Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs 1961: Washington’s First Military Defeat in the Americas by Fidel Castro and José Ramón Fernández is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for April. This year is the 65th anniversary of this victory by Cuban workers and farmers in defending their socialist revolution against U.S.-backed mercenaries. The excerpt is from Castro’s April 16, 1961, “Speech to ceremony honoring those killed in imperialist assault on Cuban airfields.” Copyright © 2001 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
Yesterday at 6:00 a.m., as everyone knows, three groups of bombers penetrated the national territory from abroad and attacked three points of the national territory. At each of these points, men defended themselves heroically. In each of these points, the courageous blood of the defenders was shed. In each of these points there were thousands, or at least hundreds, of witnesses to what happened.
It was something that was expected. It was something that had been expected every day. It was the logical culmination of the burning of canefields, of the hundreds of violations of our airspace, of the pirate air incursions, of the pirate attacks on our refineries by ships that penetrated at dawn.
It was the consequence of what everyone knows. It was the consequence of the plans of aggression that have been brewed in the United States with the complicity of the lackey regimes in Central America. It was the consequence of the air bases that everyone knows about, because they have even written about it in the U.S. newspapers and news agencies themselves, and these news agencies and newspapers are tired of speaking of the mercenary armies that are being organized, of the airfields that have been prepared, of the planes that the U.S. government has supplied, of the Yankee instructors, of the air bases established in Guatemalan territory.
All the people of Cuba knew this; all the world knew this. Yesterday’s attack was carried out in the presence of thousands and thousands of men. What do you think the Yankee rulers have said about such an incredible thing? Because it’s no longer a case of the explosion of La Coubre, which was carried out as a cunning undercover act of sabotage. It’s now a question of a simultaneous attack on three points of the national territory with machine-gun fire, bombs, missiles, and warplanes that everyone saw. We’re talking about a public act, an anticipated act, an act that the world knew of even before it was conducted. …
Here we have, as other peoples have seldom had, the opportunity of knowing what imperialism is — inside and out, on every coast, top to bottom. Here we have the opportunity of appreciating how its whole financial, propaganda, and political apparatus works, as well as its mercenaries, secret bodies, and officials, who, with such tranquility and in an almost unheard-of manner, are tricking the world. Try to imagine how we would have known what’s happening in the world. How we would have been able to know what’s happening in the world, if this were the only version and the only explanation that countless people around the world are getting!
“What Washington
cannot forgive is that
we have made a socialist
revolution right under
the very nose of the US.”
—Fidel Castro
In other words, they organized the attack, prepared the attack, trained the mercenaries, supplied the planes, supplied the bombs, prepared the airports — everyone knows it. The attack occurs and they calmly state before the world that it’s not so. This is a world that they know would rise up in indignation in face of such a monstrous, cowardly act that violates the rights of the peoples and is a violation of peace! [Applause]
And these miserable gringo imperialists, after shrouding seven homes in mourning, after murdering a handful of young people who were not millionaire parasites — because those we’ve come here to bury were not millionaire parasites, they were not mercenaries who sold themselves for foreign gold, they were not thieves. They are true sons of our people! [Prolonged applause] …
What the imperialists cannot forgive is that we are here. 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. …
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] …
Compañero workers and peasants of the homeland: yesterday’s attack was the prelude to the mercenaries’ aggression. Yesterday’s attack, which cost seven heroic lives, aimed to destroy our planes on the ground. But the mercenaries failed; they did not destroy our planes, and the bulk of the enemy planes were damaged or shot down. [Applause]
Here, in front of the graves of our fallen comrades; beside the remains of the heroic youth, children of workers and children of ordinary working men and women, we reaffirm our determination. Just as they faced the bullets, just as they gave their lives, we state that no matter when the mercenaries come, no matter who we face, that we are all proud of our revolution, proud to defend this revolution of the working people, for the working people, and by the working people. And we will not hesitate to defend it to the last drop of blood. [Applause]