-DATE-
19770727
-YEAR-
1977
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
SPEECH
-AUTHOR-
F.CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
INAUGURATION OF SUGARCANE HARVESTER PLANT
-PLACE-
HOLGUIN PROVINCE
-SOURCE-
HAVANA DOMESTIC SERVICE
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19770728
-TEXT-
Fidel Castro Speech

FL272311Y Havana Domestic Service in Spanish 2224 GMT 27 Jul 77 FL/PA

[Speech by Cuban President Fidel Castro marking the inauguration of
sugarcane harvester plant in Holguin, Holguin Province--live]

[Text] Dear Comrade Nikita Tolubeyev, ambassador of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics; members of the Soviet delegation, Soviet technicians
and specialists; builders of the brigade [which built the plant], workers
of the 60th October Revolution Sugarcane Harvester plant, people of
Holguin:

I spoke in Camaguey yesterday about the harvester plant that would be
inaugurated today in Holguin.  Today I am going to begin by speaking about
Camaguey.

The 24th anniversary of 26 July was commemorated in that city yesterday at
a ceremony that was marvelously well organized and enthusiastic. I
recounted the extraordinary advances achieved in that province under the
direction of our party whose secretary in that province, Comrade Raul
Curbelo, has done a brilliant and extraordinary job.  [applause] That
ceremony was quite moving for all of us.  And knowing that today we would
be in the city of Holguin to inaugurate this factory contributed to that
emotion.

I said yesterday that the advances made by Camaguey and Ciego de Avila
Provinces were somewhat like an image of the effort being made throughout
the country.  Today, here in Holguin, I can also mention some of those
projects.

In the food industry, one of the country's largest ice plants was built
recently [in Holguin].  A modern yogurt pasteurizer and plant, a cheese
plant, a candy plant--this is good news for the children and for the adults
as well--a bakery, and a refreshments plant are now under construction in
Holguin alone.  In other industries [as heard], a modern hospital furniture
plant was built and is in operation, a brick plant, a floor tile plant, a
factory for water and sewer pipes similar to the one recently completed in
Camaguey, this formidable plant for sugarcane harvesters, and, near here,
near this factory, construction is already beginning on another great
mechanical industry--the farming tools plant.  An oxygen plant is also
under construction.

This province had never previously expected such industrial growth.  In
this province, in the area of Moa, we are building the second nickel plant
which will have a capacity of 30,000 tons annually.  It is being built with
the assistance of the Soviet Union.  A big mechanical plant to support the
nickel industry which could also produce for other needs of the country is
also under construction there.

A yeast plant is under construction in Guatemala.  A corn mill is under
construction in Antilla.  And a sherbet production plant is under
construction in Banes.

In addition to this industrial effort, in recent years there has been hard
work in the construction of school installations.  The Jose Marti
Vocational School with a capacity of 4,500 students will be completed in
September.  [applause]  A physical education teacher training school, a
sports initiation school, and a school for training child-care center
instructors are under construction.

The Camilo Cienfuegos Military School has been operating for some time.
Holguin already has its universities, a medical school with 1,000 students,
a pedagogy school with 1,000 students, and it also has the mechanization
institute.  And in Moa, it has the mining and metallurgy superior
institute.  Twenty-five secondary and pre-university rural schools also
have been built in this province in recent years, plus 23 polytechnic
institutes.  Child-care centers and primary schools are under construction
in this region and other institutions, such as special schools for
handicapped children and homes for the elderly, will be built.

The children's hospital will be expanded and clinics and dental clinics are
being built.  Also, progress is being made in the social area with the
construction of housing and the sports stadium.  This morning we saw the
park in Mayabe which was recently built.  Also, we saw the outline plan of
the city.  You people of Holguin know well what the outline plan, is,
right? [people shout "yes!"] It is to know where to locate housing,
factories, schools and everything else in good order.  Also a hotel is
being built.  It is said that the hotel has 200 rooms.  This is something.
The one in Guarda la Barca or Guarda la Vaca--no one knows whether it was
the small boat [barca] or cow [vaca] that was kept there. [laughter] The
road to this place, to this magnificent beach where already one can travel
in 45 minutes along a modern road [sentence as heard].  And in Moa another
hotel is being built.

