MORAL INCENTIVES IN CUBAN REVOLUTION
{The following extracts are from a speech given by Fidel Castro September 28 on the sixth anniversary of the creation of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. ]
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There is something that distinguishes revolutionaries from nonrevolutionaries, and that is their attitude toward the future, their attitude toward the great goals and the great objectives to be achieved. I will say that anyone who does not have an attitude of combat, of confidence in the revolution and its strength, of confidence in the people and their enormous capacity for struggle, work and creativity, will never be a revolutionary. (Applause. )
(Shouts from the audience: "Shake the tree, Fidel. We still have a few rotten oranges left.")
Some remain, some remain. But we must be able to recognize the "rotten oranges." (Applause. )
(A comment from the audience.)
Who says he's unemployed?
I was saying that it is man's attitude before obstacles and difficulties, his attitude toward effort, that serves as a yardstick to gauge the mettle of a revolutionary. The optimistic, revolutionary ideas that we defend will no doubt be challenged by calculating critics, by those whose attitude toward life is entirely metaphysical, who add and subtract, but come out wrong on the total -- which is the sum of willpower, courage and determination. (Applause.) It is the sum total of the moral factors with which the peoples have always undertaken -- and accomplished -- the great tasks in the history of mankind. (Applause. )
Those who resign themselves to a minimum effort will always take fright, be intimidated. When there is talk of great tasks, great projects and great goals, when there is talk of giving something to the people, these weak-hearted men will never be able to give the peoples anything but small advantages, small successes. They take fright simply because they are unable to comprehend what the people are capable of doing. They simply are frightened by the huge task of organization required, by the enormous: push that the work of organization requires, by the enormous push that the work of the revolution demands. These puny men remind us of those who, in the past, faced by the struggle required to attain’ the extremely difficult goal of overthrowing that:.system of exploitation and tyranny, said that it was impossible and that it was only a dream of adventurers and madmen.
There are often some who vacillate when faced by great tasks, but among the vacillators we will find the first opportunists. (Applause.
We have not the slightest doubt that with the effort made by the people, with the effort we have been making and are making today, with the ever greater effort that we must make in the coming year, the people, with its strength and with its sweat, will be capable of creating riches incomparably superior to whatever financial implications may be involved in the fact that the people stop paying rent in 1970. With the other criterion we would never have arrived at any rent cut, and one of the first things the revolution did was to reduce rents -- in many cases as much as fifty percent.
Everyone is familiar with the anguish, the bitterness and the feeling of insecurity that existed under the former system, the suffering of having to pay rent -in many cases as much as half the salary earned--- for a small house or a small apartment. Everyone remembers the common dream: to one day have a home of one's own. We all remember those commercial firms that, in order to sell soap or newspapers, raffled off a small -house each month; and how many in the country and in the cities saved those soap coupons or newspaper coupons in the hope that, as one out of every thousand, or one out of every million, he would be lucky enough to win a house.
A "financier," a pure economist, a metaphysician of revolutions would have said,
"Careful! Rents shouldn't be lowered one cent. Think of it from a financial standpoint. from an economic standpoint. Think of the pesos. involved."
Such persons have peso signs in their heads and hearts. (Applause.) But if we want a people who remove the peso sign from their minds, who remove the peso sign from their hearts, we must have men who have gotten rid of their own mental peso signs.
Those persons would have said, "No." And they would have added up accounts.
' We could have asked them then, "For what reason do you ask the people to make a revolution? By chance for purely metaphysical reasons? For what reason are you going to ask the people to struggle and even die in defense of the revolution?"
Could we expect the people to believe, to be simple a priori believers in all of that? Or was it necessary, in the first place, to demonstrate that the revolution was on the side of the people, that the revolution was against the interests of the rich, that the revolution was against the interests of the exploiters, that the revolution, with no hesitation whatsoever, sacrificed and hurt the interests of the privileged minorities for the sake of the interests of the people?
There wouldn't have been even one law in the name of those principles. They would have proposed to go on charging the farmers rent. In the name of the same principles they would have continued to charge the farmers interest on loans. They would have charged for medical and hospital care. They would have charged school fees. They would have charged for the boarding schools that are now completely free -- all in the name of a metaphysical approach to life.
They would never have had the people's enthusiasm, the masses' enthusiasn, which is the prime factor, the basic factor for a people to advance, for a people to build, for a people to be able to develop. And that enthusiasm on the part of the people, that support for the revolution is something that can be measured in terms incomparably superior to the adding and subtracting of the metaphysicians.
