In the world today, said Balaguer, there is "more poverty and concentration of wealth. Scientific and technological developments, more productive factories, or other advances will not solve the problems of the world" without a transformation of society. "The potential for struggles all over the world is becoming evident," he said.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization "are three organizations that are set up to impose the specific economic interests of the great industrialized powers," Balaguer said. "Argentina is an example of the result of these policies. In Argentina, the government tried to do what was imposed on it by the IMF."

NATO "is a political and military tool of the United States," he said. "It has become an instrument of pressure on U.S. allies. The policies of the United Nations Security Council are determined by the nations with veto power. All of these institutions are being manipulated by the U.S. government to reinforce its domination."

Balaguer said that the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which he condemned, gave Washington "an excuse to carry out its prerogative for military domination. The U.S. government has said that Israel has the right to defend itself. This is a twisted concept of defense. It is a war of an invading army using assassinations, bombs, and tanks," he said of the Israel regime's assault. The Cuban leader expressed the solidarity of the Cuban government with the struggle of the Palestinian people, a stance reiterated by UJC leaders.

In the face of four decades of imperialist aggression, "we in Cuba have the right to defend ourselves," Balaguer said. "Ours is not the war of a professional army, but a battle of the whole nation, an army of the people. It will be our enemy's greatest nightmare if they try to disembark here," he said, and pointed to the example of the defeat of U.S. imperialism during the 1961 mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs.

Later that day Otto Rivero Torres, the first secretary of the UJC, addressed a celebration at the palace of the Cuban high school federation, FEEM. Hundreds of youth from every province in Cuba were inducted into membership of the UJC at the event.

Rivero reported that the youth organization recruited 95,000 youth in 2001, a result of the advances being made in the revolution and the political campaign led by the Communist Party and the UJC known as the Battle of Ideas. The campaign includes educational and work programs directed at raising the political consciousness and broadening the cultural horizons of every Cuban, thereby winning more Cuban people to revolutionary activity.

Most of these recruits, Rivero noted, are involved in various programs organized as part of this battle, such as the new schools for revolutionary social workers, crash training courses for elementary school teachers, and the establishment of local computer clubs across the island. Since the beginning of the year 20,000 youth have joined the UJC, while in March, 93 percent of the members of the organization attended their monthly local membership meetings. This pointed to the increasing seriousness of the UJC, he said.  
 
International sports training program
Participants in the 40th anniversary activities spent several hours at the International Sports School outside Havana. The director of the school said that the institute was founded in response to the fact that at the last Pan-American games, held in Ottawa, Canada, the vast majority of the medals went to athletes from Canada and the United States. The lopsided results reflect the fact that underdeveloped nations do not have access to the training and facilities needed to compete on an equal footing.

The school's mission is to educate young athletes from all over the world to be sports teachers, trainers, and coaches so that they can return to their countries and train others to excel. The rigorous curriculum includes required courses in Spanish, English, history, biological sciences, and any combination of 42 different sports.

Some 1,500 students from 65 different countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean attend the school, which was opened last year. The student body is 60 percent male and 40 percent female, with an upper age limit of 25 years.

Delegates also visited two centers for research on vaccines. Dr. Franklin Sotolongo, the director of applied scientific-technical assistance at the Finlay Institute for research on vaccines, explained how a little over a decade ago scientists at this center developed a vaccine for Meningitis B in the course of 16 months. "Once the vaccines were approved the Cuban government sponsored a massive vaccination campaign for people from the ages of 3 to 24. And once meningitis was controlled in Cuba, we sent the vaccine and hundreds of doctors to 19 different countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Syria," he said.

"This campaign could not have been carried out by any other country," Sotolongo said. "We succeeded in developing and using the vaccine so quickly through our political will and determination, the support of the government, and the level of education that scientific researchers receive in Cuba."  
 
50,000 attend celebration
More than 50,000 young people attended the central activity of the anniversary celebration, which was held at the Karl Marx Theater on April 4. They included delegates from the UJC, FEEM, the Federation of University Students, and the José Martí Pioneers Organization. There were sizable uniformed groups from the armed forces, the national police, and the Cojímar School of Social Work. The families of five Cuban revolutionaries framed up and imprisoned by the United States government were among the guests at the event.

President Fidel Castro addressed the crowd. "The Union of Young Communists was born in the period between the invasion at the Bay of Pigs and the October Crisis of 1962, when the world was on the brink of a nuclear war," he said. "Our heroic people did not vacillate or recede or waver a single millimeter in its ideas and principles during that time. In that tense and glorious epoch, our combative youth rose up as an organized force and a bulwark of patriotism."  
 
Deeds and concrete acts
Castro explained that 40 years ago the discussion among young revolutionaries in Cuba about why to adopt the name Union of Young Communists helped to forge the political character of the UJC as a vanguard proletarian youth organization. The 40th anniversary of the UJC takes place at a time "when our people are involved in the greatest battle of ideas that it can engage in," he said. "But the battle of ideas is not only about principles, theory, knowledge, culture, arguments, rejoinders, and counter-rejoinders. It is to destroy lies and to sow truth. It is about deeds and concrete acts."

The evening was capped off by a party at the José Martí anti-imperialist tribunal, a plaza used for mass mobilizations in Havana that is located in front of the U.S. Interests Section. Several Cuban bands performed music ranging from rap, to rock and roll, to salsa. Thousands of UJC delegates from all over the country, the majority of them wearing the uniforms of their schools, social programs, or branches of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, celebrated the revolutionary anniversary by dancing well into the night.  
 
 
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