A Spell Of Concealment - Extended Version Songtext - Howard Shore

A Spell Of Concealment - Extended Version - Howard Shore

Today, on 27 November of this year, there is a circumstance worthy

of attention and that is that this event, this year, is a bigger affair

than the one last year. This means a lot; it means that, with the passage

of time, these memorial celebrations are not losing in warmth and in

importance to the people, as used to happen in the past. The presence of a

greater number of Cubans at this ceremony tonight means that patriotic and

revolutionary memorial celebrations are met each time with the ever greater

warmth of the people. Why is this so? Simply because the revolutionary

consciousness of the people is growing and becoming stronger. But it is

not just that we have a large number of Cubans present here, this year, on

the steps of the university; this fact also signifies a defeat for the

counterrevolution.


This event here today means much to the Cuban revolution after

almost 2 years of revolution, after all of the radical and profound

measures which the revolution has introduced in our country. If this

ceremony were to take place in the rural areas and if the peasants were to

attend in a large mass, that would be something very natural. If this

ceremony were to take place among the workers and if the workers were to

attend in vast masses, this would be very natural of course. The working

class and the peasants, for the most, are also agricultural workers, they

are all with the revolution and this of course is very logical. The

reactionary forces did not try to fight within the working class. The

counterrevolution did not try to win ground among the peasants; the

counterrevolution placed its hope of regaining some of its positions in the

University of Havana and the student circles. Why is this so? Because the

student mass is a heterogeneous mass. The composition of the mass of

students is a rather varied one and, generally speaking, the children of

the poor families did not have an opportunity to study at the university.

The opportunity to study in Cuba was in an inverse ratio to the need to

study. In other words, in order not to confuse anybody with arithmetic

here, it was in an inverse proportion to the available resources. The

poorer a family was, the less opportunity it had to send its children to

study at the university. Who, for example, shined shoes in the streets of

our capital? Where did the kids who sold newspapers at night and early in

the morning come from? What opportunity did they have to study at the

university? And what opportunity did the children of the peasant families

have -- out there, in the rural areas, where they did not even have grade

school teachers. Those youngsters whose family had the money could go to

the city and study at the institutes and at the university. Those who were

most privileged were able to study abroad, in the United States or Europe.

The poorest families could not do this; in general, they were unable to send

their children to the university. Of course, there might have been a few

poor students at the university. At the university and in the institutes,

there are many children from poor families, children from middle-income

families, and children from rich families.


It might happen that a poor student could not go to school, to

college, but it would have been impossible for a rich youngster not to be

able to go to school. The rich youngster who did not study did not do so

because he simply did not want to study. But, generally speaking, the rich

families wanted their children to study and they were very much concerned

with perpetuating their interests through them. There were students whose

family interests were affected by the laws of the revolution. This is why

the counterrevolution, all over the world, does not try to gain ground

among the peasants. What could the counterrevolution say to a peasant who

has been freed from rent payment? What could it tell to a man whose life

has been radically changed? What could it say to someone whom the

revolution had liberated from misery, exploitation, and humiliation? What

could the counterrevolutionary possibly say to the worker?


The counterrevolution primarily approached the education centers,

particularly the centers of higher education. And it tried to recruit its

agents at these centers from among the children of rich families. Among

the children of families which were affected by the revolutionary laws.

The counterrevolution did not try to do any recruiting in the little public

school which the revolutionary government is opening up, way out in the

mountains.


Pro-Batista Professors


The counterrevolution does not go to the military barracks and to

the fortresses that have been converted into schools, where the children of

workers and of poor families are studying. The counterrevolution knows

that it has no business there and could not possibly find anything there.

And when it does look for something, it does not look for it among the

students; it looks for it among the professors in those educational

institutions. I want to make this quite clear because there are still some

pro-Batista individuals among the teaching body in the high schools,

because there are still pro-imperialists, reactionaries, and

counterrevolutionaries among the high school teachers.


The counterrevolution approaches them. The counterrevolution

addresses itself to them, in order to turn them into instruments for its

attempts against the people. And the counterrevolution above all, as you

know, addresses itself to the colleges of the privileges. Here, in the

colleges of the privileged, here is where the counterrevolution does all of

its recruiting, here and in the colleges of the superprivileged, where it

would be difficult to find any youngster whose interests have not been

affected by the laws of the revolution, in other words, his interest as a

member of the privileged class, as a member of a big landowning family, as

a member of a business business family, as a member of a sugar plantation

family, a member of a big finance family or a family that owned property in

the city, or as a member of a professional family in the service of those

interests whom the revolution has wiped out in our fatherland: it would be

difficult here to find a young man who was not in one way or another

affected by the revolution, in terms of his interests; this was a

revolution of the humble, by the humble, and for the humble.


Since I am talking here in the name of that revolution, I must

speak very clearly to our people on this subject, particularly to the

humble citizens of our nation: and I must also address the privileged of

yesterday and the semiprivileged of today, because they are left with some

privileges. Above all, I want them to know that we, the leaders of the

revolution, and the people altogether, who support us and who back up this

revolution with their enthusiasm and their invincible faith, we know what

we are doing and we are familiar with the problem from the bottom up; I

want these semi-privileged people to know that they can stay here: we

understand what the situation is and we understand why these centers

constitute fertile soil for the counterrevolution.


And when we talk about the professors here, we are not really

criticizing our comrade, the Minister of Education. It is not easy to

tackle the heritage which the past has left us here. At any rate, this is

a natural consequence of the revolutionary process and above all it is a

natural consequence of the process of a revolution as generous as this one.

A revolution which has been as generous as this one, but a revolution where

generosity has not weakened it; although it is generous it has tremendous

moral strength and because of its tremendous moral force it can act.


Anti-Cuban Sermon


In many of these centers, they preach the counterrevolution quite

open; they preach hatred against the fatherland quite openly; they openly

preach class hatred; they preach hatred for the humble peasantry, for the

perker, for the humble youth, and for the humble people. In other words,

they preach hatred against the measures and steps which were taken, not in

order to benefit privileged minorities, but in order to bring justice to

those who need it, in order to bring well-being to those who need it, in

order to bring progress and improvement to those who need it. But they do

this quite openly and without restraint. And why do they do it openly wand

without restraint? Ah! Because there is nobody more foxy than a

counterrevolution. There is nobody in the world who is more cynical than a

counterrevolution. And you know who the scribes and the Pharisees are and

you know who the anti-Christians are, in other words, those who do not cast

their lot with the poor of this world, those who do not want to enter

Heaven, not even through the eye of a needle, in other words, those who

want a camel to go through the eye of a needle.


