Cuba’s first declaration of independence was made by the wealthy landowner Carlos Manuel Céspedes on October 10, 1868, at La Demajagua sugar mill in Oriente province, sparking the Ten Years’ War against Spain. On October 10, 1968, Fidel Castro reminded Cubans of the historical continuity of their revolutionary struggle for nationhood.
Relatives of the heroes of our struggle for independence;
Guests;
Compañeros who are present here tonight representing every corner of our nation:
The importance of today’s commemoration surpasses that of any other occasion. It would seem that nature is again putting us to the test, but this is indeed part of the commemoration itself. Apparently, immediately after the proclamation of Cuba’s independence, when the mambises were on their way to the town of Yara, at about this same time of day, a heavy rainstorm suddenly developed—symbolically, as the first indication of the hardships they would face. Certainly, our first mambises at the time had only a few shotguns when they were about to engage in their first combat. Their ammunition got wet from the rain, and so they couldn’t use their firearms that night, that night when the first blood was shed by Cubans in this 100-year struggle, when for the first time they began a life of incredible privation that lasted for 10 long years.
Today we are commemorating the 100th anniversary of that day. This first centennial of the beginning of the revolutionary struggle in our homeland is, for us, the most significant commemoration that has been celebrated in the history of our country.
What does October 10, 1868, signify for our people? What does this glorious date mean for the revolutionaries of our nation? It simply marks the beginning of 100 years of struggle, the beginning of the revolution in Cuba, because in Cuba there has been one revolution: that which was begun by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes on October 10, 1868, the revolution that our people are now carrying forward.
There is, of course, no doubt that Céspedes symbolized the Cuban spirit of that time. He symbolized the dignity and rebelliousness of a people—still heterogeneous in nature—which began to take shape as a nation over the course of history.
It was without doubt Céspedes who, among the conspirators of 1868, was the firmest in his determination to rise up in arms. A number of interpretations have been made of his position, when in reality he had only one motive in all his actions. In every meeting of the conspirators, Céspedes always took the firmest stand. At the meeting held on August 3, 1868, in the region between Las Tunas and Camagüey, Céspedes argued for an immediate uprising. In later meetings with the revolutionaries of the province of Oriente, at the beginning of October, he insisted on the need to go into action at once. Until finally, on October 5, 1868, in a meeting at a certain sugar mill, the Rosario mill, the most resolute revolutionaries met and set October 14 as the date for the uprising.
It is historically documented that at this place Céspedes learned about a telegram sent by the governor general of Cuba on October 8 instructing the provincial authorities to arrest him.
But Carlos Manuel de Céspedes gave the authorities no time to act. He didn’t allow them to take the initiative. Then and there, he issued the necessary orders, and on October 10, at this very spot, he proclaimed Cuba’s independence.
It is true that the history of many a revolutionary movement—the vast majority, in fact—ends in prison or on the gallows. Certainly, Céspedes had a clear idea that the uprising could not be postponed for long. The delay involved in the long process of creating an organization and establishing an armed force with a significant number of weapons before beginning the struggle was too great a risk, since the conditions in our country at that time were very difficult. So Céspedes made the decision to act.
On this subject, Martí commented, “Céspedes provided the impetus; Agramonte, the virtue”—although Agramonte also provided impetus, and Céspedes also had virtue. Martí further explained Céspedes’s conflicts with other revolutionaries concerning the postponement of the uprising, saying that the postponement would “perhaps have given the repressive colonial authorities the chance to crush the uprising.”
History has proved that Céspedes was correct, that such a resolute stand proved to be the very spark that ignited a heroic war that lasted 10 years, a war begun with no resources whatsoever, by a people that was virtually unarmed and from then on had to adopt the classic strategy for obtaining weapons: seizing them from the enemy.
In the history of this 100-year struggle, this was not the only occasion when our people, lacking weapons and totally unprepared for war, saw the need for taking up the struggle and wresting weapons from the enemy. The history of our people in these 100 years of struggle confirms this axiomatic truth: If we had postponed the struggle until the ideal conditions existed, until all the necessary arms and supplies were assured, then the struggle would never have begun at all. If a people has decided to take up arms, the weapons needed will be found in the enemy’s garrison, in the oppressors’ garrisons.
This truth has been demonstrated in all our struggles, in all our wars.
When, at the beginning of the struggle in 1895, Maceo landed in the Baracoa region, he had only a handful of combatants, very poorly armed. And on a dark and stormy night, when Martí, along with Máximo Gómez, disembarked at a place on the southern coast of Oriente province—a rough, inhospitable part of the coast—he, too, was accompanied by only a few combatants. He had no army; the army was here, among the people. And the weapons were here, in the hands of the ruling forces.
A few days later, while advancing toward the interior of the province, they joined up with José Maceo, at the head of a large army, fighting near Guantánamo. Later they joined up with [Antonio] Maceo, who after landing had wandered all alone in the mountains and woods of the Baracoa region—absolutely alone! Nonetheless, just a few weeks later, when Antonio Maceo received Máximo Gómez and Martí, he had an army of 3,000 combatants from Oriente province, a well-organized army that was ready for combat.
These events provided us with an extraordinary example. They taught us a great deal during our difficult times, when we had no resources and no weapons; but these circumstances did not prove an obstacle to our struggle because there was a people in whom we had faith.
This is not only an example for Cuban revolutionaries but a tremendous example for revolutionaries all over the world.
Our revolution, with its own methods and essential characteristics, has deep roots in the history of our homeland. That is why I have said—and all revolutionaries should clearly understand this—our revolution is a single revolution, a revolution that began on October 10, 1868.
This commemoration today is like an encounter between the people and their history. It is a search by the present generation for its own roots. Nothing could teach us better how to understand what a revolution is, nothing could better teach us to understand what the term “revolution” means, than an analysis of the history of our country, a study of the history of our people, of our people’s revolutionary roots.
Perhaps there are some people who have regarded the nation and the homeland as simply a matter of natural evolution. Perhaps many think that the Cuban nation and national consciousness have always existed. And perhaps many people have seldom taken the time to think about how the Cuban nation was born, how our awareness as a people and our revolutionary consciousness came into being.
One hundred years ago, this consciousness did not exist. One hundred years ago, Cuban nationality did not exist. One hundred years ago, a nation, in the sense of a people with a common interest and a common destiny, did not actually exist. A century ago, our people were simply a motley mass, made up in the first place of citizens of the Spanish colonial power; there was also a mass of citizens born in this country, many direct descendants of Spaniards, others more distant, some of whom favored colonial rule, while others resisted that rule; and a large mass of slaves, criminally brought to our country to be pitilessly exploited after the exploiters had already virtually annihilated the indigenous population.
Of course, the owners of the country’s wealth were primarily Spaniards, who owned the businesses and the land. There were also the descendants of the Spaniards, called creoles, who owned the sugar mills and large plantations. And, of course, in a country in which there was tremendous ignorance, access to books and education was limited to a very small and exclusive group of creoles, who came from these wealthy families.
In the first decades of the last century, when the rest of Latin America had already won its independence from Spain, Spanish power still retained a very firm grip over our country, which they called the last and the most precious jewel in the Spanish crown.