Of course the revolution was unable to give the people all that they needed. The people could not be given what the revolution did not have to give. But the revolution did give the people all that it could. The revolution has sought to give the people all that it had to give. It has sought, above all, to create confidence among the people and a sense of security in their own future.
We have spoken in the name of socialism, we have spoken in the name of communism, but we will never create socialist consciousness and much less communist consciousness with a storekeeper mentality. (Applause. )
We will never create socialist consciousness and communist consciousness with a peso sign in the minds and hearts of the men and women of the people.
And if we ask ourselves the reason for the attitude of the people in all parts of the country -- in the cities and in the rural areas, in the loneliest mountain -the reason for their firmness in support of the revolution, it is because the revolution has created confidence and a sense of security among the people. It has created the conviction that everything may be accomplished by work and struggle.
It is not because the revolution has filled all the material needs of the people. No. But a great part of the moral needs of this people have been filled by the revolution.
Many people wonder why there's such enthusiasm among the masses; why such reactions arise in individuals everywhere. And there's something that can't be calculated mathematically simply by multiplying and dividing, by adding and subtracting, and that's the moral benefits that the revolution has meant for the people, what feeling for the first time like human beings, like men and women in the fullest sense of the word has meant for every man and woman in this country, what it has meant for millions of men and women in this country -- what it has meant to cease being nothing in order to become something. For in that old society where just a handful were everything, millions of human beings were nothing, millions of human beings didn't count for anything. (Prolonged applause. )
Was there any hope for the family in the face of illness, death, unemployment, poverty? None. If someone got sick, what was to happen to the family? In the case of
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a farmer with eight or ten children who was struck down by illness, what was to happen to his family? If he were to die, what was to happen to his wife and children? If he were out of work, what was to happen to his wife and children? If he had a house but didn't have money at the end of the month, what was to happen to his meager furniture? What was to happen to his relatives? What hope did he have that his children would have a better life? None. Was there any hope of learning to read and write? None. Was there any hope that his children would reach the sixth grade? None. That they would reach an institute? None. Or a university? Out of the question. (Applause.) And today throughout the length and breadth of the land there's not one father, there's not one mother who doesn't feel justified, confident in saying, "Which one is going to study such and such? The other one is going to study something else." And they say it with absolute confidence.
There's not one family, one farmer, one single worker, one. comman man, in our country that doesn't feel that security in the face of death, accidents, illness, in the face of anything. And all this has been creating in our citizens a sense of their own worth. This has been creating in them a sense of their own dignity.
Today in the rural areas of our country, you no longer see pairs of rural guards with their machetes, with their big horses. No, you no longer see a single man or woman in the countryside who sees power as a thing apart, authority as a thing apart, the state as a thing apart. For today these men and women are the authority. They are the ones who have the weapons in their hands -- more and better weapons than those rural guards had. Today they are the power. But not just in words or in theory, but in fact, in reality. There's no farmer, regardless of age, who doesn't have his weapon there in his company or in his battalion. There's no farmer who doesn't have there the means for defending his rights, for defending his revolution. And this has created a moral fortitude in the men and women of this country, a moral fortitude that cannot be measured in terms of numerals. For those are the things that have made the people mobilize to carry out every task, to answer every appeal of the revolution, of any kind whatsoever.
This shows how men are capable of responding conscientiously, how men are capable of responding to moral factors. The people have received many material benefits, but they have also received great moral benefits. I am sure that if many simple people of this country were to be asked, "What are you most grateful to the revolution for?: Your low rent? Your steady job? What are you most grateful to the revolution for? The material benefits you've received or the moral benefits that you've received?" I'm sure that many, perhaps the great majority, would say, "What I'm most grateful to the revolution for, and the reason I'm willing to die for the revolution, is that since the revolution, I've felt like a human being. I've felt like a man of dignity. I've felt that I amount to something among my people, that I am somebody in my country. I've felt as I never felt in the past."
And we have to encourage these feelings of social worth in our people. We have to encourage these moral factors in the people, besides making an effort to satisfy their material needs.
We are making a revolution, but we're only halfway along the road in that revolution. We've advanced a great deal since the first day of this revolution. People have divided into revolutionaries and reactionaries, depending on whether they hung on to the past or looked toward the future. And the people kept moving ahead, kept growing in awareness, kept raising their political level.
Difficult struggles have to be waged against reactionary ideas. And we've been moving forward from that stage.