Apart from this, I did not mention that we are reconstructing the Nicaro
plant and the first plant in Moa with Soviet cooperation.  Furthermore,
studies are almost completed for the construction of another nickel plant
of 33,000 tons with the cooperation of CEMA.  [applause]  Don't think that
we gave up the idea of building some more factories in Holguin during this
5-year period--a textile industry and a cement plant.  However, we had to
wait a bit because of resources.  On a previous occasion I recall, we
inaugurated this gigantic hospital which is called Vladimir Ilich Lenin
already during the revolutionary period [applause] built with Soviet
cooperation.  There are many Soviet projects in this province in Holguin
and we have to continue.  We cannot become discouraged.  [laughter]  With
Soviet cooperation.  We are making progress in the construction of the
national steel industry, in the first steel plant in the country, really.
I asked the ambassador when we are going to inaugurate it.  Supposedly, we
will begin to build it soon.  I was committing myself to the ambassador and
I told him that if he was not ambassador in Cuba then--you know that
ambassadors are moved around now and then--he would be a special guest at
the inauguration of the steel plant.  [laughter and applause]

It seems to us that these are magnificent prospects for the province of
Holguin.  Today, of course, as a central point we have to talk about this
factory, but before talking about this factory if you have a little
patience [people shout "yes!"]  I want to say something about the machine
industry of Cuba.  I have some facts here.  [Fidel begins reading] At the
time of the victory of the revolution the machine industry was almost
nonexistent in our country.  There was only in existence some development
in the machine industry devoted to the production and maintenance of some
equipment for the sugar industry.  In general, the machine industry
installations had a low level of development; therefore the revolution did
not inherit a base, a culture or tradition in the machine industry.

Before 1959, without counting the sugar industry there existed about 40
small shops of which only eight employed more than 100 workers.  These
shops limited themselves to the production of equipment for simple
manufacture built mainly through crafts processes.  The productive
processes lacked such basic initial processes as smelting of steel and
foundries.  It is calculated that in 1959 the light machine industry
produced around 29 million pesos and employed about 4,000 workers; the
value of its installations was 26 million pesos, and this figure included
the small steel industry which existed in Antillana de Acero and produced
some 30,000 tons of steel bars using imported billet.

This year, 1977, Antillana de Acero will produce 305,000 tons of steel bars
and other shapes.  During these 18 years, the revolution has made a notable
change in this situation.  In all the installations inherited by the
revolution important expansions have been made, plants have been completed
and modernized,  not only increasing their production capacity but also
notably improving working conditions in the plants.

During this period, the following investments in the machine industry have
been carried out with an investment value of 134 million pesos; expansion
of the Anillana de Acero-Santa Clara machine shop; Santa Clara INPUD
[national industry for domestic utensils] plant; socialist vanguard smelter
in Havana; extension of the socialist vanguard in Havana; Enrique Jose
Barona stainless steel pots and pans in Havana; Giron-5 bus plant in
Havana; Giron-11 bus plant in Havana; screws, nuts and washer plant in
Nuevitas; diesel motor plant in Gienfuegos; picks, shovels and files plant
in Guantanamo; bicycle plant in Caibarien; spark plug plant in Sagua la
Grande; America Libre die-casting plant in Cardenas; cutlery plant in
Santiago de Cuba; automobile complex in Guanajay; Libertad foundry and
machine finishing plant in Havana; kerosene stove plant in Havana; People's
Republic of China machine finishing plant in Havana; Miguel Saavedra die
cast plant in Havana; Rogelio Perea machine finishing plant in Havana;
agricultural implements plant in Guanabo; 10 shops for automobile spare
parts in Havana; artificial insemination receptacles plant in Havana.  the
basic equipment in the 70 industrial installations of the machine industry
at present is valued at 160 million pesos, and they employ a work force of
33,000 workers, 613 of which are technicians with a university education.

The value of 1977 production will reach 329 million pesos with an
assortment of products adjusted to the development needs of the principal
branches of the national economy.

The revolution has been developing the installation of basic processes,
smelting, forging, and so forth, and a highly qualified labor force.
During the present 5-year period, total investments in this field will be
550 million pesos.  In other words, two and one-half times the value of
current installations.  And in 1980, it will employ a labor force on the
order of 48,000 workers.