The emancipation of Latin America had very little real impact on our nation. We know that the liberators of Latin America had the idea of sending an army to Cuba to liberate our people. But the truth is that there was no nation; there were no people to liberate, because there were no people who were aware of the need for liberation. At the beginning of the last century—in fact, during the entire first half of that century—the most educated sectors of the population, the people capable of forming political ideas, supported ideas that were not exactly in favor of Cuba’s independence.
At that time, the main issue under discussion was slavery. The landowners, the wealthy, the oligarchy that ruled the country, whether they were Spaniards or Cubans, greatly feared the abolition of slavery. In other words, their interests as proprietors, their interests as a class—and thinking exclusively in terms of these interests—led them to favor the annexation of Cuba to the United States.
Thus, one of the first political currents, the annexationist trend, emerged in Cuba. This political trend was based, fundamentally, on the economic interests of a class that wanted to maintain the shameful institution of slavery through annexation to the United States, where a large number of states continued to support slavery. Since the North and the South were already at odds over the question of slavery, the politicians of the southern, slave-holding states also encouraged the idea of the annexation of Cuba—with the aim of creating another state to support them and guarantee their congressional majority.
This is the background to the mid-century expedition headed by Narciso López. When we studied about Narciso López in school, we learned that he was a patriot, that Narciso López was a liberator. In fact, we were taught so many incredible distortions that—even after the republic of Cuba had supposedly been established—we were made to believe that Narciso López came to liberate Cuba. The truth is that Narciso López was encouraged by the politicians from the slave-holding South of the United States, who wanted to secure another state which would support the most inhuman and backward of institutions: the institution of slavery.
On one occasion, Martí described it as an unfortunate expedition, organized precisely by those interests. Thus in that period, the annexationist currents held sway over our country. We must bear this in mind, because this trend, for one reason or another, in one guise or another, has periodically appeared throughout the history of Cuba.
There came a time when the annexationist forces began to lose ground and another current emerged in opposition to some aspects of Spanish rule in our country. This reformist current did not demand the independence of Cuba, but instead proposed certain reforms within the Spanish colony. At that time, there was still no independence movement, no movement for real independence. The repeated deceptions and tricks of the Spanish colonial regime did, however, arouse the spirit and consciousness of a small group of Cubans, creoles who belonged to the wealthy educated and landed sectors, who were well informed about what was happening in the world. It was this group, which, for the first time, conceived of the idea of winning their rights through revolutionary methods, through armed struggle, in an open challenge to colonial rule.
Let no one think that this group of Cubans necessarily had the support of the majority of the population, that they obtained widespread support because—as I have already explained—at that time, the idea of Cuban nationhood did not exist.
There was one factor that deeply divided that sector of wealthy creoles. Naturally, the Spaniards opposed reforms, and independence even more so. But many rich creoles also opposed the idea of independence, because of the issue of slavery. Thus, the question of slavery was the fundamental issue that divided the most radical sectors, which were largely creole—for there were still no Cubans in the true sense of the word. And naturally, these creoles were primarily concerned with their own economic interests, which meant they were chiefly concerned with maintaining the institution of slavery. Therefore, they supported the annexationist movement at first, then reformism—anything but the idea of independence or the idea of winning their rights through armed struggle.
And this is a very important question, because we see how this history, this contradiction, repeats itself regularly throughout 100 years of struggle.
Finally, the first small group of patriots—a group of wealthy and illustrious gentlemen born in this country—decided to strike for their rights through armed struggle. They faced a complex situation and deep contradictions, which necessarily involved a long and hard struggle.
What really earned them the title of revolutionaries was, above all, their consciousness that there was only one way to win those rights; their decision to adopt this way; their breaking with the tradition, with reactionary ideas; and their decision to abolish slavery.
Perhaps today that decision seems simple, but the decision to end slavery was a most revolutionary measure—the most radical, revolutionary measure imaginable in a society based on slavery.
What makes Céspedes a great man is not only his firm and resolute decision to take up arms, but his actions that followed that decision. His first act after the proclamation of independence was the emancipation of his own slaves. He proclaimed his commitment to end slavery in our country, although initially he hoped for the widest possible support from Cuban landowners.
In Camagüey, the revolutionaries proclaimed the abolition of slavery from the very beginning, and the Guáimaro constitution of April 10, 1869, definitively established the right of all Cubans to freedom, completely abolishing the hateful, centuries-old institution of slavery.
As often happens in such circumstances, many of those rich Cubans were hesitant about supporting the revolution and drew back from the struggle, and in fact began to collaborate with the colonial power. In other words, as the revolution became more radical, this group of Cubans became more isolated—the same group of creoles who had already begun to depend on the support of the only people capable of carrying out the revolution, the poor people and the recently emancipated slaves.
During those first days of the revolutionary struggle in Cuba, the laws of every revolutionary process inevitably came into play, and revolutionary ideas began to undergo a process of radicalization and strengthening which continues today.
During those days, of course, there was no discussion about the ownership of the means of production. The discussion was about the ownership of some human beings by others. And when the revolution—a radical revolution from the moment it ended a centuries-old privilege, from the moment it abolished that so-called right enshrined over centuries—abolished that ownership, it carried out a profoundly radical act in the history of our country; and from that moment on, for the first time, the concept and the consciousness of nationhood began to develop, and also for the first time, the adjective “Cuban” was used to describe all those who had taken up arms and were struggling against the Spanish colonial power.
We all know how the war was waged. We all know that very few nations in the world had the opportunity or were able to endure such great, incredibly difficult sacrifices as those endured by the Cuban people during that 10-year struggle. To ignore those sacrifices is a crime against justice, a crime against culture; it is a crime for any revolutionary.
While our sister nations of Latin America which had freed themselves from Spanish domination some decades before were living under servitude, under the tyranny of the social interests which in those nations replaced the Spanish tyranny, our country, absolutely alone and single-handedly—and not the whole country, but a small portion of our country—fought for 10 years against a still powerful European nation which had, and mobilized, an army of hundreds of well-armed men to combat the Cuban revolutionaries.
It is a recognized fact that Cuba received virtually no help from abroad. We all know the story of the schisms abroad, which obstructed and finally blocked the aid from the exiles to the Cubans-in-arms.
Nevertheless, our people—making incredible sacrifices, and heroically carrying the weight of that war, overcoming great difficulties—succeeded in mastering the art of war and in organizing a small army, which armed itself with the enemy’s weapons.
From the ranks of the poor, from the ranks of the fighters who came from the people, from the ranks of the peasants and the emancipated slaves—for the first time, officers and leaders of the revolutionary movement rose from the ranks of the people. The most worthy patriots, the most outstanding fighters, began to come to the fore, among them the Maceo brothers, examples of these exceptional men.
After 10 years this heroic struggle was defeated—not by Spanish arms, but by one of the worst enemies the Cuban revolutionary movement has always had—by dissension among the Cubans themselves, who sank into quarrels, regionalism, caudillismo. In other words this enemy—which was permanently present in the revolutionary process—destroyed that struggle.
It is a recognized fact, for example, that Máximo Gómez, after invading Las Villas province and achieving great military victories, was practically expelled from that province because of regionalism and sectionalism. This is not the time to analyze the role of each person in that struggle; instead, it is our intention to analyze the process and describe how disagreements, regionalism, sectionalism and caudillismo ruined that heroic 10-year effort.
