-DATE-
19720623
-YEAR-
1972
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
CONFERENCE
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
BRATISLAVA RECEPTION
-PLACE-
SLOVAKIA
-SOURCE-
PRAGUE CTK INTERNATIONAL
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19720626
-TEXT-
More on Bratislava Reception

Prague CTK International Service in English 1545 GMT 23 Jun 72 L

[Text] Bratislava June 23 CETEKA--Cuban Premier and Communist Party leader
Fidel Castro was received here today by Jozef Lenart, first secretary of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia.

Also present were Ondrej Klokoc, chairman of the Slovak National Council,
and Peter Colotka, premier of the Slovak Socialist Republic.

Jozef Lenart welcomed Fidel Castro in Slovakia on behalf of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, the Slovak National Council
and the Slovak Government. He stressed that the working people of Slovakia
have been following with great sympathies the revolutionary struggle of the
Cuban people and its Communist Party.

"Life has confirmed that in America, too, revolution is inevitable and
socialism is the only alternative for the future. Chile is another recent
evidence of this," Lenart said.

Jozef Lenart drew a parallel between the history of Slovakia and that of
Cuba, in his address welcoming Fidel Castro. Slovakia, too, was an
underdeveloped agricultural country, with many outstanding problems
concerning industrial development, sciences, culture and the arts, and with
an unresolved nationality (?problem). It was not until Slovakia's
liberation by the Soviet Army and the victory of the working class in 1948
that favorable conditions were created for an upsurge of the creative
forces of the people, Lenart said.

He pointed out that in 1971, the 12-day industrial output in Slovakia
equalled the country's prewar annual production.

Jozef Lenart then presented Fidel Castro with two medals by the outstanding
Slovak artist Jan Kulich (?the) one featuring Castro's portrait and the
other with a Cuban revolutionary motif.

Fidel Castro said (?in his reply) that the achievements of Slovakia, as
part of Socialist Czechoslovakia, provide evidence what favorable
conditions are created by a revolution for a fast advancement of every
country.

Referring to Czechoslovakia's crisis-ridden period of 1968, Fidel Castro
said that the negative developments at that time were [word indistinct] by
the same people who denigrated the Cuban revolution and intrigued against
it. He recalled with satisfaction that Cuba took the correct attitude
towards the internationalist aid given to Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw
Treaty countries in 1968, since Cuba has always been allergic to those who
try to weaken the strength of the socialist camp, to liberalism and to the
rightwingers.

"There is no communism without internationalism, there is no internal
solidarity without internationalist solidarity, Fidel Castro said, adding
that Cuba, too, can draw a lesson from Czechoslovakia's crisis period in
1968.

He said that Cuba identifies [word indistinct] with the position of the
Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership and of the Czechoslovak socialist
state, in which workers power and international policy have been
consolidated. He described the relations between the Communist Parties of
Cuba and Czechoslovakia as sincere and fraternal relations marked by
solidarity and internationalism, and said that the Cuban people will
continue to develop their fraternal relations with the people of
Czechoslovakia.
-END-