In addition to the sugarcane harvester plant and the factory for aluminum
and steel sprinkling irrigation pipes and equipment in Manzanillo, the
principal investments being made in the mechanical field during this 5-year
period are:  A battery plant with modern technology for the production of
435,000 batteries annually; a rolling stock plant for the production of
elements and parts for heavy equipment which will produce goods valuing
some 10 million pesos annually; a factory for the production of stainless
steel that will produce 1,000 tons of parts annually.  The capacity of the
Antillana de Acero plant is being expanded and a new laminator is already
in operation there and a modern iron smelter was recently completed.  A
third expansion will begin to reach a lamination capacity of no less than
700,000 tons of steel bars and rolled sections [barras y perfiles de
acero].

Another installation for sprinkling irrigation equipment is under
construction in Cienfuegos and it will produce 8,7000 kilometers of plastic
pipes, sprinkler equipment and other equipment.  An industrial complex for
the production of agricultural tools and equipment [is under construction]
across from the harvester plant that will produce 27 million pesos annually
and completion of which is estimated for 1979.  We must speed it up.

A cart plant [is under construction] in Holguin, and I had forgotten to
mention it among the factories planned for here, to produce 3,000 carts
annually and which will be part of the farming equipment and sugarcane
harvester complex.  A machine plant with an annual capacity of 20,000 tons
[is under construction] in Tunas.

The machine plant in Santa Clara will be expanded and it will be able to
produce complete (tandems) or other sugar mill equipment besides repairing
turbines.  Four plants will be built for the repair of gasoline and diesel
motors with an investment value of nearly 47 million pesos.  A factory will
be built in Santa Clara that will produce 300,000 kerosene stoves annually.

Expansion of the electrical and telephone wires and cables in Havana to
35,200 kilometers and 700 tons of electrical wire for motor winding.
Expansion of iron fitting for construction in the order of 7 million pesos.
[passage as heard]

Construction of our first integrated iron and steel industry, which I had
mentioned to you, will begin at the end of the present 5-year period to be
located in Holguin Province.  It will use the iron ore by product from our
nickel plants.

This great investment is the largest we have committed in our history and
will represent decisive support for the subsequent development of the
country's metallurgical industry.  During its first phase, which we expect
to be concluded by 1985, we can produce 1.4 million tons of liquid pig iron
which will be converted into bars and slabs [pastillas y palanquillas] to
cover the needs of Antillana de Acero; 410,000 tons of hot-rolled sheets
and rolls [chapas y rollos laminados en caliente]; 200,000 tons of
cold-rolled sheets; 110,000 tons of tine sheets, and 50,000 tons of
galvanized sheets.  This installation will employ about 9,700 workers and
will have kilns of 1,386 cubic meters each, cold and hot rolling mills,
shops for the production of folded sections and soldered pipes, besides the
auxiliary installations for preparing the coal, electrical energy
generation, and a big repair base plus a specialized port that will be
built in the zone of Cajimaya on Nipes Bay.  [Castro concludes reading]

As I told you, some 550 million pesos will be invested in the metallurgical
industry during this 5-year period.  At the triumph of the revolution we
had investments to the amount of 26 million and now we have investments
valued at 160, and in 1980 we will have in the metallurgical industry
investments amounting to more than 700 million.  And this is only in the
iron and steel industry.  It does not include other installations that
various organizations are building such as the sugar industry, which is
modernizing, expanding and building new shops in the Sagua area.

I should state that this extraordinary growth in our country's
metallurgical industry, which is an essential industry for the development
of any country, has been attained primarily with the assistance of the
Soviet Union.  [applause]  That was how Antillana de Acero was developed
until it was producing 10 times more than it produced at the beginning of
the revolution.  That was how the Santa Clara machine industries were
created, which are also being expanded just as Antillana de Acero is being
expanded.  That is how the sugar industry machines plant in Sagua is being
expanded.  That was how this industry, this complex was built.