But we should also keep in mind that we cannot expect those Cubans—those first Cubans who laid the foundations of our country—to have the level of political consciousness that we have today, even though they had a profound patriotic consciousness. We cannot analyze the events of that period within the framework of today’s concepts. Things that are quite clear today, unquestionable truths, neither were nor could have been clear at that time. Communication was difficult; the Cubans had to fight under great hardship; they were constantly persecuted and, of course, we could not expect those problems to have been avoided—problems that arose again in the struggle of 1895, problems that arose again during the second half of this century, throughout our revolutionary process.
After the Cuban forces had been undermined by the disagreements, and the enemy stepped up its offensive, those weaker revolutionary elements began to vacillate. And it was at the time of the Zanjón Pact that ended that heroic war that Antonio Maceo emerged as the truest representative of the people, coming from the most humble ranks of the people, with all his strengths and his exceptional greatness.
That decade gave rise to exceptional leaders, with incredible merits, such as Céspedes, Agramonte, Máximo Gómez, Calixto García and countless others—the list is endless. By no means are we trying to judge the merits—which were all extraordinary—of each one of them; we simply want to explain how the process developed, and how, when that 10-year-long struggle ended, how Antonio Maceo came to represent a radical, revolutionary consciousness and spirit, in the face of the Zanjón Pact. The Zanjón treaty was more than a treaty, it was a surrender of Cuban arms. In the historic Baraguá Protest, Maceo affirmed his intention of continuing the struggle, expressing the most resolute and unyielding spirit of our people by declaring that he did not accept the Zanjón Pact. And, in fact, the war continued.
Even after the agreements had been reached, Maceo scored a series of crushing victories against the Spanish forces. But at that time, Maceo was reduced to the role of commander of part of the forces of Oriente province; as a black man at a time when there was so much racism and prejudice, Maceo did not have the support of all the revolutionaries because, unfortunately, reactionary and unjust prejudices were held by many of the combatants and their leaders. That is why, although Maceo saved the flag that time, saved the cause, and raised the revolutionary spirit of the people of nascent Cuba to its highest level, in spite of his tremendous ability and heroism, he could not continue to wage the war, and he was forced to wait for the conditions that would allow him to resume the struggle.
The defeat of the revolutionary forces in 1878 also had its political aftermath. Taking advantage of the sense of defeat and disappointment, those people who, decades before, had represented the annexationist and reformist currents, began to promote a new political current, that of autonomy, which was counterposed to the radical theses of independence and the only road to achieve that independence: armed struggle.
So, after the Ten Years’ War a new pacifist tendency, this conciliationist current emerged in Cuban politics. In the same way, the annexationist tendency was revived to a certain degree, a tendency which still existed at the beginning of the Ten Years’ War, when many Cubans naively viewed the United States as the model of a free country, a democratic country, and recalled that nation’s struggle for independence, the [US] Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s policy and so on. There were still Cubans who at the beginning of the war in 1868 held vestiges of that annexationist tendency, which they gradually abandoned in the course of the armed struggle.
A new stage began, lasting almost 20 years from 1878 to 1895. This period was of great importance in the development of our country’s political awareness. The revolutionary banners were not abandoned; the radical theses were not forgotten. On the basis of that tradition created by the people of Cuba, on the basis of that consciousness born of the heroism and struggle of those 10 years, a new, even more radical and advanced revolutionary thought began to emerge.
That war brought to the fore many leaders from among the ranks of the people, but that war also inspired the person who was, without doubt, the most brilliant and most universal of all Cuban political figures: José Martí.
Martí was very young when the Ten Years’ War broke out. He suffered imprisonment and exile; his health was not good, but he had an extraordinarily brilliant mind. In his student years, he was a champion of the cause of independence, and when barely 20 years old, he wrote some of the finest documents in the political history of our country.
After the Cuban forces were defeated in 1878, Martí became the main theoretician and champion of revolutionary ideas. He took up the banners of Céspedes, Agramonte and the heroes who fell in that 10-year struggle, and developed Cuban revolutionary ideas of that period to their highest level. Martí understood the factors that led to the failure of the Ten Years’ War. He analyzed the causes profoundly and dedicated his energies to preparing for a new war. He planned this war for almost 20 years without ever becoming discouraged, developing his revolutionary theory, uniting forces, rallying the veterans of the Ten Years’ War. Ideologically, he fought the autonomists and the annexationists that opposed the revolutionary current in the Cuban political arena.
Martí advocated his ideas constantly and at the same time organized the Cuban émigrés [in the United States]; in fact, Martí organized the first revolutionary party—that is, the first party that united all the revolutionaries. With outstanding tenacity, moral courage and heroism, with no resources other than his intelligence, his convictions and his correct position, he dedicated himself to that task.
We can state that our country had the privilege of having at its disposal one of the richest political treasures, one of the most valuable sources of political education and knowledge, in the thought, writings, books, speeches and all the other extraordinary works of José Martí.
We Cuban revolutionaries, more than anyone else, need to study these ideas as thoroughly as possible, to study that inexhaustible source of political, revolutionary and human wisdom.
We haven’t the slightest doubt that Martí was the greatest political and revolutionary thinker from this continent. It is not necessary to make historical comparisons, but Martí worked in exile under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, fighting without resources against the colonial power after a military defeat, against those sectors that had at their disposal the press and the economic resources with which to combat revolutionary ideas. Martí labored to free a small country controlled by hundreds of thousands of soldiers armed to the teeth, a country not only burdened with that domination but also threatened by a still greater power—the danger of its absorption by a powerful neighbor whose imperialist claws were visibly growing. With his pen, with his words, Martí tried to inspire the Cubans and develop their consciousness in order to overcome the discord and correct the errors in leadership and methods that had brought about defeat in the Ten Years’ War, while at the same time uniting the émigrés around the same revolutionary ideas, uniting the older generation that began the struggle and the younger generation, uniting those outstanding and distinguished military heroes. He combated, in the field of ideas, the Spanish colonialists; the campaigns of the autonomists, whose pettifogging, electoral and deceitful methods would never lead our country anywhere; and the new annexationist currents that included not only the wealthy sectors that were committed to maintaining the institution of slavery, but also the developing economic and political forces of the emerging imperialist power. Considering all this, we can state with assurance that the Apostle of our independence faced greater difficulties and problems than have ever been faced by any other revolutionary and political leader in the history of this continent.
Thus, a new star appeared in the firmament of our country, that complete patriot, that complete human being, that complete model, who—together with Maceo and Máximo Gómez, the battle heroes—recommenced the war for Cuban independence…
So the war of 1895 began, a war equally filled with extraordinary heroism, with incredible sacrifices, with military feats. But as we all know, it was a war that did not attain the objectives pursued by our ancestors; it did not end with a complete victory—although none of our struggles really ended in defeat, because each one was a step forward, a leap toward the future. The fact is that at the end of that struggle, Spanish colonial power, Spanish domination, was replaced by the domination of the United States over our country—political and military domination achieved through intervention.