Those who never lived in the humble sections of town, in the poor

villages and in the deserted hamlets, those who devoted themselves to

promoting the privileged class, which was its master. Those Pharisees and

scribes, those who make up the entire corrupt crew of the

counterrevolution. They know what the revolution wants; they know what the

revolution proposes to accomplish; they know that the revolution is

generous; they know that the revolution does not want to play there game;

they know that the revolution does not want to fan the fire of internal

campaigns against the fatherland. They know what they are up to but they

also know that they are not going to fool anybody; they know that nobody is

going to be confused by them because they are in the service of

international interest; they do not care about the fire here; they are only

concerned about the fire abroad. They want to create conflicts here in

order to make propaganda elsewhere.


They Use the Temples and the Schools for

Their Criminal Campaign


Those who use the temples or the schools of the overprivileged

here in order to launch their criminal campaign against the revolution

which has done so much for those who needed to have something done for

them, in other words, the poor of the fatherland. Those who want to rise

up against the revolutionary fatherland because the revolutionary

fatherland destroyed egotistical interests, destroyed immoral interests,

immoral in the eyes of men and in the eyes of God; those who rise up

against the fatherland because the fatherland destroyed those immoral and

egotistical interests, they know that they cannot fool anybody here. They

are wrong if they think they can convert some of the students here into

counterrevolutionary agents because those who died on the cross in Rome,

those who were killed in the Circus, without denying their beliefs, those

were not the children of the Roman partisians; they were the children of

the Roman plebians.


Those who burned on the cross, those who were devoured by the

fierce animals, they were slaves or semi-slaves; they were the poor of

Rome; and these were the people who had a strong faith; these people were

not accustomed to the comforts of the ruling class which lived from one

feast to the next. But they did not have an easy life, after all, because

they had no belief to guide them, because they were not loyal or faithful

to any religious or political idea; amid all their wealth, they were not

satisfied, they did not know what suffering meant and what pain was; and in

our time, these people were riding around in luxurious automobiles, they

always had plenty of food, but no belief that judgement day would ever

come.


The Final Judgement on Privilege


And so the hour came in our fatherland for the final judgement of

the privileged and the final judgement on the criminal exploitation of our

people. We did not find any heroes among the children of the privileged; we

did not find the kind of conviction that enables men to die for their

beliefs; that sort of thin we never found among the children of the

privileged; they simply could not get used to the idea of dying in front of

those who were always prepared to die. But they are now being recruited to

make propaganda abroad; they are being recruited to cause provocations.

They know what they are up to, they know that the revolution is generous,

they know that the revolution does not want to fan the flames of the

campaigns against the fatherland; and they utilize this fact in order to

spread reactionary opinions, class opinions, opinions of the class which

has lost its privileges, egotistical opinions, opinions against the

fatherland, opinions against the revolution, opinions against the people;

they try to spread these opinions among children whose minds are not yet

fully formed. They know what the attitude of the revolution is and they

continue to provoke it. Perhaps they imagine that the revolution is afraid

of them; perhaps they think that the revolution trembles at the thought of

the day when all of these crimes and all of this shame will have to be

judged. (Prolonged ovation)


The Case of the University of Villanueva


They set themselves the task of spreading the most unfounded lies;

and in spite of all this, the revolution has proved what its attitude

toward these centers is; this was the policy of the revolution from the

very first moment on; we even went so far as to ask a group of teachers at

one of these colleges to help us solve these problems and we talked to them

and we asked them to change their attitude, to renounce some of the

legitimate rights which they had in view of the revolutionary policy of

ours which was aimed at demonstrating our generous attitude toward these

sectors; we ask them not to adopt a belligerent attitude against the

revolution; we went to that university of the super-privileged which had

expelled a group of youths; we went to that 100% Yankee and pro-Yankee

university in order to talk with the students and to ask them to be

generous to those students who had been expelled, while thousands of other

students were giving their lives, while dozens upon dozens of students

fell, assassinated in the streets, and while they did not even have the

basic decency to express their solidarity with their comrades at the

University of Havana; amid the fatherland's adversity, the university

closed its doors and preferred to launch its students against the tyranny.


The Priests Also Got Checks


However, the revolutionary government toned down the sanctionist

that were asked by students who had lost two or three or even four years of

study time while those young gentlemen were getting their degrees without

any trouble. In other words, the revolution does not want to give anybody

an opportunity accuse it of having been aggressive or hostile to those

centers of the privileged. But the revolution was against privilege; the

revolution was against the economic interests of the privileged classes;

this was not a problem of religion, there was not problem of religious

beliefs, instead there was a problem of material interests, a problem of

money, an economic problem; but all the rest, faith and belief and religion

and other things served as a pretext to protect, no religions, nor faith,

but the low-down and egotistical interests of individuals, the economic

interests, because the revolution discovered that there was a close link,

for example, between the ranch owners, the military, and the clergy.


When the sugar plantations and mills were nationalized it was

found that subsidies of several hundred pesos were given to some clergymen;

in other words, they sent their checks not only to the cops, they sent

their checks not only to the sergeants, the lieutenants, the captains, and

the majors; they sent their checks not only to the famous lawyer who

defended their interests, the sacrosanct interests of these gentlemen.

They sent their little checks also the clergy and this resulted in a rather

repugnant marriage between the exploiting ranch owner, the ranch owner who

exploited the workers and the poor peasants, the cop who gave information

and did the assassination work, the lawyer who collected tremendous fees in

order to defend their privileges, and the priest who preached submission

among the workers and the peasants.


Cops in Cassocks


Some of these cops in cassocks did not preach the Gospel of

Christ; they preached real counterrevolution sermons in the churches; and

put out parish bulletins which the faithful received with the national

anthem on their lips.


Ah, yes! The god faithful did not know all that. The humble

faithful did not know about that: they did not know that these hypocrites

received their checks from the ranch owner who exploited the humble people

of our fatherland. The revolution did not adopt any hostile attitude

toward religion. The revolution did not clash with the church. The

revolution nationalized the sugar plantations but not the church.


The revolution did not clash with the laws of the church, it did

not clash with the faith; it was never against the interests of any church,

nor has it ever harmed any religious rites. Ah, yes! But the

revolutionary laws did go against the big landowners, against the

monopolies, against those who exploited the poor tenant farmer, against big

property and the land rend system. But no revolutionary laws were

promulgated against any church.


We have never used any arguments against religion but,

nevertheless, they insist in harming the interests of the classes for whom

these laws were passed. These truths were denounced here by a worthy

Catholic priest. These same truths were proclaimed here by a man who came

here, wearing his habit, to speak from this revolutionary tribune, to serve

his fatherland, to serve the people, without denying Christ; here one can

serve a faith or a revolutionary line and a religious faith, because the

revolution practices freedom of religion and worship and it respects those

who believe and those who do not have any religious affiliation.


