As part of celebrations in Cuba and worldwide marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Fidel Castro, the Militant is printing excerpts over the coming year from the speeches and writings of the central leader of Cuba’s socialist revolution.
On April 16, 1961, Castro addressed hundreds of thousands of Cubans at a funeral procession for combatants killed in a bombing raid ordered by President John F. Kennedy. The speech was part of Cuba’s preparations for meeting the coming Washington-backed mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs. The full text is available in Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs, 1961: Washington’s First Military Defeat in the Americas by Fidel Castro and José Ramón Fernández. Copyright © 2001 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
What the imperialists cannot forgive is the dignity, the integrity, the courage, the firmness of ideas, the spirit of sacrifice, and the revolutionary spirit of the people of Cuba. [Applause]
That is what they cannot forgive, that we are here under their very nose. What they cannot forgive is that we have made a socialist revolution right under the very nose of the United States! [Applause and shouts] That we defend this socialist revolution with these guns! [Applause] That we defend this socialist revolution with the same courage shown yesterday when our antiaircraft artillery riddled the aggressor’s planes with bullets! [Applause and shouts of “Venceremos!” and other revolutionary slogans.]
This revolution is not defended with mercenaries. This revolution is defended by men and women of the people.
Who has the weapons? Do the mercenaries perhaps have the weapons? [Shouts of “No!”] Because mercenaries and millionaires are the same thing. Do the little rich boys perhaps have the weapons? [Shouts of “No!”] Do the overseers perhaps have the weapons? [Shouts of “No!”] Who has the weapons? [Shouts] In whose hands are these weapons now being raised? [Shouts] Are they the hands of playboys? [Shouts of “No!”] Are they the hands of the rich? [Shouts of “No!”] Are they the hands of the exploiters? [Shouts of “No!”]
Whose hands are now raising these weapons? Aren’t they the hands of workers? [Shouts of “Yes!”] Aren’t they the hands of peasants? [Shouts of “Yes!”] Aren’t they hands hardened by work? [Shouts of “Yes!”] Aren’t they hands that create? [Shouts of “Yes!”] Aren’t they the hands of the humble, of ordinary men and women? [Shouts of “Yes!”] And who are the majority of the people — the millionaires or the workers? The exploiters or the exploited? The privileged or the working people? [Shouts]
Do the privileged have the weapons? [Shouts of “No!”] Are the privileged a minority? [Shouts of “Yes!”] Are the working people a majority? [Shouts of “Yes!”] Is it democratic to have a revolution in which the working people have the weapons? [Shouts of “Yes!” Applause and shouts of “Fidel, Fidel!” and various revolutionary slogans.]
Compañero workers and peasants, this is the socialist and democratic revolution of the working people, with the working people, and for the working people. [Applause] And for this revolution of the working people, by the working people, and for the working people we are prepared to give our lives. [Shouts]