Vol. 77/No. 29      August 12, 2013

What Cuba can give to the peoples, and has already given, is its example.

And what does the Cuban Revolution teach? That revolution is possible, that the peoples can make it, that in the contemporary world there are no forces capable of halting the liberation movement of the people.

Our triumph would never have been feasible if the revolution itself had not been inexorably destined to arise out of existing conditions in our socioeconomic reality, a reality that exists to an even greater degree in a good number of Latin American countries. …

Where the roads are closed to the peoples, where the repression of workers and peasants is fierce, where the rule of the Yankee monopolies is strongest, the first and most important task is to understand that it is neither fair nor correct to beguile the peoples with the futile and conciliationist illusion of wresting power by legal means—means that do not and will not exist—from the hands of ruling classes that are entrenched in all the state positions, monopolize education, own all the means of communication, possess infinite financial resources—a power that the monopolies and oligarchies will defend by blood and fire and with the might of their police and armies.

The duty of every revolutionist is to make the revolution. It is true that the revolution will triumph in the Americas and throughout the world, but it is not for revolutionists to sit in the doorways of their houses waiting for the corpse of imperialism to pass by. The role of Job does not suit a revolutionist. Each year that the liberation of Latin America is speeded up will mean the lives of millions of children saved, millions of intellects saved for culture, an infinite quantity of pain spared the people. Even if the Yankee imperialists prepare a bloody drama for Latin America, they will not succeed in crushing the peoples’ struggles; they will only arouse universal hatred against themselves. And such a drama will also mark the fall of their greedy and Stone Age system. …

This epic before us is going to be written by the hungry Indian masses, the peasants without land, the exploited workers. It is going to be written by the progressive masses, the honest and brilliant intellectuals, who so greatly abound in our suffering Latin American lands. A struggle of masses and of ideas. An epic that will be carried forward by our peoples, mistreated and scorned by the imperialists; our people, invisible to them until today, who have begun to give them sleepless nights. Imperialism considered us a powerless and submissive flock. Now it begins to be terrified of that flock—a gigantic flock of 200 million Latin Americans in whom Yankee monopoly capitalism today sees its gravediggers.

This toiling humanity, these inhumanly exploited men and women, these paupers, controlled by the system of whip and overseer, have not counted or have counted little. From the dawn of independence their fate has been the same: Indians, gauchos, mestizos, zambos, quadroons, whites without property or income, all this human mass that formed the ranks of the “nation” that was never theirs, who fell by the millions, who were cut to bits, who won independence from the mother country for the bourgeoisie, who were shut out from their share of the rewards, who continued to occupy the lowest rung on the ladder of social benefits, continued to die of hunger, curable diseases, and neglect for lack of things that never reached them: ordinary bread, a hospital bed, medicine that cures, a helping hand.

But now, from one end of the continent to the other, they are signaling clearly that the hour has come: the hour of their redemption. Now this anonymous mass, this America of color, somber, taciturn America, which all over the continent sings with the same sadness and disillusionment, now this mass is beginning to enter definitively into its own history, is beginning to write it with its own blood, is beginning to suffer and die for it.

Because now in the fields and mountains of the Americas, on its hillsides, on its flatlands and in its jungles, in isolated fields and in the crush of its cities, on the banks of its great oceans and rivers, this world is beginning to tremble. Ardent fists are raised, ready to die for what is theirs, to win those rights that for five hundred years have been laughed at by one and all. Yes, now history will have to take the poor of America into account, the exploited and spurned of America, who have decided to begin writing their history for themselves for all time. Already they can be seen on the roads, on foot, day after day, in an endless march of hundreds of miles up to the “Olympian” heights of government to demand their rights.

Already they can be seen armed with stones, sticks, machetes, from one end to the other, each day, occupying lands, sinking stakes into the land that belongs to them and defending it with their lives. They can be seen carrying signs, slogans, banners; unfurling them in the mountain and prairie winds. And the wave of trembling anger, of demands for justice, of claims for rights trampled underfoot, which is beginning to sweep the lands of Latin America, will not stop. That wave will swell with each passing day. For that wave is composed of the greatest number, the majorities in every respect, those whose labor amasses the wealth and creates all value, those who turn the wheels of history. Now they are awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been subjected.

For this great mass of humanity has said, “Enough!” and has begun to march. And their march of giants will not be halted until they conquer true independence—for which they have died in vain more than once.
 
 
Related articles:
‘Women played critical role in development of new society’: ‘Women in Cuba’ reviewed in journal of social work
René González: ‘I went to US to fight actions harming Cuba’
Who are the Cuban Five?
Venezuela hosts conference in solidarity with Cuba
 
 
 
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