Cubans had fought for 30 years; tens of thousands of Cubans had died on the battlefields; hundreds of thousands perished in that struggle, while the Yankees lost only a few hundred soldiers in Santiago de Cuba. They seized Puerto Rico, they seized Cuba, they seized the Philippine archipelago, 6,000 miles from the United States, and they seized other possessions. This was something that Martí and Maceo had feared the most. Political consciousness and revolutionary thought had already developed to such an extent that the key leaders of the War of Independence in 1895 had very clear, absolutely clear, ideas about the objectives, and fervently rejected the idea of annexation—and not just annexation, but even the intervention of the United States in that war.
Tonight, one of Martí’s best known passages was read here, the letter written on the eve of his death, which is almost his testament, in which he relates his essential ideas to his friend, what he had struggled for, what had inspired his actions and his life, what deep inside gave him the most joy—to live on the battlefield, to have the chance to give his life, and to fulfill his duty “of preventing the United States, as Cuba obtains her independence, from extending its control over the Antilles and consequently falling with that much more force on the countries of our America.”
This is one of the most revealing and profound documents, typifying the revolutionary and radical thought of Martí, who was already exposing imperialism for what it was, who had foreseen its role in this hemisphere, and who had described it with an analysis that could very well be considered Marxist, because of its thorough and dialectical nature and because of his ability to see that the US policy toward the rest of the world was based on the unsolvable contradictions of that society. As early as 1895 Martí was describing the future so clearly, writing with his powerful eloquence and sharply attacking the annexationist tendencies as the worst political trends in Cuba. Our generation is amazed by not only Martí, but by Maceo, as well, because of his clear vision, his ability to thoroughly analyze the phenomenon of imperialism.
It is a well-known fact that on one occasion, when a young man spoke to Maceo about the possibility of the Cuban star joining the constellation in the US flag, Maceo answered that although he thought it would be impossible, perhaps that would be the only issue on which he would side with Spain.
Like Martí, a few days before his death, Maceo wrote with extraordinary clarity of his unyielding opposition to US intervention in the struggle in Cuba, stating, “It is preferable to rise or fall without help than to contract a debt of gratitude to such a powerful neighbor.” Prophetic words, inspired words, words which our two most important leaders in the war of 1895 expressed a few days before their deaths.
We all know what happened. When Spanish power was virtually exhausted, motivated by purely imperialist aims, the US government joined the war, after 30 years of Cuban struggle. With the aid of the mambí fighters, the US forces landed, seized the city of Santiago de Cuba and sank Admiral Cervera’s fleet, which consisted of museum pieces and was sent out to a certain sinking out of pure, traditional Quixotism, since the fleet was an easy target for the US battleships. Calixto García was not even allowed to enter Santiago de Cuba. The United States completely ignored the revolutionary government-in-arms, completely ignored the leaders of the revolution. It negotiated with Spain without Cuba’s participation, and they decided on the military intervention of their armies in our country.
They proceeded to do this and, in fact, took over our country both militarily and politically.
The people were not really informed of this. Why? Because who would be interested to inform them of this monstrous fact? Who? The old autonomists? The old reformists? The old annexationists? The old slave owners? Who? Those who had been allies of the colony during the wars? Who? Those who didn’t want Cuban independence, preferring annexation to the United States? They had no interest in explaining these historical truths, these bitter truths to our people.
What did they tell us in school? What did those lying books tell us about these events? They told us that the imperialist power was not an imperialist power, but that the US government, out of its generosity and its desire to give us liberty, intervened in the war, and that because of this we were free. We were not free because of the thousands of Cubans who died during 30 years of combat, we were not free because of the heroic deeds of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the “Father of our Country,” who began the struggle and who even preferred to see his son executed rather than make a single concession; we were not free because of the heroic efforts of so many Cubans; we were not free because of Martí’s teachings; we were not free because of the heroic feats of Máximo Gómez, Calixto García and all the other illustrious leaders; we were not free because of the blood shed by Antonio Maceo with his more than 20 wounds and his heroic death at Punta Brava. We were free simply because Theodore Roosevelt landed with a few Rangers at Santiago de Cuba to fight against an exhausted and practically defeated army, and because US battleships sank one of Cervera’s old junks in Santiago Bay.
These were the monstrous lies, the incredible falsehoods, that were taught in our schools.
Perhaps few things can help so much to make us revolutionaries as recalling the extent of that infamy; the extent to which the truth was distorted; the extent to which cynicism was used to destroy the consciousness of the people about their path, their destiny; the extent to which the people were kept criminally ignorant of their own merits, virtues and capacities—a people that made sacrifices equaled by few peoples in the world—in order to destroy their self-confidence and faith in the future.
Those who collaborated with Spain during those 30 years, those who fought in the colony, those who shed the blood of the mambises, now became the allies of the Yankee interventionists, of the Yankee imperialists, and tried to do what they had not been able to do for 30 years. They even tried to distort the history of our country, altering it to fit their own interests: annexationist interests, imperialist interests, anti-Cuban and counterrevolutionary interests.
Who collaborated with the imperialist intervention? The Spanish merchants and the autonomists. It must be pointed out that in the first government of the republic there were several ministers who came from the ranks of the autonomists, who had condemned the revolution. They became allies of the large landholders, of the annexationists, of the worst elements. And under the protection of the military intervention, under the protection of the Platt Amendment, they began without the slightest scruples to cleverly adulterate the republic and pave the way for taking over our country.
This history must be known, our people must know their own history; today’s feats, today’s achievements, today’s triumphs must not make us forget—unjustly and criminally—our historical roots. Our present consciousness, our present ideas, our present political and revolutionary development—assets that we have today but which those who began the struggle could not have had—must not make us underestimate for one moment or forget for a single instant that what we have today rightfully belongs not so much to this generation, but—and it must be said with all sincerity—to those who rose up on this very site 100 years ago, freed the slaves, proclaimed independence and started out on the road of heroism, initiating the struggle that served as an encouragement and example for later generations.
That example inspired the generation of 1895; that example inspired revolutionary combatants throughout 60 years of the false republic; and that example of heroism and that tradition inspired the combatants who fought the most recent battles in our country.
This is not just said for this occasion, because we are commemorating this anniversary; on the contrary, it has always been said—it was said at the Moncada trial. When the judges asked for the name of the intellectual author of the attack on the Moncada barracks, we replied without hesitation: “Martí was the intellectual author of the attack on the Moncada barracks!”
It is possible that ignorance, or forgetfulness, or the euphoria of present achievements might lead the present generation to underestimate how much our people owe those fighters.
They were the ones who paved the way; they were the ones who created the conditions; and they were the ones who had to swallow the most bitter dregs: the bitter draft that was the Zanjón Pact, the end of the struggle in 1878; the even more bitter draft that was Yankee intervention, the bitter draft of the transformation of this country into a colonial establishment and a strategic pontoon—as Martí had feared; the bitter draft of seeing opportunists and corrupt politicians, the enemies of the revolution, allied with the imperialists, ruling the country.
They had to live through the exceedingly bitter experience of seeing this country governed by a Yankee ambassador; and seeing an insolent functionary aboard a battleship anchored in Havana Bay issuing instructions to everyone—to ministers, to the head of the army, to the president, to the House of Representatives, to the Senate.