The Moa machines plant and Moa's second nickel industry are being built
with Soviet assistance.  And the Soviet Union will provide very important
assistance in the third plant in Moa.  And, of course, the iron and steel
industry, which will be the most important of this group of
siderometallurgical industries, will be developed fundamentally with the
cooperation of the Soviet Union.  In other words, this highly important
industry is being developed and will be developed fundamentally with Soviet
cooperation, and it is not the only one in our country that is receiving
this cooperation because the sugar, mining and many other industries are
receiving such cooperation.

That is why it is not a case of this factory alone, but of this complex of
factories.  We are also developing the central railroad, with Soviet
cooperation.  We are rebuilding it and modernizing it.  We will have a
railroad that will be one of the best of Latin America if not the best, but
I do not want to say so because I do not have all the data.  However, it
seems to be that because of the earthwork and surveys and the speed which
the trains will be able to travel that undoubtedly it will be the best in
Latin America.

Also we have Soviet cooperation in building a large part of the national
highway.  They also help us in ports and many other things.

Today we have the great satisfaction, we could say the happiness and even
pride of inaugurating this factory.  [applause]  I do not know if the
construction workers know well what they have done, I do not know if the
people of Holguin know well well, well [as heard] what this factory means.
I do not know.  We could build larger factories, more expensive
investments, very basic for the economy.  We have for example the
electrical investments.  That is why I said that if I begin to enumerate
all the projects that we are undertaking with Soviet cooperation, I will
not finish this evening.  For example, we have the electric plants, so
basic and important.  We have the [Fidel does not complete thought].  They
are thermoelectric plants but we are also going to start building the first
nuclear energy plant with Soviet cooperation.  All these are very important
industries and are very decisive for our country.  However, this plant has
a special significance.  We can talk about this later.  Now let me give you
some technical data.

This factory can produce 600 harvesters annually, and also spare parts and
accessory parts amounting to 1,000 tons.  The total investment amounts to
46 million pesos of which 33 million came from abroad.  The value of the
production is 30 million; this is without inflation, because, as you all
know, all these machines always go up in price every year.  It has been
calculated that the price of each harvester is 4,000, that is 44,500 pesos.
It will have 1,578 workers.  You Holguin people understand:  1,578 workers.
At present it has 1,259, of which 63 have a university education.  There
are 104 party members and 211 militants of the UJC [Union of Young
Communisits].  Fundamentally, the entire trained work force is ensured
[applause], trained in Cuba and in the Soviet Union.

In basic investments it will use 6,500 tons of steel-see how important the
steel industry is--this plant alone will use 6,500 tons of steel.  The
production program until 1980 is 60 this year, 300 in 1978--still you will
not be trained too well-480 in 1979 and 600 in 1980.

One hundred-seventy, that is 130 fraternal experts and technicians from the
Soviet Union, many of whom are present here, have worked in the
construction and putting into operation of this plant.  [applause]  The
total area under roof is 46,060 square meters.  The average of the
construction personnel reached 1,400 workers, many of whom are present
here.  [applause]

This factory will begin to produce KTP-1 and will also manufacture some
KTP-2.  That is very important.  [applause]  The weight of each machine is
approximately 11 tons:  the KTP-2 is a little more.  The capacity of the
KTP-1 is around 6,000 arrobas daily:  the KTP-2 can produce almost 11,000.
The Australian Liberator produces just a few less than the KTP-2 and we
have a good opinion of the Liberator, without doubt.  In the quality of the
harvest, that of the KTP-1 is 91 percent; of the Liberator 87 percent; and
the testing made of the KTP-2 gave a 95.5 percent.  The total loss of the
Liberator is 15 percent; of the KTP-1 is 10 percent; and above all in the
KTP-2, which is already superior in its productive ratios and in its
quality to machines which have world prestige.  We do not have to be in a
hurry or walk slowly [as heard] to make more progress, because sometimes we
make less progress walking faster.

