On November 17, 2005, Fidel Castro gave a lengthy address to students and professors at the Aula Magna of the University of Havana. In this speech, Fidel Castro remarked on the bitter experience of the loss of the “first socialist state,” the Soviet Union, and the spread of corruption, inefficiency and inequality in Cuba. He stated that the primary threat to the revolution today came from within and not from outside Cuba. He then put the following provocative questions to his audience:
Is it that revolutions are doomed to fall apart, or do human beings cause revolutions to fall apart? Can individuals or society prevent revolutions from collapsing? I could immediately add another question: Do you believe that this revolutionary socialist process can fall apart, or not? Have you ever given this any thought or deeply reflected about it?
Were you aware of all these inequalities [in Cuba] that I have been talking about? Were you aware of certain generalized habits? Did you know there are people who earn 40 or 50 times the monthly salary of one of the doctors over there in the mountains of Guatemala, who are part of the “Henry Reeve” Contingent? Or in far-off Africa, or in the Himalayas at an altitude of thousands of meters, saving lives and earning 5 or 10 percent of what one of those dirty little crooks earns selling gasoline to the nouveau riche, diverting resources from our ports in trucks by the ton-load, stealing in the dollar shops, stealing in a five-star hotel by exchanging a bottle of rum for another of lesser quality and pocketing the dollars for which that person sells the drinks.
Just how many ways of stealing do we have in this country?…
I asked you a question, compañero students. I ask this in light of historical experience and I ask you all, without exception, to reflect on it: Can the [Cuban] revolutionary process be reversed, or not? What are the ideas or what level of consciousness would make the reversal of the revolutionary process impossible? When those who were the forerunners, the veterans, start disappearing and making room for new generations of leaders, what will happen and what will be accomplished? After all, we have witnessed many errors, and we didn’t recognize them.
A leader has tremendous power when he enjoys the confidence of the masses, who have complete trust in his abilities. The consequences of errors committed by those in authority are terrible, and this has happened more than once during revolutionary processes.
Such is the stuff for meditation. One studies history, one meditates on what happened here or there, on what is happening today and on what will happen tomorrow, on where each country’s process might lead, what path our own process will take, how it will get there, and what role Cuba will play…
Our country has endured limitations in resources, many limitations; but this country has also wasted resources thoughtlessly… Some thought that socialism could be constructed with capitalist methods. That is one of the great historical errors.
I don’t wish to discuss this, I don’t want to theorize. But I can give any number of examples of many things that couldn’t be resolved by those who called themselves theoreticians, who immersed themselves from head to toe in the books of Marx, Engels, Lenin and many others.
That was why I commented that one of our greatest mistakes at the beginning of, and often during, the revolution was our belief that someone else knew how to build socialism.
In my opinion, today, we have relatively clear ideas about how one goes about building socialism, but we need to be extremely clear and you will need to find answers to many questions because you will be the ones responsible for the preservation of socialism in the future.
How can we not be aware of this, so that our heroic island, this heroic people, this nation, which has written pages in the history books like no other nation in the history of humankind, might preserve the revolution? Please, do not think I am speaking as a vain man or a charlatan, or someone inclined to bluff.
Forty-six years have passed and the history of this country is well known, and the people of this nation know this history well. They also know our neighbor very well, the empire’s size and power—its strength and its wealth, its technology and its control over the World Bank, the IMF and the entire world of finance. That country has imposed on us the most incredible, iron-clad blockade, which was discussed at the United Nations where 182 nations supported Cuba, despite the risk entailed in voting against the empire.
The island has survived, not just during the days when the European socialist countries stood together with us, but after the socialist camp had disappeared and the Soviet Union had fallen apart. We forged this revolution alone, against all risks, for many long years. We realized that if the day ever came when we would be directly attacked by the United States, no one would ever fight for us and we would never ask anyone to do so…
The empire might have tanks to spare, but we have just what we need, not one to spare! All their technology will collapse like ice-cubes in the noonday sun in summer. Once we possessed only seven guns and a handful of bullets. Today, we possess much more than those seven guns. We have a people who have learned how to handle weapons; we have an entire nation, which, in spite of our errors, has such a high degree of culture, education and consciousness that it will never allow this country to become a colony again.
This country can self-destruct; this revolution can destroy itself, but they can never destroy us. We can destroy ourselves, and that would be our fault…
Let there never be a Soviet situation here, or a broken, dispersed socialist bloc! The empire will not come here to set up secret jails in which to torture the progressive men and women from other parts of this continent who are rising up today to engage in their second and final fight for independence!
Before we go back to such a repugnant and miserable existence there had better not be any memory—not even the slightest trace—of us or our descendants.
I said we are more and more revolutionary and I said this for a reason. Now, we understand the empire much better, and we are increasingly aware of what they are capable of…
We have to be resolute: we must defeat these deviations and strengthen the revolution by destroying any of the illusions that the empire may have. That is to say: either we radically defeat these problems or we die. We must repeat the motto: Patria o muerte!...
There must be an end to stupidity in the world, the abuses and the empire based on might and terror. It will disappear when all fear disappears. Every day there are more fearless countries. Every day there will be more countries that will rebel and the empire will not be able to keep its infamous system alive any longer.
