which had a telling effect on tyre output. We will soon start rehabilitating the plant so as to complete the job before the year is out. This plant, which is vastly important to the economy because it makes tyres which, in turn, are important to so crucial field as transport, is faced with a special problem--hydrogen sulphide contamination of the environment due to the chemicals used by the plant. Once the degree of contamination was greater than now but we have succeeded in reducing it by one-third. The annual plan for leather footwear was adjusted from 15.6 to 13.9 million pairs. As of May, output fell short by roughly one million pairs due to the delay in starting production at the new Manzanillo factory, to absenteeism and mobilisations for agriculture. About 400,000 pairs of the million that was not manufactured were to have been work shoes. Besides, there is a decline in the quality of footwear mainly in that of work shoes, due to changes in technology and in the time required for tanning. The plastic shoe factory is already operating at almost full capacity. It will make at least 10 million pairs of shoes in the next twelve months, which will meet the demand for women's and children's footwear to a considerable extent. Distribution increased as follows: the rice ration rose to six pounds per head of population as of April and for organizations as of January the population has been getting more fresh fish since April and there were indirect increases in egg consumption. However, there were noticeable cuts in the consumption of other items--vegetables and fruit, both fresh and canned--due to drops in supply. The supply of beef and poultry to some professions and trades enjoying priority was restricted, and besides there were delays in supplying the population due to transport problems. In foreign trade we failed to fulfill certain import and export quotas due to delays in signing contracts, difficulties in securing ships for our imports and exports, and a critical situation in loading and unloading in harbours. As a result, we had problems with transporting plant shipped from Europe, delays in importing raw materials land food-stuffs, delays of ship in harbours. Difficulties over convertible currency persist, affecting purchases of wood pulp and the manufacture of containers. We will have to pay special attention to the rebuilding, construction and acquisition of barges and tugs if we want to handle the shipments envisaged by the sugar and molasses export plan for 1971. To this we must add the rebuilding, dredging and construction of highly important harbour facilities. In land transport, we had difficulties over both railways and road haulage partly because we gave priority to the transport of cane and by-products but due also to the shortage of spare part, which reduced the use of equipment and hence created operation problems and strongly affected economic activities of the period. From January to April the railways carried 26 per cent more goods than in the corresponding period of last year. Sixty locomotives, or 27 per cent of the fleet, were used for carrying cane. Road haulage was affected above all by a shortage of spares and the high degree of absenteeism, the worst in recent years. I have listed the main difficulties in agricultural and industrial production. But of course the list isn't complete. I would say that this statistical enumeration reveals only some of the causes. In addition to these causes of problems, we must also mention inefficiency, or the subjective factor. To begin with, I wish to point in connection with all these problems to the responsibility of all of us, and mine in particular. I am far from denying that there are things for which I and the entire revolutionary leadership are to blame too. I believe we leaders of the Revolution have exacted too high a price ion doing our apprenticeship. Unfortunately, our problem--not when it is a question of replacing the leaders of the Revolution, whom the people Revolution are free to replace when they wish, and right now if they wish [shouts of "No!" and screaming "Fidel"]--one of our most difficult problems is a heritage we are paying for now, meaning first of all the heritage of our ignorance. When speaking of illiterates we certainly did not class ourselves among them nor among semi-literates. We could rate ourselves best by putting ourselves in the category of the ignorant. This we were all, almost without exception, nor was I the exception, needless to say. The problem is even worse than that. What I mean is that there are may illiterates and semi-literates even among people in responsible positions. And one of the biggest problems is precisely to find the right man for a job. Some time ago, at a meeting in the Cespedes part of Santiago de Cuba, we began after visiting numerous factories one by one, and after talking with thousands of inhabitants, to analyse all the various aspects of the diverse industries in specific terms. In many industries we established such facts as a shortage of lathes, tools and measuring instruments. Curiously enough, what our country needs badly at the moment is microinvestments. Investments in lathes to maintain factory shops, in tools that are in short supply in almost every industry, and in measuring instruments. Now what did we discover as far as the mood of the workers of Santiago de Cuba is concerned, knowing their various needs as we did and realizing that the transport problem had effected distribution worst of all in Oriente Province, and more particularly in Santiago? The workers were concerned abut production before everything else. In the quarries and factories alike, the very first question those workers raised was about production. And they showed tremendous enthusiasm for their enterprise and its output. They didn't speak about other problems until after that. Indeed, it was in some cases we who spoke about their problems. It is a living, a real confirmation of the fact that the industrial proletariat is the genuinely revolutionary class, potentially the most revolutionary class. What an object lesson in Marxism-Leninism! We did not set out on the road of revolution