But we have new stages before us. And once more, we will find reactionary ideas in our way, ideas that might have been revolutionary tens years ago, yet can be perfectly reactionary today. The ideological positions of yesterday may not be sufficiently advanced when confronted with the ideological positions of today. Today we see beyond them; we are not satisfied with drops in the bucket; we are not satisfied with a revolution by halves. We believe in the people. We believe in man. (Applause. )
And these things that the revolution does, these ideas in relation to housing, medical services, education, in relation to everything that is given the people -without the need for payment, without the need for a peso Sign in the head and bills in the pocket -- tend to gradually create a more advanced social consciousness in the people, tend to create different property values in the people, a different regard
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for material possessions, a different regard for man's work.
We do not believe in utopia. We do not believe that this can be done overnight. We do not believe that this consciousness can be developed in just a few years, but we do believe that it will never be created if we do not struggle unceasingly, if we do not advance incessantly on this path.
We wish to call ourselves revolutionaries, but the term "revolutionary" encompasses more and more; each day it has new facets. Dialectics should also be applied to the conception of a revolutionary. We cannot call ourselves revolutionaries if we do not truly and consistently aspire to a better society.
And not a few things conspire against the struggle of the peoples, the struggle of men to attain a superior organization of society.
We have not the slightest doubt that everything that is being done is superior to the past. We have no doubt that all the possibilities that have been developed, that all the rights that the people have been .receiving, and all the benefits obtained, are superior to what existed in the past. But we cannot be satisfied.
Of course, it is far easier to appeal to the selfish interests of men than to appeal to their feelings of solidarity, to their feelings of generosity; and, clearly, many things can still be solved with money. Clearly, even now, a factory can "hijack" workers from another factory, by offering money. With higher wages, any work center can lure workers from another center in what is truly a piratical action.
In the reality of matters as they stand, many men and women -- for a series of reasons, economic, social, or from lack of conscience -- still cannot bring themselves to turn down the opportunity to receive something more for themselves. But those who wish to solve problems by appealing to personal selfishness, by appealing to individual effort, forgetful of society, are acting in a reactionary manner, conspiring, although inspired by the best intentions in the world, against the possibilities of creating a truly socialist spirit, a truly communist spirit in the people. He will be conspiring against the effort to create an awareness in the people of the possibility of a way of life in. which men, acting and working in unison, will be able to give each individual member of society much more than he could ever attain on a solitary path, left to his own resources.
There are always those who pander to the selfishness of others. But those of us who call ourselves revolutionaries should never relax the fight against such individualist tendencies. We must always encourage the generosity and solidarity of the men and women of our nation. (Applause.
Those who believe that in every Cuban there is a potential "Sancho Panza" forget the lesson that the revolution has taught us -- that among the people there are many more "Quijotes" than "Panzas." (Applause.) They forget what ‘the revolution has taught us about our people. :
Anda as “for those who never believed in the people, who had no faith in then | in the past, how can we expect them to believe in the people today, or to begin believing in the future? Those who have no faith in the moral virtues of the peoples of the world can never be leaders, can never lead a people forward. _ For man does not live by bread alone.
And if we recall those moments in the past that were difficult and perilous for us, we must aiso recall the people's attitudes. It was clear on those occasions that the people were prepared to die rather than surrender. To die before giving up. (Applause. ) And willingness to die rather than surrender signifies that a human being is motivated by much more than mere biological instincts; that a human being is motivated by something higher than simple “animal appetites."
_ And those who think that man is more animal than human are offending the menory of those who in every epoch of Cuban history have taught us what a human being really is. They offend the memory of the countless heroic men who have fought for this country, from the time of the war of 1868 -- whose centennial we will soon celebrate -- when tens of thousands of Cubans went forth to the battlefields. They offend the memory of the many revolutionary combatants who have given their lives for this > country. (Prolonged applause. )
Consider those who fought in the difficult days of our own revolutionary struggle (the times we know best, since we experienced them); those in the cities who risked their lives daily during those difficult days, ruthlessly persecuted; those in the mountains, sweaty and hungry, their clothing tattered, weighed down by heavy packs, who marched day after day, month after month, and year after year to fight and to die. What were their motivations? Were "animal appetites" by chance behind their struggles? Were they motivated by selfish instincts? Or did an idea, a cause, a moral factor lie behind that strength, that capacity for finding followers, that quality which was able to arouse a whole people when the day arrived?
And when we are asked how we won the war, we can answer like Ignacio Agramonte: "With pride, with honor, with morality." (Prolonged applause.)
And these factors are the ones which mobilize our people today throughout the entire nation. They will enable us to win today's battles and to reach tomorrow's goals.
The number reckoners will find that such factors, which they have never taken into account, have more force than all their calculations, more force than all their figures. The number reckoners -- and there are those who act in good faith and those who do not -- must also one day recognize this reality; for our people are on the march, our people are advancing.