But one thing is certain: in this fatherland of our we have all

of those who love the fatherland and in the revolution we have all of those

who love the people. Those who do not belong within the revolution are

those who hate the people. Those who do not fit into the revolution, nor

into the fatherland, those who cannot love God -- they are the ones who

serve the egotistical interests of the privileged. They are the ones who

cannot speak from this tribune where the truth shines; and the entire big

lie was done away with from the very first moment and these arguments

explain why the counterrevolution tries to take up positions among the

students in the universities and in the private colleges. And so it tries

to recruit among the students in the private colleges. But we are not

going to get angry. We said that we would put up schools for the humble

families, better than the best private schools; and we are carrying out our

promise. It is difficult for some of the schools to compete with the

school center at Ciudad Libertad.


It is logical that, as these schools grow, the others will

continue to shrink, for two reasons: first of all because there will be

schools better than these other schools and, then, because the privileged

will not be privileged anymore.


The Government Is Not Closing the Schools


This money of the big landowners, which used to be employed in

supporting the schools for the privileged, will now be used to build

schools for the people.


In addition, we have converted the military barracks into schools

and we have also built some new school facilities. Of course, they, the

privileged, are not happy with that. What are they trying to do now?

Before shutting the schools down, they double and triple their provocations

in order to call attention to the fact that the schools, which are being

closed because there are no more special privileges for anybody, have been

closed by the government; they do this for international consumption. The

government is not shutting any schools down, as they would like to have you

believe at that "University of Yankee Land." The revolutionary government

is not afraid of the activities of these Yankee Land organizations; they

have no right to act with such impunity and they should not entertain any

illusions that the poor might not be with the revolution in this struggle;

the poor will fight and the privileged will find themselves all alone; the

privileged are not cut from the same cloth as those who knew how to die

well in times of ancient Rome. The privileged take refuge in the embassy

and then they go off to Miami. And they go there and live in a section of

their own; it would readily be interesting to see how some of them live

there; it would be interesting to see whether they live any better there;

and still they dare criticize the revolution when it wants to take over

certain homes, when it wants to build school centers and give the people

bread.


And then they dare say that the revolution is bad. It is so bad

that it left the landowners with 30 caballerias. It is so bad that it left

the owners of big buildings, people who owned many houses, with 600 pesos.


But they are so good and they believe these stories to the effect

that the Marines of the United States Navy would come; and so that went

away and they left us the 30 caballerlas and they left us their 600 pesos.

Nobody will miss them. They could not live on 30 caballerias of land.

They could not live on 600 pesos. Especially if the Americans were going

to come. Then they would get their big estates back; then they would get

their big apartment houses back.


It is quite possible that there are very few places in the world

where they had residences such as the ones these people had here. It is

possible that such residences, with all these luxuries might not even be

found in the United States. By say of a revolutionary lesson, we recommend

that you take a walk through these grand palaces; and then you ought to

take a look at the humble huts in which humble families live just a few

blocks away; in one place, millions and millions would be spent on

residences and just a few blocks away people would be living in small

apartments which rented for 60 and 80 pesos. This is why these rich people

like the fatherland, but Marti said that the fatherland was for everybody

and for the good of all. The revolution has come to fulfill this promise

by Marti, to the effect that the fatherland belongs to everybody and it has

accomplished this in a singular form. It achieved this without using the

guillotine, because, as we know, in France they did not just tap the

privileged on the head, they chopped their hands off altogether. When the

slaves had their uprising in Haiti, they took the coffee plantation owners

and chopped their heads off.


In those days, when the people rose, things were not as gentle as

they are today. Here, whenever somebody feels that he cannot stand it any

longer, he simply takes a cab to the embassy.


Our attitude has always been generous. If they want to leave, let

them go. If Uncle Sam wants to pay their expenses, well, that's just fine

with us. It is better for them to go there than to be a financial burden

to us. They have set up a find to help refugees. These are the refugees

who have left 30 caballerias of land behind; these are the refugees who

left big bank accounts behind.


Here, they have lots of capital invested in real estate and

houses. What are we supposed to do with that? These houses are good for

our guests, of course, for the worker leaders and the students and for all

illustrious visitors, the kind which the revolution always receives. We

are going to fix up 100 of these houses in grand style and we will leave

the Cadillacs in the garages, for use by our guests.


Thousands of Scholarships


And our high school students can be the tourist guides for these

people and they can be the chauffeurs of these Cadillacs. And then, these

same students will go to the university and in the future they might even

advance to become ambassadors of the Republic. And it is not going to cost

them a penny. We will maintain the gardens and we are even going to

improve them. And we are going to employ other centers of this kind and we

are going to equip them so that they can handle visitors. When we have

visitors, the students will take care of them and after the visitors have

left they can go back to school. And in this way, those Cadillacs will

last us a long time. This is what we are going to do with the houses in

Cubanaean which the illustrious families have left voluntarily i order to

claim the hospitality of Uncle Sam. All right, thanks a lot for all these

houses!


This, very simply, is what has happened here, sons of these

gentlemen leaves and we now have a school which used to be called Havana

Military Academy. All right. We are already building additional wings and

we are going to have our first technological school for young rebels here;

a thousand revolutionary brigades will attend this school. Not a single

building will stand empty because the revolution already has the necessary

organization and manpower for doing everything that we want to do here. We

already have 600 university scholarship students and we have a capacity for

2,000 more; we are finishing up 3 buildings which can be used as

dormitories for another 2,500 scholarship students. And all of them come

from humble families; anybody who wants to get an education need only apply

for his scholarship. They do not need any sponsorship, they do not need

any recommendations. All they have to do is come to the office and say "I

want to study for such and such a career and I have no economic resources."

What are we doing with these students? Do we give them alms? No! Is

this some kind of government charity? No! These students are going to pay

after they get through studying. We are simply advancing them the money.

How are they going to make out there? Well, they are going to live under

the best conditions possible. They will have books and clothing and all

their expenses will be paid and they will have good food and they will get

10 pesos per month during the first year. And as they make progress, they

will be given more funds. They will have everything to concentrate on

their studies: a library, dining room, social facilities, and an athletic

field. They will lead a real student life, while University City is being

built. They will have all necessary opportunities for becoming magnificent

engineers; and then, over a period of 10 years, they will repay the cost of

their studies and they will thus help thousands upon thousands of new

students to attend college and get their scholarships. What is the

revolution doing? It is simply offering them this opportunity. And the

simple thing will be done by the University of Las Villas and the

University of [Unreadable text].