Basically, what we have to do now is to produce the KTP-1, which s the
machine we know.  But we can advance gradually and experiment and improve
the KTP-2.  And the day will come--I do not doubt it--when there will be a
KTP-3, KTP-4, KTP-5, KTP-X.  [laughter and applause]  Yesterday in
Camaguey, we told an anecdote about a generous person who had offered money
to buy a machine, and then we were advised not to buy another machine which
could cost $30,000 to $40,000 or $50,000, but to use that money to buy
components to build several machines, KTP-2, for instance, with the
reasoning that our factory in time would produce the best machines.  And
this is logical.  In the first place, we have very young people in the
factory.  We have a high number of college graduates who are working as
technicians in the factory and we have middle-level technicians whose
numbers we can increase through the years.  We are the country with the
most land devoted to sugarcane agriculture.  Thousands of machines will
operate in the country; therefore, thousands of operators of these
machines, of these harvesters, will be constantly observing the details,
the most efficient things, the defects.  It will be possible for
innovations to be made by the technicians and drafters, with the
cooperation of Soviet technicians and institutions.  And through a close
cooperation between agriculture and industry, in the end our machines will
improve year by year.

The important thing was to begin.  And where did we start?  Yesterday we
spoke of that, of very modest little machines, to see how they could cut
the cane when we were faced with the tragedy of the lack of cane cutters.
And we already have this factory today, with our two first prototypes,
which are good machines.  What won't we be able to achieve in the future
on this path?  The most admirable thing is that today we dedicate this
plant with joy and happiness of the entire people.  [applause]  Could this
have happened under capitalism?  [shouts of "no"]  No.  And not only
because capitalism did not care at all to develop the mechanical industry
in Cuba.  They left that to the United States.  And we remained importers
of machinery.  And of other types of machinery, not sugarcane harvesters.
You have said "no," you engineers and constructors of Holguin.  But why
could a sugarcane harvester factory not have been built under
capitalism?  [indistinct shouts] Because this would have caused an uprising
among the workers.  A sugarcane harvester would have threatened the jobs of
hundreds of thousands of citizens who had work only in times of harvest,
cutting cane.  See what an extraordinary change (?has taken place) in these
years?  What economic changes and what social changes?  When the interests
of technology truly march united with those of workers?  As can happen only
in socialism?  [applause]

Each of these machines would have displaced 50 workers.  Today, each of
these machines liberates 50 workers of the hard work of cutting cane.
[applause]  Each thousand of these machines signifies 50,000 fewer cane
cutters that will be able to devote their energies to other pursuits.  We
cannot forget that during the 1970 harvest we had to utilize 350,000 cane
cutters.  You can all imagine what this means in terms of
mobilization--expenses of all types.  Moreover, 350,000 cane cutters means
that a number of them have to have their passes, their weekly rest, and so
forth.  There are actually always considerably fewer cutting cane.

As a consequence of gradual mechanization, the number of cane cutters had
diminished greatly in the last harvest.  Moreover, only the best are being
left.  This is why the averages increase each year.  But what was the
average in the 1970 harvest?  It did not reach 200 arrobas.  The average
per mobilized cane cutter was around 150 arrobas, not too much more.

Now the averages of the cane cutters remaining are higher, but one of these
machines which can cut 8,000 or 10,000 arrobas displaces more than 50 of
those workers who cut cane in 1970, when 10,000 of them obtained an average
of 15,000 or 12,000.  And it is said that one KTP-1 has cut over 30,000
arrobas.  Of course, when one speaks of averages, one includes the time
when the machine has to be maintained, or has to be repaired.  But it is
incredible that one of those machines with one good operator can cut 30,000
arrobas.  That is the work of let's say 200 cane cutters in one day during
the harvest of 1970.

Sugarcane was the origin of slavery, because slavery was due in our
country--above all, it became popular in our country--with the development
of the sugar industry.  Afterwards, during the sugar development of the
beginning of the century, the immigration of Haitians, Jamaicans and men
from other Caribbean islands became a sort of disguised slavery.  During
the years prior to the triumph of the revolution, unemployment and hunger
were the main recruiters of cane cutters for the harvest.  With the triumph
of the revolution and the creation of many other opportunities, the
phenomenon of the lack of cane cutters occurred.  But we did not have
the machines, and every year we had to make large mobilizations of
industrial workers, students, soldiers to do the harvest.  And you all know
what it means to mobilize tens of thousands of students for 5 and 6 months,
what a delay it meant for our country's educational development, how much
it affected the armed forces when tens of thousands of soldiers and
officers had to come and help with the harvest during the months of combat
preparation, how costly it was for the economy of the country to mobilize
tens of thousands of workers from the industrial centers and how costly the
paralyses for lack of cane were, and so forth?

