QUESTION: Mr. Minister, since this is the first time that Cuba has participated as a full member in a conference of the Afro-Asian Organization, I would like to ask you first how you visualize widening this organization to include Latin America?

ANSWER: I think that the Organization of Afro-Asian Solidarity can be widened to include Latin America quite easily. The procedural question is not of any importance. The real problem resides in the fact that in Latin America there is hardly a government that is struggling against imperialism. It is necessary to designate popular movements. But there are more movements that call themselves popular than really live up to the name. In any case, the Secretariat of the Organization of Afro-Asian Solidarity has been able to work out some concrete proposals on this point.

QUESTION: You have just made a tour of Africa; could you tell us about the aim of your trip as well as your impressions of the general situation in Africa in relation to the needs of the struggle against neocolonialism?

ANSWER: The aim of the tour I just made of Africa was to strengthen the ties between Cuba and the African countries. It enabled me to explain the Cuban revolution and particularly to learn.

I think that the struggle against neocolonialism is one form of the struggle against imperialism. The struggle against neocolonialism and the struggle against imperialism can be separated for tactical reasons, but it must be kept in mind that it's the same struggle against the same enemy. Despite their own differences, the imperialists under the leadership of the U.S.A. are united in the Congo and wherever there is a confrontation over an issue of importance for the future of Africa. That's why the struggle against such neocolonialist countries cannot be separated from the general struggle against imperialism.

There is an alternative that appears approximately as follows:

Either the progressive countries constitute a homogeneous bloc in order to struggle against U.S. imperialism in the Congo, and after the victory against imperialism there, continue the struggle against the neocolonialist countries that constitute the bases of aggression (naturally, this is not a question of a military struggle).

Or the situation will remain fluid, permitting the Americans to strike separate blows at the weakest countries (it is necessary to draw the lesson of the assassination of the prime minister of Burundi and what followed). In this case the progressive countries will be partially isolated at the moment when they should struggle against the American penetration, beginning in the Congo.

In short, the battle of the Congo must, for the African countries, have the meaning of a historic stage that will either determine their advance or their retreat. Victory in the Congo will show the Africans that national liberation opens the way for the construction of socialism; a defeat will open the way for neocolonialism. Socialism or neocolonialism, that is the stake for all of Africa in the encounter now taking place in the Congo.

QUESTION: Many African countries are still under imperialist domination reminiscent of Cuba under Batista. I would like to ask you to tell us what the characteristic elements of the situation were in Cuba that brought about the revolution.

ANSWER: The situation in Cuba under Batista was not much different from that of the African countries you mention. In particular, Cuba was a neocolonialized country where the national bourgeoisie had played out its role. In this sense, Cuba was already “ripe” for the revolution. But in another sense, the situation in Cuba was not any “riper” objectively than other places in Latin America; it could even be said that it was more advanced in Guatemala or Argentina.

But what is most important is not the “objective conditions” but the subjective conditions; that is, in the final analysis, the determination of the revolutionary movement. The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe! You have to make it fall, and it was precisely this that was our historic role, especially Fidel Castro’s.

QUESTION: The Cuban revolution has sometimes been considered to be an “exceptional phenomenon.”

ANSWER: There was one exceptional phenomenon in my opinion, that was the presence of a man who, against the dogmatic conceptions, against the “waiting” or defeatist attitudes that dominated the revolutionary forces, was able to see farther, to show the people the road, and stay at the head of the revolution during the armed struggle and today during the construction of socialism. I don’t know if it’s necessary to name him!

But the problem remains posed. Is a Fidel Castro indispensable to a revolution?

Within the framework of the Cuban revolution, perhaps Fidel Castro was necessary to show the road, to demonstrate that it was possible to do what he did with his people. But if Fidel Castro was necessary to our revolution, more Fidels are not necessary for other revolutions!

Yesterday the progressive movement was hunting with a magnifying glass for the exact moment when the “objective conditions” and the subjective conditions would coincide and provoke the revolution, without, however, ever finding it!

Today, the danger is different--to start hunting with the same magnifying glass for a Fidel Castro!

And what is lost in the second case is not something small, but political power, which must be the first task of the revolutionist. Until he has obtained it, he has done nothing.  
 
 
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