These are well-known facts, historically confirmed facts. In other words, they are not so well known as confirmed, because for a long time the masses were not aware of the facts; for a long time they were kept in ignorance. It is necessary to go to the archives, to exhume the documents, so that our people, our present generation, can have a clear idea of how the imperialists governed; how, through memorandums and papers, and with great insolence, they governed this country—a country they pretended to call a “free,” “independent” and “sovereign” nation. Our people should know what kind of liberators these were and the crude and repugnant methods they used in their relations with this country. Our present generation must be informed about all of this because if it is not informed its revolutionary consciousness will not be sufficiently developed. If this country’s origins and history are not known the political culture of our masses will not be sufficiently well developed. We could not even understand Marxism, we could not even call ourselves Marxists, if we didn’t begin with an understanding of our own revolutionary process and of the process of the development of consciousness and political and revolutionary thought in our country over the period of 100 years. If we don’t understand that, we can know nothing of politics.
Unfortunately, we lived in ignorance of many historical facts for a long time. If it was convenient for those who allied themselves here with the imperialists to conceal the history of Cuba, to distort Cuban history, to play down the heroism, the extraordinary merits, the thought and example of our heroes, it is we, the revolutionaries, who are called upon to bring that history to light, in knowing that history, in knowing our roots, in divulging those truths.
They had as many reasons to hide that history and ignore it as we have to demand that all stages of that history, from October 10, 1868, until today, be made known. That history is filled with very harsh, very painful, very bitter, very humiliating episodes, from the Platt Amendment until 1959.
Our people must also be informed of how the imperialists took over our economy. Our people have suffered from the consequences of this. They don’t know how it happened, but they know it happened, they know that it did happen.
The men and women of this country—above all, those who live in this province, in which the struggle was initiated and which continued to be the scene of constant struggle for the nation’s liberty—know that almost overnight, everything passed from Spanish hands to the hands of the North Americans. They know that the railroads, the electricity companies, the best lands, the sugar mills, the mines, everything passed into their hands. They know that this happened; and they know that between 1915 and 1920 workers had to be brought in from other islands of the Antilles because of the labor shortage, and only some years later, during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s—each decade worse than the one before—there was more unemployment, more and more destitute families, more and more ignorance.
In this country, where today the number of workers—liberated workers—is insufficient to develop the infinite wealth of our soil, to develop the unlimited abilities of our people, workers remained idle for entire months and had to beg for work, and not just during the “dead season,” but at the height of the harvest season as well.
These lands were drenched with the blood of tens of thousands of our forebears, tens of thousands of our mambises. The Cuban people under the truncated republic were deprived not only of the right to receive the fruits of their sacrifices, but even of the right to work. Our fighters for independence shed their blood for the future happiness of this country, but their brothers, their descendants and their children did not even have the right to earn a living by the sweat of their brow.
What kind of a republic was that in which not even a person’s right to work was guaranteed? What kind of republic was it, in which not only culture, so essential to human beings, but even justice and the possibility of good health, instead of disease and epidemics, were not guaranteed? What kind of a republic was it, that could not offer the least opportunity to the children of the people—the people, who had not only given their lives in the hundreds of thousands, but who had done so at a time when the number of true Cubans did not even reach a million; the people, who had immolated themselves in a singular holocaust? What kind of a republic was that in which a person was not even guaranteed the right to work, the right to earn their daily bread on that land so often drenched with the blood of patriots?
And they tried to pass that off to us as a republic; they tried to pass it off as a just state. In few other regions of the country have the people suffered directly from these experiences as have the people of Oriente—from the tens of thousands of peasants who, in order to live, had to seek refuge in the mountains, almost all the way up to Turquino Peak, to the cane field workers or their parents who lived through those terrible years. What kind of future awaited this country!
The fact of the matter was that the Yankees took over our economy. In 1898, US holdings in Cuba amounted to 50 million pesos; in 1906 they amounted to some 160 million; and in 1927, to 1.45 billion.
I don’t believe there is another country in which economic penetration has taken place so incredibly quickly, allowing the imperialists to take over our best lands, all our mines, our natural resources. They controlled the public services, the greater part of the sugar industry, the most efficient industries, the electricity industry, the telephone service, the railroads, the most important businesses and the banks.
In taking over the banks, they began to practically buy the country with the Cubans’ own money, because those who had money, whether it was a little or a lot, deposited it in the banks. And the owners of the banks controlled that money.
And so, by 1927, in a period of less than 30 years, the imperialists’ holdings in Cuba had climbed to 1.45 billion pesos. They had taken over everything, with the compliance of the annexationists, neo-annexationists and autonomists—those who had fought against Cuba’s independence. With the help of the US intervention governments, they received incredible concessions.
In 1901 a certain Mr. Preston bought 75,000 hectares of land in the Nipe Bay area for $400,000—that is, less than $6 a hectare. The valuable hardwood forests that covered that land and that went into the furnaces of the sugar mills were alone worth many times more, incomparably more than that sum. With bulging pockets, they came to a country impoverished by 30 years of struggle, to buy up the nation’s best land at less than $6 a hectare.
In that same year, a certain Mr. McCann bought 32,000 hectares in the southern part of Pinar del Río province. And—if my memory doesn’t fail me—Mr. James bought 27,000 hectares of land that same year at Puerto Padre.
In other words, in just one year—their pockets bulging with money—they acquired well over 100,000 hectares of the nation’s best land from a people still prostrated by the impoverishment of 30 years of struggle. And so it was that they were able to take over this country—without bloodshed, and at bargain prices.
Our people must know this history.
I cannot imagine why, faced with tasks as urgent and important as the need for research on the history of this country, for delving into the roots of this country, only a few people have devoted themselves to this. Too many prefer to devote their talents to other matters—looking for easy success through “effect” writing—when they have such an incredible source, such an extraordinary wealth of material at their disposal in which to discover the important roots of this country. We are more interested in this than what some—following the latest fad—are trying to introduce into our culture, while the serious task, the imperative task, the urgent task, the just task of delving into the roots of this country awaits.
As revolutionaries, when we say it is our duty to defend this land, to defend this country, to defend this revolution, we must realize that we are not defending the efforts of just 10 years; we must realize that we are not just defending the revolution of this generation. We must realize that we are defending the efforts of 100 years. We must realize that we are defending not just that for which thousands of our comrades fell, but that for which hundreds of thousands of Cubans fell during these 100 years!
With the victory of 1959, fundamental questions for our people’s lives presented themselves once again—this time on a much higher plane. If in 1868 one of the matters under discussion was whether or not to abolish slavery, to abolish the ownership of one human being by another, in our era, in our century, with the advent of our revolution, the fundamental question, the essential question, that which can define the revolutionary nature of this era and of this revolution, is no longer the question of the ownership of human beings, but that of the ownership of other human beings’ means of earning a living.
Whereas formerly the debate centered on whether a person could have 10, 100 or 1,000 slaves, now it is on whether a Yankee enterprise, an imperialist monopoly, has the right to own 10,000, 100,000 or 200,000 hectares of land; now it is about what right the slaveholders of yesterday have to own the best lands of our country. Whereas formerly the debate was about what right a person had to claim another human being as their property, now it is about what right a monopoly or anyone—the owner of a bank that holds the money of all depositors, a monopoly or an oligarch—has to own a sugar mill where 1,000 workers labor; whether it is fair that a monopoly or an oligarch owns an electricity plant, a mine or an industry worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions, or tens of millions of dollars; whether it is justifiable for the members of an exploiting minority to own chains of warehouses solely in order to line their own pockets by raising the prices of all products imported into this country.