None of the Poor People Ever Plant Bombs


No, they never do that. These bombs are planted against the poor

people. None of these bombs are planted by poor people who have received

benefits from the revolution; these poor people include the poor mountain

farmer, where we have sent 1,000 teachers to teach the children of the

mountain farmers; none of these bombs are ever planted by a worker or a

former sharecropper whom we have given the right to own his home; none of

them are ever planted by a family whose children are studying in the old

fortresses where their sons were assassinated; none of these bombs are

planted by patriots, in other words, by people who really love their

fatherland. Who does plant these bombs? The cops, the people who have

been subverted, the agents of imperialism, those who grovel before the

foreigners, those who want to soak the fatherland in blood.


In the past, the revolutionaries used dynamite to fight against

crime, corruption, tyranny, against the cope, the political thieves and the

wrong-doers, those who extracted the fatherland's wealth, in order words

they used dynamite to fight against privilege. And so they tried to

assassinate them and to [Unreadable text] confessions out of them under

torture. The revolutionary, who fought for his ideal, know that there was

a torture chamber in every bloc, that instruments of terror were awaiting

him at the police stations, he knew about the hell and the terror at the

police stations, he knew about the shot in the back of the neck, the big

pool of blood where his corpse would fall; and he valiantly confronted all

that. Nobody paid him, nobody reimbursed him for his services. The

counterrevolution, the agent of imperialism, the criminal who gets paid for

his services by the embassy, he knows that there are o crimes awaiting him,

he knows that his life is guaranteed by the generosity with which the

revolution has treated the terrorists. I believe that not a single

terrorist has as yet faced the firing squad. They know that nobody will

lay a hand on them in the police station. They know that the revolution

has been generous and that the revolutionary courts have been benign. But

we know that, in the heart of a criminal who gets paid for his services,

there is no valor for confronting the revolutionary tribunals and for

facing up to the punishment which he deserves because of his crimes.


They Are Satisfied With Making Noise


But we must now become impatient because of all this. This is

only the proof of their powerlessness. Where are the mercenaries who were

being trained in Guatemala? Where are the aircraft and the landing

vessels? How come they have not landed as yet? How come they have so far

been content with just making noise and planting little bombs? They know

that we have thousands of men ready; they know that we have plenty of

supporting weapons ready, including guns, machine guns, antiaircraft guns

and other heavy weapons. They know the number of battalions which we have

organized and armed. They know about the extraordinary mobilization of the

people and they know what these guns in the hands of the workers and the

peasants and the students mean; these are the university students who have

taken off their uniforms in order to put on the blue shirts of the worker

militia; they understand the great honor that has been accorded them in

allowing them to stand shoulder to shoulder with the workers of the

country. The enemies of the fatherland and of the revolution know that

these weapons are in the hands of the people.


They Have No Hope of Victory


They know what it would take to win; they know that they don't

have a chance now that the working class and the peasants of the country

have been armed -- with guns, not just automatic rifles, but guns of

considerable caliber and in considerable numbers; the mercenaries who could

defeat our people have not yet be born and the imperialists who could do

this have not yet been born. And this is why they brood about their

powerlessness and this is why they keep in making noises which only serve to

stir the people up more. What idiots they are! When we were fighting,

even under the most difficult circumstances, we were sustained by the idea

that we were in the right, that we were defending a just cause, that the

people would rise up in support of that cause, and that we would destroy

the enemy. What hope do they have of destroying the people if they

advocate such ignoble objectives? What hope of victory would they possibly

have? Are they incapable of figuring out what a people in arms really

means? Could they be so stupid as to harbor the most remote hopes? They

are incapable of tackling even a portion of the people but now all our

people have become stirred up and a good portion of the world supports us.


The Heritage of the Revolution


What about their hopes, then? Do they perhaps hope that they

could mobilize the unemployed? The 200,000 workers who got jobs after the

revolution? Or are they going to mobilize, against the revolution, the 35%

new industrial workers who have found work? Were they able in any way at

all to stop the work of the revolution? Judging by what they have

accomplished in recent months, it would seem that anything they can do in

the future will be much worse. So far, we cannot see any of the fruits of

their endeavors to date. But they act as if we had not created 600

scholarships at the university. As if we did not have 600 members from the

youth brigades here, the first detachment from the first 2,000 who are

going to come here.


Those 600, who have a 5th-grade education, are already prepared to

matriculate at various education centers; 150 will go to the aviation

school. Those who have the talent and the interest will learn how to

handle machinery for civilian use. And after that, we will teach some of

them to handle agricultural machinery. And then they will get some

military training. And then will come those who will fly our big transport

aircraft. This is how we are going to train our future pilots. But all of

this began through the youth brigades of the "Camilo Cienfuegos"

revolutionary project.


And they will have had to spend 4 months in the Sierra Maestra.

They will have had to climb Mt. Turquino 5 times and they will keep

climbing it. None of these youths will able to fly an aircraft overnight.

These youths will be the purest product of this revolution. They will be

the seeds for the new fatherland because they will build a generation that

will be better prepared for continuing our revolutionary effort. The

revolution must guarantee our climb to an ever better future. The

enthusiasm of the people today must be replaced with the enthusiasm of a

generation which will be entirely the product of the revolution. A short

while ago, I talked about the heritage of the past and the heritage which

the Cuba of tomorrow will receive -- if we accomplish all we set out to

accomplish.


We will have tens of thousands of engineering scholarship

students. We will have tens of thousands of young people selected because

of their abilities, their natural talents; those who are weak in character

and spirit will remain behind and the best will have the opportunity to go

on successfully and to keep progressing.


Some will attend the schools of art and maritime officers and

within a year they will be handling the first high-seas fishing fleet

whose ships are already being built by our shipyards. Others will go to

the naval schools, where, in a 6-month course, they will learn the

indispensable fundamentals that will enable them to be crew members on war

ships. They will serve without pay for 2-1/2 years. These 2-1/2 years

will be partly apprenticeship and partly coast guard duties. They will

defend our sovereignty and then they will have a guaranteed job in our

national merchant marine and they will sail the ships of Cuba all over the

world.


In other words, this is the opportunity they will have. Some of

them will go to the aviation school and others will go to the naval school.

Others, still, will go to the technical schools where they will constitute

combat units while they study. At the end of their studies at the

technological school, they will be able to go to the factories or they can

get scholarships to the university in order to complete their higher

studies. And these will be sons from humble families. Many of them have

been selling newspapers and others have been shining shoes or doing other

work of this nature. These youths indeed are the pure extract of the

revolution. There will be no counterrevolutionaries among them. What a

contrast between them and the little gentlemen at the Yankee University of

Villaneuva! The youths who have passed the toughest tests, the youths who

have exhibited this formidable spirit, are the guardians of the

revolution, the defenders of the fatherland; they will handle our warships

and combat aircraft and they will handle the heavy weapons and they will

continue their studies all the time. In other words, they will be students

while they prepare for peaceful and creative work.