from a factory, which we all needed badly, but began with the intellectual sphere, by studying theory and ideas. How greatly we all would have benefited if we had known the factories much better and had come from there, for it is there that you find the genuinely revolutionary spirit Marx and Lenin spoke about. That spirit is that of the immense majority. We saw many of those problems quite a few of which could have been settled. And this means that we alone are to blame for quite a few of those problems, which we didn't settle for the simple reason of lacking ability. These tasks seem easy. More often than not we made the mistake of minimizing difficulties, and complexity of problems. This was often the case with experienced comrades, whose aspirations and iron will we know well. We say them on this or that front as they entered of what was in effect an apprenticeship, and it was one, two and occasionally even three years before they began to show efficiency. If only we could solve problems by merely replacing people! We must make changes. Some people had to pay for others because they seemed to have failed to resolve difficulties which they had in fact nothing to do with. There is, for example, a tremendous shortage of housing in every town, but above all in Santiago de Cuba. This problem is often handled by people who cannot make decisions. On the other hand, some believe they can solve problems by miracle because it's only a question of finding the right people. We have replaced some ministers--we had to--and will have to replace some more. However, I sometimes tell myself a little sadly that there must be some confusion because the masses believe the problem is simply one of replacing people. And occasionally somebody says: "If only they fired the man and put another in his place!" There is an enormous number of people who organize and disorganize government by making forecasts. But surely politics is not a sport. It is necessary to replace people because, after all, there are comrades who are exhausted, who have no energy left and can no longer carry the burden they have shouldered. Yes, changes are necessary. What I wish to say, however, is that it would be misleading and demagogical, and would mean deceiving the people unforgivably, if we made believe that the problem in the case is one of people, if we tried to conceal the root of the matter rather than analysing the problem and saying that it isn't problem of either one man or a group or team. We think it is a problem of the whole people. It's our sincere belief that the problems we now have we can only solve together--all of us together!--from those on the highest rungs of the leadership of country, Party and state to those in the most modest industry, and that the leaders alone cannot solve them. In discussing Party work, we said we must revive work in the mass organizations and extend its content to the utmost. But that isn't all. There are new tasks and we must carry our effort deeper. We do not think the problem of managing a factory should be limited to the problem of a manager. It would really be worth while to introduce certain criteria. There should be one person in charge, of course, because there must always be one person who will take charge of things and answer for them. But we also need a collective body in factory managements. Let one person preside over it but let it be representative of the foremost workers, Communist Youth, the Party, and women in the case of a factory where a women's front can be set up. The principle should be that in a factory we cannot make the Party secretary manager--this is one of the ideas we must be very clear about--any more than we can have the manager do the Party secretary's work for him. Dealing with production problems is a full-time job. And just as industry works on materials with machines, so the Party works on people with the aid of people. The Party's raw material is the working man and the manager's, real raw materials like iron. Every factory has its own laws and we must have somebody who will always concern himself with that. These tasks must not be mixed up, nor can the Party assume direct responsibility for the management of a factory. Its responsibility must be indirect. The Party must promptly inform the higher managerial body of every shortcoming, every drawback in management, but it cannot tell the manager what he has to do. We must clearly specify the functions of the secretary of the Party branch and the functions of the manager, or the management to be exact. Now why should a manager bear absolute responsibility for everything? Why not bring workers' representatives into the factory management? Why not trust them? why not put faith in the powerful proletarian spirit of people who, working sometimes barefoot in torn clothes, keep production going? We will have to work hard if we want to solve the problem of efficiency in industry, which depends chiefly on labour productivity. There are two types of industry: one in which it may seem that labour productivity is higher because technologies are better and more effective use is made of labour, and another one showing seemingly lower productivity per worker although the effort made is greater. Why am I speaking of these problems to working people? Because there is a real thing which clearly doesn't come off. We must win the battle against inefficiency! We must win the battle against difficulties. The need is, as I have said, for a subjective effort by the whole people. We have been happy these days to see people amuse themselves. They deserve it. We wouldn't like even the analysis I am now making here to stop any working man or woman from enjoying his rest--not at all. We know, however, that there can be no rest. Those of us who have major responsibilities cannot afford a rest. We are deeply aware of our problems, of the need to solve them, and we know we are to blame for them. This is why we are really eager to make a fresh start. We will have to take a number of decisions in the Party leadership so as to solve some structural problems beginning from above. Social production can no longer be directed by only the Council