‘Cuba’s revolution acts with the will of the entire people’

The excerpt below is taken from Che Guevara Talks to Young People, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for October. It’s from his remarks to 900 delegates at the July 28, 1960, opening session of the First Latin American Youth Congress held in Havana, a year and a half after Cuba’s workers and farmers took political power.

Argentine-born Guevara was a central leader of the revolutionary struggle in Cuba. After the victory on Jan. 1, 1959, he carried a number of responsibilities in the new revolutionary government and frequently represented Cuba internationally, including at the United Nations. In 1966 Guevara went to Bolivia where he helped lead forces seeking to build a revolutionary movement to overturn the military dictatorship there and open the road to socialist revolution in South America. Copyright © 2000 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA

We would also like to greet two of the delegations representing the countries that have perhaps suffered the most in the Americas. First of all, Puerto Rico, [applause] which even today, 150 years after freedom was proclaimed for the first time in the Americas, continues fighting to take the first — and perhaps most difficult — step of achieving, at least formally, a free government. And I would like the delegates of Puerto Rico to convey my greetings, and those of all Cuba, to Pedro Albizu Campos. [Applause] We would like you to convey to Pedro Albizu Campos our deep-felt respect, our recognition of the example he has shown with his valor, and our fraternal feelings as free men toward a man who is free, despite being in the dungeons of the so called U.S. democracy. [Shouts of “Get rid of it!”]

Although it may seem paradoxical, I would also like to greet today the delegation representing the purest of the North American people. [Ovation] I would like to salute them not only because the North American people are not to blame for the barbarity and injustice of their rulers, but also because they are innocent victims of the rage of all the peoples of the world, who sometimes confuse a social system with a people.

I therefore extend my personal greetings to the distinguished individuals I’ve named, and to the delegations of the fraternal peoples I’ve named. All of Cuba, myself included, open our arms to receive you and to show you what is good here and what is bad, what has been achieved and what has yet to be achieved, the road traveled and the road ahead. Because even though all of you come to deliberate at this Latin American Youth Congress on behalf of your respective countries, I’m sure each one of you came here full of curiosity to find out exactly what is this phenomenon born on a Caribbean island that is called the Cuban Revolution. …

That is one of our greatest strengths: the strength being exerted throughout the world — regardless of partisan differences in any country — to defend the Cuban Revolution at any given moment. And permit me to say this is a duty of the youth of Latin America. Because what we have here in Cuba is something new, and it’s something worth studying. I do not want to tell you what is good here; you will have to assess that yourselves.

There are many bad things, I know. There is much disorganization, I know. If you have been to the Sierra Maestra, then you already know this. We still use guerrilla methods, I know. We lack technicians in fabulous quantities commensurate to our aspirations, I know. Our army has still not reached the necessary degree of maturity nor have the militia members achieved sufficient coordination to constitute themselves as an army, I know.

But what I also know — and what I want all of you to know — is that this revolution has always acted with the will of the entire people of Cuba. Every peasant and every worker, if they handle a rifle poorly, are working to handle it better every day, to defend their revolution. And if right now they can’t understand the complicated workings of a machine whose technician fled to the United States, then they are studying every day to learn it, so their factory runs better. And the peasants will study their tractor, to fix its mechanical problems, so the fields of their cooperative yield more.

All Cubans, from both city and countryside, sharing the same sentiments, are marching toward the future, totally united in their thinking, led by a leader in whom they have absolute confidence, because he has shown in a thousand battles [applause] and on a thousand different occasions his capacity for sacrifice, and the power and foresight of his thought.

The nation before you today might disappear from the face of the earth because an atomic conflict may be unleashed on its account, and we might be the first target. Even if this entire island were to disappear along with its inhabitants, its people would consider themselves completely satisfied and fulfilled if each of you, upon returning to your countries, would say:

“Here we are. Our words come from the humid air of the Cuban forests. We have climbed the Sierra Maestra and seen the dawn, and our minds and our hands are filled with the seeds of that dawn. We are prepared to plant them in this land, and defend them so they can grow.”

From all the brother countries of the Americas, and from our own land — if it should still remain standing as an example — from that moment on and forever, the voice of the peoples will answer: “Thus it shall be: Let freedom triumph in every corner of the Americas!” [Ovation]

Related articles:
Revolution in Cuba shows road forward for workers
‘Cuban Revolution will never yield sovereignty, principles’
Díaz-Canel: ‘Che says you can’t trust imperialism’
US gov’t uses pretext of ‘mystery illness’ to attack Cuba

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