If, during the past century, it was argued whether or not a person had the right to own other human beings, in this century—in short—it is argued whether individuals have the right to own the means by which human beings live. In reality, what existed was no more than a fictitious freedom. There could be no real abolition of slavery as long as human beings formally liberated from being owned by others still had to earn their living working on the land and in the industries that were and continued to be the property of other individuals. Those who had formerly enslaved human beings directly now enslaved and exploited them equally ruthlessly through a monopoly on the wealth of the country and the means of production.
That is why, if a revolution in 1868 had to begin by setting the slaves free to be called a revolution, a revolution in 1959, to have the right to be called a revolution, is obliged to liberate the wealth monopolized and exploited by a minority for its exclusive benefit, to liberate society from the monopoly on wealth by virtue of which a minority exploited other human beings.
What difference was there between the slave’s quarters of 1868 and the wage laborer’s quarters of 1958? What difference was there, except that—with human beings allegedly free—the owners of the plantations and sugar mills in 1958 did not care whether or not that worker died of hunger? If he died, 10 workers were waiting to take his job. Since workers were no longer a piece of property that could be bought or sold on the market, the owner did not care whether or not a worker, his wife or his children died. This is the reality that the people of Oriente know only too well.
And so the direct ownership of human beings was suppressed, but the ownership of human beings by private property and a monopoly on wealth and the means of production endured. To eradicate the exploitation of one human being by another was to suppress the right to the private ownership of that wealth, to suppress the right to monopolize those means of livelihood which belong and must belong to society as a whole.
If slavery was a brutal and repugnant institution, a direct means of exploiting human beings, capitalism was an equally brutal and repugnant institution that also needed to be abolished. And, if the abolition of slavery is completely understood by present generations, the day will come when the coming generations will be astonished to learn that a foreign monopoly—managed by an insolent official—once owned over 100,000 hectares of land, of which it was the lord and master, the owner of lives and property, just as we are shocked today when we learn that there once was a time when one person was the owner of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of slaves.
Whereas the idea of a human being in chains was reasonable for the generations of that time, that idea will seem monstrous to coming generations—even more so than to our own generation. People often become accustomed to seeing monstrous things without realizing their monstrosity, and become accustomed to seeing certain social phenomena as naturally as they see the moon come out at night or the sun rise in the morning, or rain or sickness, so that in the end, they consider monstrous institutions as normal as natural disasters or illness.
Naturally, the privileged who monopolized the wealth of this country were hardly likely to teach the people these ideas, these concepts, to open their eyes or provide them with teachers and schools. It would not be the privileged and the exploiting minority who would vindicate the history of our country, who would honor with dignity those who made possible a future of progress for our homeland. Those who were interested not in revolution but in preventing revolutions, those who were interested not in justice but in prosperity and enriching themselves through injustice, would never be interested in revealing to the people their beautiful history, their just revolution, their heroic struggle for dignity and justice.
That is why it has fallen to this generation to have meaningful experiences and to learn of the expeditions—preceded by bombardments and pirate-like attacks, organized abroad by the “grandees” of imperialism and here by those who in a matter of 30 years took over the wealth of this country—to crush the revolution and to reestablish a monopoly on our wealth by privileged minorities, by exploiters of human beings.
It has also fallen to this generation to recognize the annexationists of today, the eternal weaklings, the “volunteers” of today—that is, not in the sense the word has now, or in the sense the word “guerrilla” has today, but in the sense of yesterday—”volunteers” of yesterday, “guerrilleros” of yesterday, which is the name they gave at that time to those who fought against revolutionary combatants, to those who murdered students, to those who made machete attacks on wounded patriots when they were recovering in the poor, ill-equipped and undefended field hospitals.
We recognize them in those who now attempt to destroy the wealth of the country, in those who serve the imperialists, in those cowards unfit for work and sacrifice who desert this country. When the hour of hard work arrived, when the time to build the homeland arrived, when the time came to liberate our natural and human resources and fulfill the destiny of our people, they abandoned their country and went to their masters abroad, placing themselves at the service of the infamous cause of imperialism, the enemy not only of our people but of all the peoples of the world.
So it has fallen to this generation to understand the ideological struggle against the electoralists and in defense of the legitimate revolutionary ideas; it has fallen to this generation to understand the great ideological battles that followed the triumph of the revolution; to go through the experiences of the revolutionary process; to confront Yankee imperialism, its blockade, its hostility and its defamation campaigns against the revolution; and to face the tremendous problem of underdevelopment.
We must point out that the struggle repeats itself on a different scale but also under different conditions. In 1868, in 1895 and during the nearly 60 years of the pseudo-republic the revolutionaries were a minority; the levers of power were in the hands of the reactionaries; the colonialists and the autonomists held power and made laws against the revolutionaries. This held true throughout the struggle of 1895 and continued until 1959.
Today our people face similar tendencies: the same old reactionary ideas brought back to life, the new interpreters of autonomism and annexationism, the pro-imperialists and the imperialists, but under very different conditions.
In 1868 the Cubans organized their own government in the backcountry. It was beset with dissension and discord. Similar things have taken place in the course of these 100 years. The heroic proletarian combatants of the years of the pseudo-republic—Baliño, Mella, Guiteras, Jesús Menéndez—had to confront police thugs and the exploiters backed by their foremen and Rural Guards. They were cut down by murderous bullets while in exile or here in their own country—in Mexico or in El Morrillo or Manzanillo—or, like so many other revolutionaries, such as this town’s native son, Paquito Rosales, they were simply made to disappear.
Throughout 90 of these 100 years, the revolution had been unable to cover the whole country; the revolution had been unable to take power; the revolution had been unable to constitute itself as a government; the revolution had been unable to release the tremendous force of the people; the revolution had been unable to set the country in motion. It is not a case of the revolutionaries of yesterday being less capable than those of today—no, not at all. It is rather that the revolutionaries of today had the privilege of gathering the fruits of the hard and bitter struggles waged by the revolutionaries of yesterday. We, the revolutionaries of today, found the way already paved, a nation already formed; a people with an already well-developed awareness of its common interests; a more homogeneous people, a truly Cuban people; a people with a history, a history written by these leaders; a people with a tradition of struggle, of rebellion and heroism. It was the present generation that had the privilege of reaching the stage in which the people—after 90 years—constituted themselves in power, established themselves in power. It was no longer the power of the colonialists and their allies; it was no longer the power of the intervening Yankee imperialists and their allies, the autonomists and neo-annexationists—the enemies of the revolution.