Each brigade will have its own teacher and those who have already

achieved a higher level will be able to go to a certain education center.

Those who have not yet achieved a higher level will, grade by grade,

acquire the necessary knowledge; at the same time they will be sent cut

into our mountains to plant trees that can be cut down for lumber, vast

zones with millions of timber trees. They will do work for the people,

they will build school cities. And they will march on and on, 2,000 will

be involved in this test, 3,000 will be sent to the mountains, to the

encampments in the Sierra Maestra, and 10,000 will be there by next

February 28.


Tens of thousands of youths, such as these, are already being

organized and they will be engineers and diplomats; they will be

professional men and skilled workers in the factories; they will be the

captains of our ships and they will be the pilots of our planes. And that

is the revolution, the revolution which will seek out the best in the

fatherland. By calling on the best in the fatherland, the revolution will

prepare a better future for all Cubans. And so we will continue to march

on with what we have. But what we have is not exactly perfect. We have

taken over the heritage of the past which in many respects is negative;

nevertheless, the people have gone into action; the professional men have

responded to the need; many of them, by the way, are products of the past;

but they have responded to the revolution and they have come out against

those who have left the fatherland; and they have come here, to these steps

in front of the university, to swear loyalty to the revolution and to the

fatherland henceforth. And these professional men are responding and the

miserable individuals, the low-down cowards and the men who are so poor in

spirit and who have left the fatherland -- they look more miserable every

minute.


And the students, who will graduate as physicians in the next few

months, have sent the revolutionary government a document; this coming

graduating class is much larger and much better than the preceding class

which is now in the field and which, directed by 2 or 3 suspect leaders,

made some exaggerated economic demands and indicated that they did not want

to go on working for the revolution and for the people under these

circumstances. We think that it was unfair that the doctors, who were in

the field in the beginning, should be making 240 pesos a month. And this

was not a matter of money because the revolutionary government and the

national economy is not shaken up by a few pesos more or less; this was a

moral issue. What we were concerned with here was the moral quality of the

doctors; some of those doctors, who graduated with the preceding class,

were not entirely up to the requirements of the revolution; two or three of

these openly counterrevolutionary petty leaders stirred them up and

prevailed upon them to assume an incorrect position. But the boys who are

going to graduate this year have had a diametrically opposed attitude.


(Fidel next read a document from the 6th-year medical students,

stating that they would support the measures of the revolutionary government

with their lives, if necessary; that they are at the unconditional

disposition of the Cuban authorities for whatever may be necessary, that

they readily and with a spirit of sacrifice accept the pay which the

revolutionary government thinks proper and can pay them, that they reject

as counterrevolutionary any attitude that tends to downgrade the spirit of

the revolution and that they ask all of their fellow students in this

course to accept this revolutionary posture.)


Well-Paid Engineers


Now, what do we propose to do with the engineers? Well, very

simply, we will pay them according to merit, in other words, we will pay

them well, because an engineer must dedicate the portion of his life to

study without getting any income. This engineer certainly deserves the

incentive of good pay, as compensation for the efforts he has made and in

return for the service he renders the country. We are very much concerned

with revolutionary engineers, we want revolutionary engineers, and the

people of the country are prepared to pay these revolutionary engineers

according to merit.


And we believe that we can do this because the economy of the

country is growing at an extraordinary rate. We are building hundreds of

settlements and housing developments and we want at least one doctor in

each settlement. For this, we must have doctors. In the past, the

engineers could not find work; for many years they had to work for

miserable salaries. The revolution now has put all of these engineers to

work. There is not a single doctor, engineer, or professional technician

with a university degree who does not have a job now. It would therefore

be unpardonable for the engineers to refrain from pitching in now, because

they did not pitch in when the country lived amid terror and crime; but now

that the country is underway, the engineers must put their shoulders to the

wheel likewise.


Criminal Physicians


The doctor who leaves an institution of the people is simply a

criminal because the doctor is sent there to save lives and anyone who

would subject many of his compatriots to the risk of losing their lives, by

simply leaving Cuba, is committing a criminal act. But the architects, the

engineers who treasonably leave their country are also criminals.

Yesterday, the National Medical College agreed to give them one last

opportunity, that is to say, they can return before 31 December; but after

31 December, 23 do not think that any of these professional men who have

left their country in difficult times should be given another opportunity

because they should not in any way be rewarded for abandoning their country

in difficult times. These people should lose at least their citizenship

and their right to pursue their profession here.


Jobs for Another 200,000


And our student dormitories are now being filled up with new

students and these new student housing facilities will be filled up with

students who do not have any funds; the revolutionary government is

prepared to spend whatever necessary in order to help them and in order to

fill the universities with new students; the revolutionary government is

prepared to spend whatever necessary in order to train engineers for

tomorrow. Today we not only have a revolutionary student body but we also

have a revolutionary university; the curriculum here is being revised on a

large scale and we have at last carried out the university reform also.


Last year, we were just talking about university city; well,

within a few days, we will begin construction on university city and the

students are going to help us and the workers from the construction

industry will come over to help; and the youth brigades and the Young

Rebels will pitch in and help; and by next September we will have a capacity

for 8,000 scholarship students at the University of Havana. We can

therefore look to the future with optimism in all respects, because we can

see everything much more clearly right now. We can see everything much

more reliability and accurately, we can say that we have a better

organization now and more experience and a better outlook in all respects;

the revolution is stronger and the circumstances are better.


The new year will begin soon. Suffice it to say that we will

create 200,000 new jobs for Cubans next year, though the agrarian reform,

alone; these will be farm jobs. Now, these figures are more or less

accurate, in other words, we are not exaggerating; we are in a position to

provide jobs for another 200,000 people in the rural areas. This is only

in the farming areas, in agriculture. But the outlook is good in every

respect. The coming year will also be the year of education. The battle

against illiteracy is a big battle. We propose to eliminate the very last

vestiges of illiteracy within one year and we are sure that we can win

this battle. Soon we going to have more than a hundred thousand persons

working in this campaign; but if we see that this not sufficient, that our

mobilization here is not enough, that we need to do more to defend the

country in this respect, in order to eliminate illiteracy, well, then, we

will mobilize many more leaders, students, workers, Young Rebels, and

members of the public at large who can then teach others to read and write.