of Ministers. There are numerous agencies. Why? Because social production today depends on how society manages its resources. Formerly many industries, schools and even hospitals were managed by private owners. But times have changed. Once the most a citizen could expect was that the state would set up a post or telegraph office. It never occurred to him that the state must take care of housing or other things. Today the citizen does expect the state to do that. And he is right. This is precisely a collectivist, a socialist mentality. Today the administrative apparatus, and above all the political apparatus representing it, is expected to take care of everything. People no longer rely on only their own strength land devices as in the past. The fact that the people today expect everything from the state is very much in keeping with the socialist consciousness inculcated in them by the Revolution. Any instance of inefficiency in any sphere can affect thousands of people. And I don't mean problems that one person cannot solve but problems which he can solve and which drag instead of being solved. It is impossible to direct and coordinate all this machinery today in the old way. We must set up a political structure that will coordinate the diverse spheres of social production. Here is an example: some comrades are already working on measures to coordinate the activity of the Ministry of Home Trade, National Travel Institute, the light and food industry, branches that have a great bearing on consumption and the population. Other comrades, in the building industry, coordinate all its branches. A group of no more than seven to nine comrades, and not a larger, is needed to coordinate each. The data and figures I have cited reveal the importance of coordinating the activities of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and those of the Interior, Labour and Education because these fields draw on the same source, young people. It is necessary carefully to harmonize the interests of the country through the activity of each of these agencies. We regard this as decisive and fundamental immediate task facing our country. It must also be said that nobody can solve a problem if he doesn't seek the cooperation of others. Parochialism is impermissible and absurd, it is a crime. In a society in which the means of production are owned collectively lack of coordination is a stupidity. Hence the need to coordinate various branches and set up coordination teams at the highest level for each sector. We believe our Central Committee should have not only a Political Bureau but a Social Production Bureau, a political instrument of the Party for coordinating the activities of every branch of management, for attaining the greatest efficiency in coordination and planning. How are we to resolve this contradiction between our pressing needs in view of what we hear about how the population and labour power are growing and what the demand for labour is like? How are we to deal with it between now land 1975 and then between 1975 and 1980? We have no choice but to solve the problem, and we must solve it. Will we solve it? Yes. It am absolutely convinced that when a people wants t solve a problem it solves it. I am not suggesting that we will solve it overnight. The point is that every working man or women in this country, anyone with any sense of responsibility, must become keenly aware of the situation. This is necessary if we are to rationalize our effort and use it most effectively. We must rack our brains over each general difficulty or problem as well as over each specific difficulty. We must rack our brains over how to use every machine, every bit of raw material, every minute of everyone's work to the best and greatest advantage. There is no question of overtime and more overtime applied mechanically. The task is, as I have already said, to make optimal to the use of the working day, allowing an exception only when imperative circumstances justify and call for it, and when it is clear that a target can only be reached through extra work. A mechanical approach to this matter is no good. We should learn once and for all that the mechanical method will get us nowhere. The task is for the whole people to realize the situation, to see how we can make the best use of every single machine, every bit of raw material and every ounce of energy. Let us put our heads together to solve our problems. I would say that in speaking of 10 million tons we meant a task requiring hands but this time we have a problem requiring brains and intelligence. The general level of people is not high as yet and the people of today don't know as much as will be known 20 to 30 years from now. Nevertheless, the people of today must use their wits, must concern themselves with problems and realize their responsibility,. This is a matter of vital importance. It is a question of making the fullest use of the intelligence and sense of responsibility of every single working man or woman in this country. The going will be hard--harder than it seemed at first. Yes, imperialist gentlemen, building socialism is difficult. But Karl Marx himself visualized socialism as a natural product of a society highly developed technologically. In the world of today countries like ours, being faced with industrialized imperialist powers, have no alternative to socialism if they are to bridge their cultural and technological gap. And what is socialism? It is the possibility of making the best use of manpower and natural resources for the good of the people. It is the disappearance of the contradiction between the growth of the productive forces and the relations of production. Industry, raw materials, natural resources, factories, machinery and plant of every type all being to society today. They can and must be at these service of society. If we do not make the best use of this machinery and plant, of all these resources, it is not because we are held back by a capitalist, a proprietor who in the past had a factory and made money by putting out dairy products or poison, cheese or marihuana--anything. He didn't worry about anything, about how his output would