That is why at that time the power of the people, the genuine power of the people and for the people, was constituted. Not the power confronting the people, against the people—the kind of power that had been known for more than four centuries, since the time of the colony, since the Spaniards, right in this zone, burned the Indian Hatuey alive, right through until Batista’s henchmen, on the eve of their defeat, murdered revolutionaries, burning them to death. For the first time, this popular power confronted the monopolies, the vested interests; the privileges, the powerful social magnates. It was the power confronting privilege and against privilege, confronting exploitation, confronting colonialism and confronting imperialism. For the first time, this power was with the homeland and for the homeland; for the first time, it was the power of the people and for the people. It was not the weapons of the mercenaries, the weapons of the imperialists, but the weapons that the people took away from the oppressor, took away from the gendarmes and the guardians of the interests of imperialism, that became the weapons of the people. The people became an army. For the first time in history, this generation had the opportunity to initiate its work on the basis of this new power, on this revolutionary power that had extended to the entire country.
Naturally, the class enemies, the exploiters, the oligarchs, the imperialists—whose holdings were worth 1.45 billion—could not possibly support this power; they were against it. The corrupt politicians; the sinecure holders; the parasites of every kind; the speculators; the exploiters of gambling and vice; the propagators of prostitution; the thieves; those who openly stole the funds earmarked for hospitals, schools and roads; the owners of hundreds of thousands of hectares of the best lands; the owners of the finest factories; the exploiters of our farmers and workers, could not support that power—they have to oppose that power.
Since then, the people in power have been waging their struggle—a no less difficult, no less arduous struggle—confronting the Yankee imperialists and against Yankee imperialism, against the most powerful imperialist country, the world’s gendarme of reaction. A power accustomed to destroying governments that show the slightest leaning toward the road to liberation, accustomed to overthrowing them by means of a coup d’état or a mercenary invasion, accustomed to destroying political movements by means of economic reprisals—its methods, its resources and its power have crashed against the fortress of the revolution.
The revolution is the result of 100 years of struggle, the result of the development of the political movement and revolutionary consciousness, armed with the most up-to-date political thinking, armed with the most up-to-date, scientific concept of society, history and economics—which is Marxism-Leninism—the weapon that completed the wealth, the arsenal of revolutionary experience and the history of our country.
Our people are armed not only with that experience and that consciousness; they are also a people that has been able to overcome the factions that divided it, the group divisions, caudillismo and regionalism, to become a single, undivided revolutionary people. When we speak of the people, we speak of revolutionaries; when we speak of a people ready to fight and to die, we are not thinking of the gusanos [literally: worms], of the few faint-hearted individuals who are still around. We are thinking of those who have the legitimate right to be called Cubans and the Cuban people—the same legitimate right our combatants and our mambises had—a people integrated, united and led by a revolutionary party, a party that constitutes a militant vanguard.
What did Martí do, in order to make the revolution? He organized the party of the revolution, organized the party of the revolutionaries. There was only one revolutionary party. Those who were not in the party of the revolutionaries were in the party of the Spanish colonialists, in the party of the annexationists or in the party of the autonomists.
In the same way today, the people with their party, which is their vanguard, armed with the most up-to-date concepts, armed with the experience of 100 years of struggle, having developed their revolutionary political and patriotic consciousness to the highest level, have succeeded in overcoming age-old vices and have built this unity and this power of the revolution.
The Ten Years’ War—as Martí said—was lost not because the enemy seized the sword from our hands, but because we let the sword fall. After 10 years of struggle, confronting imperialism, neither have the imperialists been able to seize our sword, and our people, united, will never let it fall!
The revolution enjoys the privilege of having with it—and having at its disposal—the united revolutionary people, whose consciousness is constantly developing and whose unity is indestructible. A revolutionary people armed with the most revolutionary concepts, with the most profound patriotism—an internationalist consciousness in no way excludes patriotism. Revolutionary patriotism is perfectly reconcilable with revolutionary internationalism. A people armed with such resources and under such favorable circumstances will be an invincible people.
This anniversary comes at a time when the development of a revolutionary consciousness and the people’s spirit of work are at their highest. Proof of this are the feats such as the one achieved on October 8, when in celebration of the centennial and also in honor of the Heroic Guerrilla [Che Guevara]—who met a hero’s death on a day that almost coincided with October 10—the people decided to make an effort worthy of this celebration and proceeded to plant 13,815 hectares of land with sugarcane in a single day.
Let this be a simple example of what a people can do when its intelligence, energy and human potential are put into motion.
I must say that the figure I just gave you surpasses the highest, the most optimistic figure that could ever have been imagined. It takes a truly hard-working people to do these things. It takes a truly conscientious and inspired people to do these things.
This act of homage, this anniversary, takes place at the time when the development of the revolution is at its highest in every field. This in no way means that in these 100 years we have reached the summit of the struggle, the end of the struggle. No one can tell how many years of struggle we have ahead of us. But one thing must be said: We have never been in a better situation that the one we are in today; we have never been more organized or better armed, not only with weapons, with “hardware,” but also with thoughts and ideas. Never, never before, have we been better armed with both ideas and “hardware,” or better organized. And we shall continue to arm ourselves in both ways. We shall continue to organize ourselves and make ourselves ever stronger.
We have imperialism right there, virtually across the street, and its attitude is insolent and threatening. The most reactionary forces are coming to the fore, and the most reactionary, aggressive groups are becoming dominant factors in that country’s policy.
We commemorate this anniversary, this centennial, these 100 years, not in an atmosphere of beatific peace, but rather in an atmosphere of struggle, threats and danger. But never before have we been so aware, never before have things become so clear to all of us.
This generation will not limit itself to having reached the end of a stage or certain specified objectives; to having been able to reach a goal or complete the historic task today: that of having a free homeland, a truly free homeland, a victorious revolution, a power of the people and for the people. This revolution must defend this power, because our enemies will not resign themselves to this state of affairs easily, because the imperialists, making use of all their resources, will not let us live in peace. The enemy’s hatred grows to the extent that the revolution grows stronger, to the extent to which their efforts have been futile.
How far can they go? They go to incredible extremes in every field. In fact, at times they even look totally ridiculous.
Only recently, we read a news dispatch which mentioned a Spanish priest in Miami who organized prayer meetings against the revolution—a Spanish priest who, according to the dispatch, prayed for the destruction of the revolution and even held a mass and prayed that the revolutionary leaders would die in an accident or in an assassination attempt as a way to crush the revolution.
How wrong these people are, if they believe that the revolution can be crushed, in whatever way! We don’t even have to say it. Now less than ever before! But we must say that the philosophy of the reactionaries, this philosophy of the imperialists, certainly attracts our attention.
They themselves admitted that whenever they organized a counterrevolutionary meeting, less than 200 people showed up; but when they organized a prayer meeting, thousands of gusanos came running. This only proves that all the counterrevolution has been left with are the ridiculous, fanatical gusanos who get together to attend mass. That is some kind of religious spirit: a priest who prays for people to die or to be murdered!
We must say that if that priest told us there was a surefire prayer for destroying the imperialists, we would absolutely refuse to make use of such a prayer; and if that priest said there was a prayer to repel the imperialists if they invaded this country, we would say to him: “To hell with your prayers. We’ll take care of annihilating the invaders, the imperialists, right here, with a storm of bullets and shells!”
The Vietnamese say no prayers against the imperialists. The heroic people of Korea said no prayers against the imperialists. Neither did our militiamen say prayers against the mercenaries who came armed with skulls and crossbones, crucifixes and what-have-you; the mercenaries who came here in the name of God—with a priest and everything—to murder peasant women, to murder boys and girls, to destroy the wealth of this country.