The revolution has triumphed; the revolution is a reality and the

revolution will continue to go on invincibly. What can imperialism do in

view of the world situation which it faces? Are they not going to attack

us with mercenaries? And, with each day that passes, do they not have an

opportunity to pick up more junk with which to ferry the mercenaries over

here? This is why the military strength of the revolution has grown so

much; and now we can await the mercenaries, while we laugh ourselves sick.

During all this time, what has imperialism achieved through its patrol in

the Caribbean? More loss of prestige, and further proof that they do not

know what they are doing. They have a revolution in Guatemala and they

rush their cruisers and guns over. What does that mean? Fear! What does

this mean? That revolutions need not be exported at all, that they happen

by themselves on the American continent.


They Had Made Themselves Ridiculous


What have they done with their boats? They have made themselves

ridiculous! What have they accomplished with all of their maneuvers? They

have made themselves look ridiculous! And sugar prices have gone up

tremendously in the United States. We will see what happens next year and

we will see how they solve their sugar problem. At the end of December of

early in January, we are going to rally all of the workers, cooperative

members, planters, in other words, everybody, and we are going to hammer

out a sugar policy in accordance with the prospects. There are countries

that want to speculate on the sugar problem. We are going to see who can

compete with Cuba in the production of sugar. We are going to pick a

policy and we are going to see what happens and we are going to find what

the new administration, which is supposed to replace the Eisenhower

administration, will do about that.


We are going to see what line it pursues because Mr. Kennedy has

spouted a lot of demagogy in his election campaign, suggesting aggression

against Cuba; but talk is one thing and action is another and we are going

to see what Mr. Kennedy will do. Yes, indeed, we are going to see! We are

going to see whether, along with our literacy campaign, Mr. Kennedy becomes

politically literate and is re-educated politically. Perhaps this literacy

campaign might help Mr. Kennedy understand what goes on and then we are

going to see what he will do; we are going to see whether they want to

pursue their policy of aggression against our country, a stupid policy, a

blind policy, a policy that has failed -- or whether they decide to leave

is in peace because that would be the best thing for them. At least they

will have an opportunity to do so. These aggressions are costing them a

lot. Many factories in the United States have been ruined and the very

stupid leaders of that country have sacrificed their own workers, they have

sacrificed their own industry, but they have not done us any great damage

with their embargo.


There Will Be Lots of Suckling Pigs This Christmas


We did all right in spite of the embargo; and we can say that our

agricultural output has increased at an extraordinary rate; this Christmas

we will have enough frozen chickens for our Christmas dinner. And we are

now gathering the grain harvest; we have more than 50,000 turkeys right

now; the production of special types of pigs has increased extraordinarily;

we have been developing this effort for a number of months and it has been

making such tremendous progress that we will have plenty of little roast

suckling pigs this Christmas. There will be no need for those who love

this dish to go without it this Christmas. The embargo has failed; we have

gone on, resolving our problems and they, over there, have simply lost this

market. This is a stupid policy. It would suffice to have them do the same

thing all over the world and before you know it imperialism would cease to

exist. If they do the same thing they did with Cuba, they will be wiping

themselves out in 6 months. They will see how dumb they were in doing what

they did to Cuba.


We are going to plan our sugar policy and we are then going to see

what imperialism is going to do about. If it persists in its aggression,

that will be one thing; or it might at last begin to understand that the

Cuban revolution is an indestructible reality and it would then leave us

alone and in peace. We want peace. Why do we want peace? Because we have

grand projects, tremendous plans, and we can see how everything is making

progress here; we are happy to contemplate the future of our country, an

extraordinary future for our country which will be an example for all the

peoples of America and which will be an object of appreciation on the part

of all the other peoples of the world.


Imperialism Headed for Suicide


We need peace to accomplish this great work. We hope to invest

all of the energies of our people in this work; we do not want blood, we do

not want a single young soldier to die, not a single soldier, not a single

militia man, not a single worker, not a single Cuban. We would all like to

see them working. We only armed them in order to defend this right to

work; yes, we have invested these extraordinary energies in the preparation

of our defense and we will continue to improve our military defenses

because the best guarantee, the safest guarantee against imperialism is a

condition in which we are all well armed.


And we are achieving this condition. Very soon, we will be well

enough armed and well enough prepared to defend ourselves against any

attack.


And then, back to work, to accomplish the great plans of the

revolution; this military preparation will then give us the right to

continue our work. It has been a requirement for our being able to

continue working; perhaps we will get imperialism to reconsider and to

realize that an attack upon Cuba is condemned to failure, that an attack

upon Cuba would be the suicide of imperialism and it is indeed preferable

that imperialism should not commit suicide because of us; instead,

imperialism should die slowly, because of itself, until it has completely

disappeared from history.


We have been speaking these truths here quite bluntly whenever

they had to be said. But we have great faith. This is why we spoke to you

from these steps and this is why we believe that every day will be more

revolutionary.


This university is, each day, more identified with the people and

in reality this is the best homage for the students of 1871; it is an

obligation for us and for the students and for the entire people to honor

those innocent victims of the privileges of yesterday, the innocent student

victims, victims of the idea that justice would inevitably triumph over the

foreign interests that exploited us and our fatherland; and those innocent

victims, who were sacrificed by the exploiters of yesterday, joined the

victims of more recent times, the victims of our exploiters of today.


The victims included Mella, Trejo, and Echeverria; they were

victims of the fact that we were a Yankee colony; they were victims of

Yankee rifles; but in the end, all of these efforts helped us do away with

our colonial status, do away with the privileges, and achieve true freedom

and true justice so that our fatherland may shine. In expressing our

homage here, we also express our appreciation to those who died in the war

and our recognition for those university leaders including our comrade

Rolando Cubela, who played a great role in the war and who also did his

duty in peace. He will soon graduate from this university with a degree in

medicine and he is certainly worthy of our public recognition; we are

satisfied, highly satisfied, that he can give his name to the prize to be

awarded to the honor students; he has certainly earned the right to hold

his head high and to reap the appreciation of his people. We want to

express our optimism and our recognition for the entire university. We are

firmly convinced that the University of Havana will also be in the front

rank in this glorious hour of the fatherland.


If this ceremony were to take place in the rural areas, it would

of course be quite natural. If this event were to take place among the

workers they would certainly attend in mass, and this would be quite

natural.


The peasants and the workers are with the revolution and this is

very logical.


The counterrevolution will not try to gain ground among the

workers and the peasants; it has placed its hopes in the University of

Havana and in the student sectors.


This is because the mass of students is heterogeneous and variable

and because, in general, children from the poorer families did not have an

opportunity to study at the university.


The opportunity to study used to be in a direct ratio to the

economic resources of the family.