be used. In our society, every product and every service is intended to meet man's needs, the needs of the people. If we are not using things to the best advantage it is not because somebody will not let us but because we don't know how or don't want to or cannot. This is why we must learn to use everything, all our resources, as well as possible by drawing on the reserves of the will power, morality, intelligence and resolve of the people, who have shown that they possess them. If there is anything absolutely beyond question it is the spirit of the people. It is seen in their massive participation in cane cutting, in the liberation of fishermen, in their entire courageous reaction to reverses, in the internationalist sentiment and spirit they showed by offering 104,000 blood donations in a mere ten days to help a brother people. It is a people with revolutionary spirit, an internationally minded people. I bring no magic solutions here, I have listed problems, saying that they can only be solved by and with the people, provided the people realize them, provided they are informed and show determination and will power. When, 17 years ago, we set out to take the stronghold of Moncada, we were not trying to win a war with a thousand men but to start a war and wage it with the people and win it with the people's support. When, a few years later, we returned with an expeditionary force we did not expect to win a war with a handful of men. We did not have the wonderful experience and knowledge the people have given us during the past years but we knew that we could only win that war with the people. We waged and won it with the people. When the Revolution set out, 90 miles from a ferocious and powerful empire, to make this country free and sovereign it challenged that empire and prepared to weather all difficulties. It started on a truly revolutionary road--not a road of capitalists and imperialist monopolies but a people's road, a road of workers land peasants, a road of justice. Many said it was a perfectly hopeless attempt in view of cultural, political and ideological influence and all that. We, however, were certain the battle could be won with the people. We fought and won it with the people. And we lived to see this day. But now we must fight a more difficult battle. It was easier, a thousand times easier, to destroy the mercenaries at Playa Giron in a matter of hours than it is to really solve the problem of industry. It is easier to win twenty wars than to win the battle for development. It was relatively easy. We didn't know much about war. It didn't take us long to learn and there came forward men who could lead a company or platoon. This is not the first time I've said this. We knew, as I have said before, that the task was a hard one and that we would have to learn. I said so in all sincerity--I say that learning to build the economy is much more difficult for revolutionaries than we imagined, and that the problems are much more complex and the learning much longer and more arduous than we thought it would be. This is the battle we must now fight. It is not the only one. We will have to stay watchful, and prepared, mindful of the threat the enemy presents and will always present to us. This is clear. We are not carrying on an ideological battle as we did in the early days. The battle we must fight together with the people is in the economic field, and only with the people can we win it. We really thing the Revolution is confronted by an unprecedented challenge, by one of the most difficult tasks. Hence our impatience. What can we all give to this cause? Our energy. Seventeen years or slightly more have passed since Moncada. Once the need was for arduous organizing and preparatory work. We began this struggle 18 years ago, some of us put in it 18 years of our lives, a part of our youth. What can we do today? What do we require today? The energy we still have in us--we must put in in this task, to the last ounce. We must pay a debt we owe to so may enemies--both objective and subjective ones--to the imperialist enemies, who want the Revolution to fail, to poverty, to general ignorance, to our ignorance. What we are fighting against today is not people, unless it is ourselves. We are fighting against objective factors, against the past and its effects today, against limitations of every kind. It really is the greatest challenge we have ever been faced with in our lives, the greatest challenge the Revolution has ever been faced with. The enemies are rejoicing, pinning hopes on our difficulties. I have said that they are right in this, that and the other. There is only one thing they are wrong about--they think the people have an alternative to the Revolution and the difficulties experienced by the Revolution may make them choose the road of counterrevolution. You are rely wrong about that, imperialist gentlemen! Nobody will say there is a whit of truth in that. That cannot appraise the people, cannot gauge the depth of the people's moral integrity and courage. Only a cowardly people would be frightened by difficulties. Only a cowardly people would be unable to see, hear land listen, and speak the truth outright. Only a cowardly people would shrink from speaking the truth before the world. We have no fear of doing it as we have done today, saying that it is our fault first and foremost as we have done today, and confidently setting the problems before the people as we have done today. They are mistaken so often because they believe we have the same morality as they and are like them, at least remotely. No lies shall ever be told to the people. Confidence in the people shall never be lost. Faith in the people shall never fail. This is precisely what our enemies overlook. We seek no glory or distinction. We serve a cause worth all the glory on earth, which Marti said could be put in a grain of maize. We will always serve this cause--ever more consciously, with even greater dedication. All I have to say now is to give many thanks to our people on behalf of our Party and our leadership, meaning also my gratitude for the people's reaction, attitude and trust. Patria o muerte! Venceremos! -END-