For this reason, for us, this factory has a special significance.  Never
before has our country had such a very modern industry capable of producing
excellent sugar harvesters.  [applause]  We have ahead of us a sure future
in the mechanization of our sugarcane harvest.  An assured future, and the
possibility of producing more and more efficient machines.  This allows us
to considerably increase our sugar production in the coming years, because
our greatest difficulty in 1970 was in fact the lack of work force and the
need for the constant mobilizations.  I forgot to say when I spoke about
the two harvesters that the KTP-2 can cut green cane perfectly well.  It
is designed to cut green cane.  This means that we will be able to do away
with the burnings of cane to occupy productivity, and by reducing the
burnings of cane we will save water.  We can keep the grass on the soil or
we can use it for cattle fodder if we want.  We can reduce the growth of
weeds and prolong the age of the plantations.  The benefits for the country
from this factory are countless.  For this reason, it not only has great
economic significance but also a great social and moral significance:
[applause]  that man in our country may count on an instrument, a machine
to perform a difficult task which was the origin of slavery and the origin
of countless sufferings for our people.  Furthermore, those machines will
not cut cane to supply foreign companies' centrals; they will cut cane to
supply centrals which are owned entirely by our people.  [applause]  They
will save work.  For the good of whom?  For the good of our working people.
They will create wealth.  Wealth for whom?  For our working people.
[applause]

That is the meaning of this factory.  And along with this factory, the
industry that is being built is no less important, the farming equipment
industry which will be built with the cooperation of the Republic of
Bulgaria.  [applause]  And so we will have a Soviet plant, a Bulgarian
plant and a Soviet cart plant also.  [applause]

These factories, these new factories, will provide jobs for about 3,000
workers.  When these factories open, almost 5,000 workers will then have
jobs in these industries.  The equipment industry is very important,
particularly for agricultural crops, because cane needs a number of
tools--but not only cane, I merely take it as an example.  The countries
which have a higher degree of technology for harvesting cane have up to 15
different agricultural tools to cultivate on time, eradicate brush,
fertilize, and so forth.  That saves work, it saves brush, it saves on
herbicides.  It increases the production of the plantations.  Therefore,
the factory that will be associated with this machine will provide
considerable help to the workers and the economy of the nation.

In fact, the Holguin region and province can count on an installation such
as this one due to the principle followed by our party to pay attention to
all corners of the nation and to distribute investment throughout the
country.  [applause]  Many of our bigger countryside cities did not have a
single important industry.  The revolution follows the principle of
distributing industrial, agricultural and social investments throughout the
country.  In general, the capitalist countries concentrate industry
basically in the capital cities.  In many underdeveloped capitalist
countries the few investments made are made in the capital, whether
economic or social investments.

The revolution follows the (?principle) of building industries, developing
farming, building schools, hospitals and social service institutions of all
sorts throughout the country.  And this policy will be followed in all
areas.  We are certain that to the extent that we can count on resources,
not one single corner of our country will be forgotten, because the country
[applause] the country is not just the capital.  The capital is important
and the capital city workers produce much wealth for the country and they
have a marvelous revolutionary conscience.  They help the country.
However, the country comprises almost 10 million people who are distributed
throughout the territory.  They need jobs, they have some raw materials,
they have the labor force and we are very interested in having uniform
development throughout the country.  These 2 days, the 26th and 27th, have
served to demonstrate what we contend--that everything is advancing
uniformly and also dynamically, both the social and economic development of
all the country's provinces.

Tomorrow another important industry for farming will be inaugurated in
Granma Province, and one day a modern and extensive bottle plant will be
inaugurated in (Tuna) and the plate glass industry will be located there
and also a sideromechanical industry to produce metal structures.  And we
must always analyze to see how investments are distributed throughout Cuba.
And what significance does one of these industries have.  As I was telling
you, [word indistinct] production has a value of 30 million pesos a year.
That means that in a province such as Holguin with 800,000 inhabitants, the
gross per capita production will be raised by 40 pesos.  That factory means
that the gross per capita production of each citizen, large or small, in
Holguin will be increased by 40 pesos.  And when they have another factory,
it will be increased by a similar number of pesos.  [applause]  And when
they have a metallurgy plant, it will not be 40 pesos, it will increase by
200 pesos at the very least.  It will certainly be more.  That is what
industrialization means for the increase in social wealth produced by the
workers, the increase in wealth for the whole nation.