We may not reach every goal now, nor tomorrow, but we are getting nearer and nearer to the time when the facts will show exactly what our people are capable of producing even though faced with difficulties which the imperialist enemy forces upon us; even though faced with difficulties which underdevelopment bequeathed us, such as the widespread illiteracy and great ignorance that existed in our country; even though faced with any number of adverse conditions, any number of reverses stemming from our enemy or from nature itself.
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Great tasks confront us, but I can assure you that there is enthusiasm for these tasks. I can assure you because I have seen it; I have encountered enormous enthusiasm for these tasks throughout the length and breadth of the country. And that must be our attitude. Ours as well as yours.
Whenever you hear someone say, "I don't know," look upon him with suspicion. Whenever you hear someone say, "I cannot," look upon him with suspicion. Whenever you hear someone say, "It is too much," look upon him with reservations; because what we all have to say is:
"Yes, we can do it. And whatever we don't know, we'll learn." (Applause. )
We must say that nothing is too much for us. Experience has taught us that whenever we think we are doing too much, we can still do a little more. Many past experiences have shown us that when we have said, "This far," reality has proved that we can go much further.
And that is the only revolutionary attitude. And the revolutionary, by his character, influences events. The nonrevolutionary, the resigned, the conformist, the defeatist, plans ahead for ten or fifteen years. But not all are like hin.
Why ten years if it can be accomplished in three? If we can solve many, many problems within three years, why take ten? That is the right attitude -- a fighting attitude, a challenging attitude towards obstacles, towards the tasks to be fulfilled.
And this type of man is coming to the fore everywhere. Some of our comrades have great ability for choosing cadres. And already we find here and there what they call the "little cadres," many of them young men with a tremendous -- tremendous -determination to face problems and solve them, men who never stand still. And this is the type of man we must promote.
Sometimes we find people who are good, refined, decent, and who don't want to hurt anybody. Well...I'm not saying this is wrong, a man should not be cruel; an administrator, a man with responsibilities, must not be cruel. Of course he must find it painful to hurt anyone. I agree we must feel sorry for individuals, but we must feel sorrier for the people. (Applause.) We must feel sorrier for the people.
What is one to do? Nobody enjoys having to replace a man in a job; it is always a painful thing to do. Nothing is more painful or unpleasant but a man must be told, "You are not doing a good job; you must be replaced."
Because very few people recognize the truth, very few. Out of every ten persons you may meet one who will say, "That is true."
How difficult it is for man to maintain a spirit of self-criticism and really understand when he is doing things wrong and, in general, it is necessary to replace people who are functioning badly, even when they really think they are doing well. And this is painful. But we are not revolutionaries if we do not know how to overcome our reluctance when faced with embarrassment that must be suffered; because, in its essence, it is a cowardly attitude. It is painful to have to tell someone, "You are not working properly, you will have to be replaced."
And it is absolutely necessary, comrades; it is the duty of the revolution to promote all who work well. By promoting all who work well, I do not mean that everyone is to be replaced, because there will always be twenty to say, "This one is no good." And quite often it is the one who is least useful who says that no one else is any good. We should not compromise, but we must have the good sense to be able to evaluate work done and to select capable cadres who can carry forward this militant, aggressive, dynamic policy, people who are tireless, indefatigable, who, at any time, day or night, are ready and willing to face problems. (Applause. )
And, fortunately, we already have a number of comrades of this type: serious responsible, constant workers. Ah, but we must carry this policy to the last furthest corner of the country, promoting the most capable. Society requires that the most _ capable be placed in charge of all tasks. This is what society needs and this is what the revolution needs (applause) so that they may respond to this style, so that they may respond to this drive. Because this thing is growing every day; it is becoming stronger every day; it is becoming more devastating every day.
Men who are tired cannot follow this rhythm. Those who lack enthusiasm, who are lukewarm or cowardly, cannot follow this pace. The revolution causes considerable wear and tear. There are what may be termed people who are "worn out." Some say, "This one has burnt himself out." Another will remark, "This one has fizzled out." And there are others who have simply exhausted their capacity.
Well, the revolution can retire anyone. What is more, the revolution can offer generous retirement to any revolutionary who has become tired. It is better to have a retired revolutionary than a tired man trying to act like a revolutionary. (Applause. )
And the truth is that we should be very clear about this. If someone is tired, let him retire; but he must not be permitted to become a brake, an obstacle, a hin; drance. There is much to be done, and this is work for revolutionaries. (Applause. ) It is not enough to have been a revolutionary yesterday; we must know how to be revolutionaries today. (Applause.) And how to be revolutionaries tomorrow. (Applause. ) And it is even possible to be revolutionary merely by not being an obstacle.
let the new cadres come forward. Let there be:room for the new generation of men.