But where do they come from, those children who used to shine

shoes and sell newspapers at night and early in the morning? What

opportunity did they have to study? What opportunity did the children of

the peasant families have -- children who did not even have a primary

education?


There were of course children from poor families at the university

and in the institutes, but any rich boy who did not study, did so simply

because he did not want to study.


Among our university students, there were those who family

interests had been affected by the laws of the revolution.


What can the counterrevolution say to a peasant whom the

revolution has liberated from misery? What can the counterrevolution say

to the workers?


The counterrevolution first of all went to the education centers,

the centers of higher education, in an effort to recruit agents among the

sons of the rich families who had thus been affected.


The counterrevolution does not try to approach the little schools

which have opened up in the mountains.


The counterrevolution does not try to do any recruiting in the

military barracks that have been converted into schools, where the worker

children study. Imperialism and the counterrevolution know that they are

not going to find anything there.


There are still pro-Batista people among the high school teachers.


There are still reactionary and counterrevolution pro-imperialists

among the high school teachers.


The counterrevolution contacts them in an effort to turn them into

instruments for its designs against the people.


The counterrevolution addresses itself primarily to the colleges of

the privileged.


Here, in those colleges, the counterrevolution finds fertile

ground.


The privileged of yesterday and the semi-privileged of today must

know that the leaders of this revolution -- whom the people support with

their enthusiasm and their invincible faith -- know what they are doing.


In saying that there are counterrevolution professors, we are of

course in no way criticizing our comrade Minister of Education.


This is part of the revolutionary process and above all it is part

of the process of a generous revolution, such as this one.


Because it is so generous, it has the tremendous moral force it

needs to take action.


In many of these centers, they preach the counterrevolution quite

openly; they preach hatred against the fatherland, they openly preach class

hatred, hatred against the peasant, the worker, the humble people.


They criticize laws that were not made to defend the privileges of

the minorities but to bring justice and well-being to those who needed

these, to bring progress to those who needed it.


They do this openly and without concealment because nobody is

foxier in the world than a counterrevolutionary, nobody is more cynical in

the world than a counterrevolutionary.


You know who the scribes and the Pharisees and the anti-Christians

in this country are. They are those who refuse to cast their lot with the

poor, those who want the "camel to go through the eye of a needle."


They know they are not going to fool anybody here but they still

serve international interests. They are not concerned with what goes on

here but only with what goes on abroad.


They want to create conflicts here so that they can conduct

campaigns far from here.


Those who use the temples and the schools of the privileged, those

who want to rise against the revolutionary fatherland, because the

fatherland destroyed immoral and egotistical interests before the eyes of

men and God, they know they cannot fool anybody here and that they cannot

trigger any fanaticism here.


Nor can they generate any fanaticism among the children of the

rich families, in can effort to turn them into agents of the

counterrevolution, because those who in the days of Rome died without

breaking with their faith were not children of the Roman patricians but

rather the children of the Roman plebeians.


Those who burned on the crosses, those who were devoured by wild

animals, were slaves and semi-slaves; they were the poor of Rome. These

were the men and women with a strong faith; they were not accustomed to the

pleasures of the ruling class.


It was difficult for the happy and the satisfied to be loyal and

fanatical because they did not know what suffering and pain were.


It was difficult for those, who did not serve any ideas, to be

loyal to anything; it was difficult for those who were riding around in

fancy cars, whose tables were always bending under the weight of the food,

it was difficult for them to believe in anything; it was difficult for them

to believe that the moment of final judgement had come.


But the hour had come in our fatherland, the hour of the final

judgement for the privileged and the hour of judgement for the exploitation

of our people.


Among the children of the privileged, they will not find the kind

of conviction that leads men to die, they will not be able to implant the

idea of dying for something in them, quite in contrast to those who are

prepared to die for what they believe in.


And so they recruit them in order to make propaganda abroad, in

order to cause provocations. They know what they are up to, they know that

the revolution is generous, nevertheless, they know that it does not want

to spark the fires of campaigns against the fatherland and they exploit

this in order to develop reactionary opinions, against the fatherland,

against the revolution, opinions against the people, among the children

whose minds are not yet fully formed.


Perhaps they think the revolution is afraid of them, that the

revolution is trembling at the thought of the day when it will be necessary

to decree an end to all this crime and all this shame.


And all this applies to this pro-Yankee University, where they did

not express their solidarity with the students of the University of Havanna

which closed its doors and sent its students out to fights against the

tyranny in the streets. The revolutionary government has mitigated the

sanctions against those who were easily able to obtain their degrees while

others lost college attendance time.


If there is anything you can accuse the revolution of, it is that

it was aggressive and hostile toward those centers of the privileged.


The revolution was against privilege, against the economic

interests of the privileged classes; it was not against religion; this was

not a problem of belief but rather a problem of money and economic

interests; faith and religion served as a pretext for reopening the wounds

and for advancing the egotistical interests of certain individuals.


The revolution discovered the close bond that exists between the

big ranch owners, the military, and the clergy.


When the sugar plantations and refiners were nationalized, it was

found that some of the clergymen had been getting subsidies; and so they

did not sent their checks only to the cops, to the famous attorney, but

also to the clergymen.


Some of these cops in cassocks, who were vary far away indeed from

the true sermons of Christ, were prevailed upon to give counterrevolutionary

sermons in the churches.


The good faithful did not know this. And the generous revolution

did not clash with anyone in any church; it nationalized the sugar

plantations and it did the same thing in the various government

departments, but it did not subsidize anybody, the way the others had done.


The revolution was never against any church; it has never

interfered with the rights of any church or any cult; but the revolutionary

laws did go against the big landowners, against the foreign monopolies,

against those who exploited the poor sharecropper.


These same truths were proclaimed here by someone who can serve

his people without denying Christ because here you can serve a

revolutionary idea and a religious faith.


In this fatherland of ours, we must all love the fatherland; those

who do not fit in with the revolution are those who hate the people, those

who serve the interests of the rich;


All of this explains why the counterrevolution tried to take up

positions in the universities and private colleges.


We said that we would put up schools for the children of the

humble families, better schools and than the best private schools.


It is logical, that as these education centers for the people

grow, some of the schools of the privileged will lose some of their

importance. There are two reasons for this: because we have people's

schools which are better than those other schools and, second, because the

privileged have been pushed aside.


And if some of these colleges of the privileged, who did not

resign themselves to economic downgrading, were ruined, then this would not

to the fact that these measures were aimed against them, so much, as to the

fact that these measures were intended to help the people as much.


Before closing the schools, they tripled their efforts to make

everybody believe that the revolutionary government had shut them down; but

the revolutionary government did not close them.


This is what they are doing at the university of Yankee Land now.