Now we see the degree of degeneration the reactionaries have reached, to what degree they have prostituted their doctrines, to what extremes they can go, and the kind of feelings they harbor. But, after all, that is typical of the imperialists’ gusano allies.
Naturally, the priest, his prayers and his motley congregation of fanatics are far from being matters of concern to the revolution. We are concerned with imperialism and its technical and military resources. And it is imperialism and its threats that we must always be ready for, always improving our preparation.
The study of the history of our country will not only develop our consciousness, our thinking, but it will also help us to find an inexhaustible source of heroism, an inexhaustible source of spirit of sacrifice, a spirit of struggle and combat.
What those combatants [in Cuba’s independence wars]—virtually unarmed—were able to accomplish will always be a source of inspiration for the revolutionaries of today; it will be a source of confidence in our people, in their strength, in their capacity for struggle, in their future; it will make our country confident that nothing and no one in this world will ever defeat us, that nothing and no one in this world will ever be able to crush us and that this revolution will never be defeated by anyone!
This is because our people—who fought for their future for 100 years—can fight through another 100 years for that same future.
Our people—who have had the courage to sacrifice themselves more than once—will have the courage to sacrifice themselves as often as necessary.
The banners that flew over Yara, La Demajagua, Baire, Baraguá and Guáimaro; the banners that presided over the solemn event where slavery was eradicated; and the banners that have led the way throughout the revolutionary history of our country will never be lowered. Our people will defend those banners and what they represent to the last drop of their blood.
Our people know what they were yesterday, what they are today and what they will be tomorrow. We cannot say that 100 years ago we had a Cuban nationality, that there was a Cuban people; 100 years ago we were the last on this continent… One day, when Martí was still alive, the insolent imperialist press, with incredible scorn, described the people of Cuba as effeminate, arguing, among other things, that the Cuban people had stood for Spanish domination for years on end. This showed the imperialists’ absolute ignorance of the historical and social factors that made up the people, and their ignorance of the conditions existing in Cuba at that time. Martí refuted the argument vigorously in a brilliant article entitled “Vindication of Cuba.”
Very well. Back in 1868 they could hurl such insults against the homeland, ignoring her heroic deeds and her solitary struggle against great odds. They could even say that we were the least important country of the continent. That was the truth, but this nation could not be blamed for it. It would be impossible to blame a nation that did not exist and a people that did not exist as a people. But the nation that has existed ever since it sprang to life from the blood of those who took up arms here on October 10, 1868; the people forged in that tradition; the people that began their ascent in history, that began to develop their political thinking and consciousness; the people that had the good fortune of having those extraordinary leaders as thinkers and combatants—that people will not be called the last anymore, by anyone. We are no longer the people that abolished slavery 100 years ago; we are no longer the last to abolish slavery—the ownership of human beings—today, we are the first people of this continent to abolish the exploitation of one human being by another! It is true that we were the last to begin, but it is also true that we have gone further than anyone else. We have eradicated the capitalist system of exploitation; we have made the people the true owners of their future and their wealth. We were the last to break the chains of the colony, but we have been the first to throw off the chains of imperialism. We were the last to break free from a slave-type mode of production, but the first to throw off the capitalist mode of production—and, by so doing, free ourselves of its rotten political and ideological structure. We have exposed the lies with which they attempted to deceive us for so many years. We are vindicating the truth of history. We have recovered our wealth, our mines, our factories, our woods, our mountains, our rivers and our lands.
The land so often soaked with the blood of patriots is now soaked with the honest sweat of people who, with the sweat of their brow, working that land won with the blood of their sons and daughters, will now earn, honestly, the bread that was formerly snatched out of our hands and out of our mouths. Today we are the human community with the highest degree of consciousness and the highest political level on this continent. We are the first socialist state! Yesterday we were the last. Today we are the first in the advance toward the communist society of the future! The true society of human beings, of humankind.
We no longer struggle just to eradicate the vices and institutions that have a detrimental effect on the relationship between human beings and the modes of production; we are also trying to develop human consciousness to its highest level. Our struggle is no longer just against the institutions that enslaved human beings, but also against the selfish feelings that still enslave some people; against individualism, that isolates some people from the strength of the community. In short, it is no longer a case of simply liberating human beings from the tyranny of things, but of liberating human beings from the age-old ideas that still enslave them.
That is why we can state that ever since October 10, 1868, the road of our people has been a road of uninterrupted progress, of great strides forward, rapid advances and new stages of progress.
We have ample reasons for viewing this history with pride. We have ample motives for regarding this history with profound satisfaction. Our history is now 100 years old—not the history of the colony, which is older; but the history of the Cuban nation, the history of the Cuban homeland, the history of the Cuban people, of their political ideas, of their revolutionary consciousness!
The stretch of road we have covered in these 100 years is long, and our determination to continue marching forward without hesitating is also unending; we are steadfast in our determination to go on building this beautiful history, with more confidence than ever, with more work than ever, with more tasks ahead than ever, confronting Yankee imperialism, defending the revolution in whatever field may be necessary; confronting under-development, in order to make use of all the potential of our resources, in order to release all the energies of our people, all the potential of their intelligence.
Our tasks will be the following: to defend the revolution in the face of imperialism, to strengthen our political consciousness on the journey toward the future, to strengthen our revolutionary thought by studying our history, to probe into the roots of this revolutionary thought and to carry forward the battle against underdevelopment.
Someone mentioned the [campaign for] 10 million tons of sugarcane, and this is a battle that has practically been won by this nation—thanks to the momentum of our work in the fields, thanks to the tremendous drive of our working people. And the campaign for 10 million tons is part of this major battle, the battle against underdevelopment, against poverty. These are our tasks for the future.
Many times, from the speakers’ platform, the hypocritical, lying, thieving, stealing politicians would invoke the names of the patriots of our independence. Many times they desecrated, by merely bringing to their lips, the name of Martí, the name of Maceo, the name of Céspedes, the name of Agramonte, the names of all our outstanding citizens. They hypocritically mentioned these names. In their hearts they forgot everything, abandoned everything.
In this country there should be a plaque, a marker, at each point where the Cubans fought, at each spot where they waged battles. They did not concern themselves with leaving a marker even at the exact place where the battle of Peralejo, or Las Guasimas, or Palo Seco was fought, or of recording the battles of the invasion. They left them to lie in oblivion, covered with brush and dust, without a single marker.
The swindlers often attempted to use the names of our heroes to serve their politicking ends.
That is why today, we, the revolutionaries of this generation, our revolutionary people, can feel the intimate and profound satisfaction of paying homage to Céspedes, to the combatants of our independence—the only homage, the most honest, the most sincere, the most profound homage—the tribute of a people that has gathered the fruits of their sacrifices and that, after 100 years, pays them this tribute of a united people, of a people’s power, of a politically aware people, of a victorious revolution that is determined to continue marching ever onward, firmly and invincibly marching forward.
Long live free Cuba!
Long live October 10!
Long live the victorious revolution!
Long live 100 years of struggle!
Patria o muerte! [Homeland or death!]
Venceremos! [We will win!]