Promote the most capable. Let no one cling to honors,. to responsible posts, for this has always proved to be very costly to the peoples. Let new generations come, better than we. (Applause.) Let new generations come, more apt than we, and we shall gladly hand them the vanguard posts. But what we will never do is stop being revolutionaries. (Applause.) We will never be content with half a revolution. (Applause. ) We will never resign ourselves to the minimum, but will always demand the maximun. (Applause.) We will never stop halfway along the road.
We believe that we have the right to call ourselves revolutionaries, but we will not have this right the day that we abandon the march forward.
The conformists may be satisfied with the minimum; we seek the maximum.
The revolution moves forward; but it has scarcely begun. The work of the revolution has scarcely begun. But our people will have the historic right to call themselves revolutionary. History will give them this right because they won't be satis-—
fied with the minimum, but will fight for the maximum. They will fight to advance as far as possible. Of that, we are absolutely confident.
Our confidence in the people didn't arise today, when the people have more than proven what they are capable of, when they have more than proven that we were not mistaken. Before any of this had happened, before a rally like this -- and like all the others that have been held in the Plaza de la Revolucion ~- had ever taken place here, we believed in the people, we trusted the people, we knew the people. And we know that we can ask anything of our people. We know that they will go as far as any people can go, and that they are as revolutionary as any people can be. Our people will make their revolution. Their revolution (applause) which is also our revolution, our road. This does not mean that we disparage the experiences of others. That we underestimate the merits of any other people. But we have deep convictions about what we have, and what we must do. And the only revolutionary thing to do is to make our revolution. (Applause. )
There are servile spirits. There are people here who become offended when we say, "Make our revolution." They become offended when we say that the people will make their revolution. (Applause.) They consider it a kind of sin, a kind of Marxist- Leninist sacrilege.
But we won't waste time on such elaborate discussions, because we'll be making our revolution, because it's a law of universal history and it's a law of cur history.
And those who don't want us to make our revolution will share the *<te of all pseudorevolutionaries or counterrevolutionaries or reactionaries. Because some of those submissive, servile, tamed spirits get together to make the same criticism of the revolution as those made by the counterrevolutionaries. They use the same arguments against the revolution as those used by the counterrevolutionaries. There was a saying in Rome that "There is only one step from the capitol to the Tarpeian rock." Of course, we don't need any Tarpeian rock, because any little stream of water will carry away the rubbish. That is, the rubbish exists -- let's call a spade a spade —but it will meet the same fate as the backsliders and the pseudorevolutionaries and even -- if they go too far -- the same fate as the counterrevolutionaries. (Applause. ) We'll make our Marxist-Leninist revolution (applause), our socialist, our communist revolution. (Prolonged applause.) We don't say we'll reach socialism, but rather, via the path of socialism, we'll reach communism. (Prolonged applause.) And we'll reach communism by the road of Marxism-Leninism. (Applause. ) We'll reach communism through a revolutionary and scientific interpretation of reality. We won't reach communism by the road of capitalism; because nobody will ever reach communism by following the road of capitalism. (Applause.) Nor will we always take the easiest road. Sometimes we'll take the hardest roads. We won't sacrifice our aspirations to reach communism by looking for the easy way. As builders of a new society, we know that any construction is difficult, especially when it has to be erected on the debris of a still recent past.
We know that any historic work, any work of historical creation, is difficult. We know that it is a steep climb. That the going is hard on the way up. And we shall head for the highest peak, along difficult paths; not always looking for the easy way, because at times the easy way leads to failure.
We shall march forward, fighting all the way, because without fighting nothing is achieved, nothing is created. We shall march forward making great efforts, because without effort no goal is reached. With effort we have come this far, and with effort we shall go much farther. And we shall arrive with energy, with enthusiasm, with fervor, with security, with confidence, with the same confidence as yesterday, as in the very first years of the revolution, because if we had faith then, we have much more reason for faith today. We shall go forward with the people, with the masses, with their revolutionary vanguard, with their party in the vanguard (applause), with the best, the most resolute, the most capable, the most revolutionary. And the question of deciding who is the most revolutionary will not be up to us; it will be left to the people to say, the people, always. (Applause. )
And the decision of the people will be based on deeds and not on words, and the people will decide because only they can judge. Only the people will be capable of taking that step, of carrying forward this work.