The revolutionary government does not give them a pretext for

launching a campaign, but this does not mean that these gentlemen of Yankee

Land have the right to go unpunished.


Let them not engage in any illusions: in this struggle, the poor

will be with the revolution and the poor will fight and the privileged will

be left alone; the privileged are not cut from the same cloth as those who

in ancient Rome know how to die. They always escape to the embassy.


All you have to do is visit the Country Club and then walk

through the slum district of Las Yaguas.


This revolution is so "bad" that it left the landowners with 30

caballerias and that it left the owners of big houses with an income of 600

pesos a month.


And they are "so good" that they listened to the rumors to the

effect that the Americans would come; and so they departed, and they left

us their 30 caballerias and their 600 pesos -- and this is just fine; they

also left us the country club.


They believed that the Americans would come and return their big

estates to them.


They yearn for that world in which 400 or 500 lived in palaces

while millions lived in slums.


Marti put it quite clearly: "the fatherland belongs to everybody

and exists for the good of all."


The revolution has accomplished this basic principle stated by

Marti without the guillotine.


Whenever the people rise, they do not do so very gently.


It is better for Uncle Sam to pay their expenses than for us to

have to pay them.


What are we going to do with the houses they have left us? We are

going to use them for our guests, for workers leaders and peasant leaders,

for our visitors. We are going to prepare a hundred houses and we are

going to put Cadillacs and everything else in them and all of this will be

for our visitors.


The high school students and the pre-university students will be

the guides and even the chauffeurs for these visitors; and then they can

study for a diplomatic career and they might even make ambassador someday.


We already have 600 university scholarship students and we have a

capacity for another 1,000; we are putting up 3 student dormitories which

will be able to accommodate another 2,000 students.


All of this is for students without money. Are we giving them

alms? Is this some kind of government charity? No! These students are

going to pay for their studies; all we are doing is advancing them the

money now.


They will have everything to concentrate on their studies and they

will leave a real student life while we build university city.


This is what the revolution will do at the University of Havana

and the University of Las Villas.


That bomb was not planted by any peasant or any worker or any

family that owns its own home; none of these bombs were planted by humble

citizens or patriots.


These bombs were planted by cops, by the men who have sold out, by

the men who have been kicked out, by the men who have been agents of

imperialism, by those who bow before the foreigners.


In the past, we used dynamite to fight against the tyranny,

against the wrongdoers, against the imperialist exploitation; and all the

time they were assassinating our people and trying to extract confessions

through tortures.


The revolutionary knows that shot in the back of the neck was

waiting for him; he knew that he would end up in a pool of blood; and the

revolutionary valiantly fought for his ideal.


The agent of imperialism is a criminal who gets paid for his

services by the embassy and he knows that the terrorists have been treated

with generosity.


And they will fly the combat planes and sail the warships and

handle the heavy weapons and all the time they will continue to prepare

themselves for their civilian careers.


And so we will continue to march forward with what we have; what

we have is not perfect but this is only because we had to take over the

heritage of the past.


The doctors who were graduated with the last class were not

really up to the requirements of the revolution; two or three petty

leaders prevailed upon them to adopt a rather money-minded attitude here.


All honor to the students who will graduate in the next class to

come, all honor for the patriotic and revolutionary document which they

have signed.


We propose to pay our engineers on the basis of merit, in other

words, they will be paid well.


The country's economy is growing at an extraordinary rate; we are

building a hundred housing developments and we want to have at least one

doctor in each.


The doctor who goes away and leaves the country is nothing but a

criminal; he is the man who subjects our compatriots to the risk of having

to lose their lives and he does this by abandoning his country.


And the engineers, the architects, and the other professional men

who leave the country are also traitors.


As of 31 December, no professional will be given any opportunity

to return to the country; they will lose their citizenship and their right

to exercise their profession here.


Today we have a revolutionary student body and a revolutionary

university because we have at last carried through our university reform.


Within a few days, we will begin to build university city; and by

September of next year we will have a capacity for 8,000 scholarship

students and the University of Havana.


We need peace to accomplish this great work. We do not want

blood; we do not want a single Cuban to get killed. We invested all this

energy in the preparation of our defense so as to be able to defend the

right to work in peace.


Perhaps we will get imperialism to reconsider and to refrain from

attacking Cuba because an attack upon Cuba would be suicide for

imperialism; it would be better for imperialism to die a slow death until

it has disappeared completely from history.


This vast flight of stairs in front of the university has become

increasingly revolutionary each day and it has identified itself more and

more with the people and there can be no better tribute to our students

here.


These are the students who also died as victims of the privileged

class, victims of the Spanish colony, and these victims included Mella,

Trejo, and Jose Antonio Echeverria, victims of Yankee rifles, of Yankee

exploitation.


We want to hail the student leaders who fought in the war and who

continue to fight in peace.


Where are the mercenaries who have not yet landed? Where are

their aircraft and their boats?


They know how many men we have, they know how many weapons and

cannons and machine guns and antiaircraft guns and heavy weapons we have.


They know what it means to have all of these weapons in the hands

of the workers, the peasants, and the students.


The counterrevolutionaries know that there are no mercenaries or

imperialists who could take the cannons away from the peasants and the

workers -- yes, cannons of considerable caliber and in considerable

numbers.


What hopes have they of victory? Do they realize what it means to

face a nation in arms?


And they will also have to face that part of the world that

supports us. Where are their hopes!


Could they possibly stop the work of the revolution? Well, they

haven't seen anything yet.


Already, we have our first university scholarship students here,

and the first 600 of the youth brigades, which will climb Mt. Turquino 5

times, are already here.


Our future pilots will start out in the "Camilo Cienfuegos"

revolutionary work youth brigades.


They will have spent 5 months in the Sierra Maestra and they will

have climbed Mt. Turquino 5 times; none of them will learn to fly a plane

overnight. But their most legitimate pride will always be to the

revolution.


They will be a generation that will be better prepared for

continuing the work of the revolution because the revolution must make sure

that it will continue to advance.


We will have tens of thousands of scholarship students, tens of

thousands of youngsters who will be selected on the basis of their merit

and special conditions.


Those youngsters from the humblest families are the pure extract

and essence of the revolution. The counterrevolutionaries are not going to

find any recruits among them.


Now we can see everything more clearly; we have a better

organization and more experience and better prospects and the revolution is

stronger. Next year, in the rural areas, through the agrarian reform

alone, we are going to create another 200,000 jobs for Cubans -- in

agriculture alone.


-END-

Teilen

Zeige deinen Freunden, dass dir A Spell Of Concealment - Extended Version von Howard Shore gefällt:

• Liken
• Teilen
• Tweeten
• WhatsApp