It is difficult to express the emotion that we all felt when we saw the
first harvester leave the plant.  And to think that it was not a plant for
luxury products, such as an automobile plant.  It was a cane harvester
plant, precisely what we need.  What we need!  [applause]  Cars can provide
useful service when they are for public service or when they facilitate the
work of technicians or when they meet specific needs.  However, our future
society, as we said recently, will not be an automobile society.  We
purchase them for those who need them for their work.  Ours is a society
that must produce more means of production to enable us to develop our
country.  That is why it was especially meaningful to see one of the most
important and valuable machines that we need leave this plant.

The plant itself is beautiful.  It has magnificent and powerful
architecture.  The equipment is of extraordinary quality and the workers,
from the news that we have, are a magnificent workers' collective.
[applause]  We tell the Soviet comrades who have had so much to do with
the development of this combine, who helped us out so much in resolving our
biggest headache, we could say, who helped us so much with this plant, we
express to you our deepest thanks.  [applause]

To the leaders of the Soviet party and government, to the representatives
of the Soviet Union in Cuba, to the members of the delegation composed of
old friends of ours, Comrade Lobakov, Comrade Radionov, Comrades Nikolay,
there are two Nikolays, the director of the (Uztenkiy) factory in Moscow,
[applause] where the first combines were manufactured for our country and
we thank you, Soviet workers and technicians, who helped us build, operate
the plant and train our workers, and we congratulate in particular the
comrades of the construction brigade of this lovely plant [applause].  And
we also congratulate the workers who made so many efforts to produce the
first machine for 26 July.  [applause]

Today, we had the pleasure of decorating with the 20th anniversary order
Comrade Yurly, a Soviet, and Comrade Lima, a Cuban, [applause] who have
been the soul of this accomplishment.  We recall our visit here when the
first pillars were being erected and we asked the comrades who were
practically still training the labor force in construction and
installation:  When will this factory be finished?  And look what a
spectacle and what beauty, that of our sugarcane harvester plant now that
it is finished.  [applause] That miracle could only be produced by human
effort.  Those who want to know what a worker means, let them look at that
plant and let them see what human efforts can produce, what human sweat can
produce.  But this miracle is also the fruit of internationalism, it is the
fruit [applause] fruit of the heroic effort and the struggles of the Soviet
people, fruit of the glorious October Revolution.  [applause]  Lenin has
not been physically present among us for years, although he is always
spiritually present.  However, it is obvious that he saw these fruits, the
Bolshevik Revolution and socialism.  He saw the first efforts.

After his death, the Soviet people, based on his example and his doctrine,
learned to build factories and built thousands of factories and created the
material bases so that a small country such as ours, underdeveloped and
recently liberated from imperialism, could also posses an industry such as
this.

Today is 27th of July.  Twenty-four years ago, at this time, we were in the
mountains around Santiago, Cuba, bearing the bitterness of the initial
defeat and listening to the news of the first mass murders of the
prisoners.  But despite everything, even in the harshest monments, first
and foremost, we had the absolute certainty, which never left us, of the
justness of our cause.

Our confidence in the future of our nation, confidence in the eventual
success of our struggles, not of our personal struggles, but of the
struggles of our generation, never faded.  And we knew that either we or
others would continue on the revolutionary path.

The contrast between that day and today is great.  It is great and above
all gratifying to associate the remembrances of that 27 July and this 27
July, 24 years later.  [applause]  Now we see in a very concrete manner
what the people's dignity can do, what the people's heroism can do and what
the people's revolutionary spirit can do.  [applause]  Let this factory be
a permanent monument of the friendship between the peoples of the USSR and
Cuba.  Struggle and exert yourselves, you workers, so that this plant will
always be one of the best in the country and will be able to bear with
pride the honorable and glorious name of 60th Anniversary of the October
Revolution.  Fatherland or death, we shall overcome.  [applause]
-END-