Salvador Allende once spoke of things that would happen sooner or later. I believe that sooner rather than later the empire will disintegrate and the US people will enjoy more freedom than ever; they will be able to aspire to more justice than ever before; they will be able to use science and technology for their own benefit and for the betterment of humanity; they will be able to join all of us who fight for the survival of the species; they will be able to join all of us who fight for the human species.
It is only just to struggle for that cause, and that is why we must use all our energy, all our effort and all our time to be able to say with the voice of millions, or hundreds of thousands of millions of people: It is worthwhile to have been born! It is worthwhile to have lived!
* * *
Facing major intestinal surgery, on July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro temporarily handed over all his responsibilities as Cuba’s head of state and leader of the Cuban Communist Party to his brother Raúl Castro, minister for defense and first vice-president of the Council of State. He sent the following message to the Cuban people from hospital, published on August 1:
I very much appreciate all the messages sent by our compatriots and by many people throughout the world. I feel sorry for having caused so much concern and bother to our friends around the world.
I cannot make up good news, because that would be unethical; and if there were bad news, this would only be of benefit to the enemy. Given the specific situation Cuba faces and the plans designed by the empire, the information about my health condition becomes a state secret that cannot be continuously disseminated; and my compatriots should understand this. I cannot let myself be trapped by the vicious circle of the health parameters that are constantly changing during the day.
I can say that my condition is stable, but only with time will I be able to speak about the true state of my health.
The best I can say is that my condition will remain stable for many days to come before I can give a verdict.
I feel in very good spirits.
The important thing is that everything in our country is proceeding and will continue to proceed very smoothly.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces and the people are ready to defend the country.
Our compatriots will have complete information in due course, as was the case when I had a fall in Villa Clara.
We must struggle and work.
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Although not resuming any official governmental duties, from March 2007, Fidel Castro began to write regular columns for the Cuban newspaper, Granma. On June 23, 2007, in response to a message from the Union of Young Communists, he wrote:
…What is a life bereft of ideas worth? Martí once said that “trenches of ideas are more valuable than trenches of stones.” Are ideas born of human beings? Do they perish with an individual? Ideas have come into being throughout the history of the human species. They will exist as long as our species does. Never before have we faced such a serious threat, due to the combination of society’s political underdevelopment and the fruits of technology. While the possibilities of technology appear limitless, our capacity for self-destruction is beyond all reason. Genocidal wars, climate change, hunger, thirst and inequality are everywhere we look.
Human beings need to cling to hope and seek a means of survival in science itself. This is only natural. There should be no room, in that brighter future, for the horrible injustices bred by today’s developed capitalist system run by a worldwide dictatorship.
Shakespeare wrote in one of his plays, “To be or not to be.” That is the alternative young people now face. To ignore this would be to choose to live in the most idyllic of worlds, but for only a couple of decades, which represent less than a few seconds in the history of time…
If young people fail, everything will fail. It is my deepest conviction that young Cubans will struggle to prevent this. I have faith in you.
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A year after the temporary relinquishment of his positions, on July 31, 2007, Fidel Castro published a “reflection” titled “The Eternal Flame”:
This is a political reflection. To be more precise, it is another proclamation. Exactly one year ago today, on July 31, 2006, I issued the first proclamation. But the year gone by is worth 10, for I have had the opportunity to live a unique experience which has afforded me information and knowledge on vital questions facing humanity, knowledge I have conveyed to the people of Cuba with the utmost honesty.
Today, I am bombarded with questions as to when I will take up again what some call “power,” as though that power were possible without independence. The world knows a real and destructive power, wielded by a decadent empire that threatens everyone.
Raúl has already explained that as I recover I am consulted about every important decision. What will I do now? I will fight tirelessly as I have done my entire life.
One year after the first proclamation, I can share with the people of Cuba the satisfaction of seeing that what was then promised is reflected by today’s undeniable reality: Raúl, the party, the government, the National Assembly, the Union of Young Communists and grassroots and social organizations, headed by the workers, move forward, guided by the unshakable principle of unity.
With the same conviction, we continue to struggle relentlessly to have the five heroes, who provided Cuba with information on the anti-Cuba terrorist plans of the United States, released from their cruel and merciless imprisonment.
The struggle against our own deficiencies and against the insolent enemy that seeks to take possession of Cuba must be unrelenting.
On this point, I am obliged to insist on something that the leaders of the revolution can never forget: It is our duty to work untiringly to strengthen our defensive capability and preparedness, under the principle that, regardless of the circumstances, an unpayable price must be paid for any invasion.
No one should entertain the slightest illusion that the empire, which carries within it the genes of its own destruction, will negotiate with Cuba. Though we have said, again and again, that our struggle is not against the people of the United States—and this is absolutely true—those people are not in a position to curtail the apocalyptic impulses of their government or the foul, insane call for what they label a “democratic Cuba,” as though leaders here in Cuba nominate and elect themselves without the support of the overwhelming majority, which is the inflexible filter embodied by an educated and cultured people.
In a previous reflection, I invoked the historical figures of Martí, Maceo, Agramonte and Céspedes. To keep alight the memory of the innumerable people who fell in combat, of those who fought and sacrificed themselves for the homeland, Raúl lit a flame that shall burn for eternity, 50 years after the death in combat of Frank País, the young, 22-year-old hero whose example moved all of us.
Life is meaningless without ideas. There is no greater joy than to struggle in their name.