A
MIGHTY ALLY IN THE PEOPLE OF THE USA
(Extracts from a speech by Fidel Castro]
[The following extracts are from a speech made by Fidel Castro in Havana on April 19 in commemorating the sixth anniversary of the defeat of U.S. imperialism at Playa Girén.
{Of special interest are Castro's observations on the giant antiwar demonstrations that occurred in the United States on April 15, his comments on new developments in the guerrilla struggles in Latin America and his remarks about Che Guevara.
{The translation is the official one which appeared in the April 30 issue of the English-language edition of Granma the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist party of Cuba. ]
* Ok Ox
The population of Latin America is growing, but the economy is not; the population is growing, but food production is not. And imperialism is driven to increase its exploitation, to be even more avaricious as a result of its war policy, its aggression, its repression of the revolutionary movement, its economic situation, that is, the shrinkage of U.S. gold reserves and its unfavorable trade balance. As a result of its adventures, as a result of its policies, as a result, among other things, of its criminal war in Viet Nam, it has been forced to deplete Latin America's resources more and more. And it has been increasingly unable to give the slightest economic aid to those countries.
What is the inevitable outcome? What is the significance of the fact that, throughout a continent of 230 million inhabitants, the population is growing faster than food production? What will be the only outcome? What must the inevitable outcome be?
What will be the inevitable outcome of a situation in which misery and hunger lead year by year to more misery and hunger? Can there be any other outcome than that of revolution? And that is the specter; more than a specter, the reality, that haunts the shortsighted, the blind, those who believed that this situation of hunger and misery could be solved in cooperation with the imperialists, the exploiters, those who bear the main responsibility for that situation of misery.
Those are facts that cannot be concealed and that lead to the only pos- Sible outcome: revolution. And this revolution is the outcome of a historical need, not the result of caprice or personal will. No one will be able to impose that revolution, as no one will be able to prevent it; for that revolution is the outcome of a vital necessity. It is the only path open to the peoples of Latin America.
And that is what our Revolution has declared since the first day; that is what our Revolution stated in the First Declaration of Havana, and in each of the statements made in the course of these years. We have said, and we have firmly believed and passionately defended the premise that this revolution, in the situation of present-day Latin America, can come only from the armed struggle of the peoples (LENGTHY APPLAUSE).
And is it the people who voluntarily choose that road? Do the peoples have the alternative of choosing between one road and another? No!
It is imperialism, it is the bloody dictatorship of the oligarchs and exploit-— ers who do not and will not calmly relinquish their privileges, who will not docilely hand over the reins of society to the exploited. Moreover, the exploiters dominate not only the economic resources; they dominate the armed institutions, they dominate the means of communications, they monopolize television, radio, printing presses, the immense majority of the newspapers, most educational and cultural institutions. And the revolutionary organizations are unarmed. What sort of arms can they rely on to try to gain revolutionary power by peaceful means, if the arms supposedly available in such a conflict are never within the reach of revolutionaries?
It is not only a question of repression. The oligarchies, the exploiting classes, create the conditions to keep the revolutionaries and the exploited from having access to power. And thus far history has shown us a single road -- our own history of today and yesterday and always, the history of the peoples who have made their revolutions. It has shown us that the peoples who have achieved any progress, any freedom, have not done so by humbling themselves, by placing their necks in the yoke. The peoples have found themselves forced to struggle; they have had to struggle (APPLAUSE). They have had to fight not because they like to spill blood, not because they like war, but because they are faced with the alternative of slavery or sacrifice; they are forced to pay for their freedom and justice with their blood and sacrifice.
Historically, this is the alternative that the exploiters have imposed upon
the exploited, the oppressors upon the oppressed, the slave masters upon the slaves; exploitation, oppression, slavery -- or sacrifice. The road is not chosen by the peoples, gentlemen; the peoples only follow the roads imposed upon them by their oppressors and exploiters. And to us it is clear. We have defended this viewpoint with conviction, with tenacity and even with passion; our peoples unfortunately have no other road to liberation than that of struggle.
And the facts increasingly show that we are right. Awareness of that truth is growing on this continent, awareness of that truth is becoming more palpable with every day that passes. The peoples begin to inspire fear when they begin to find out the truth, when they begin to discover the truth of their situation.
We too were inoffensive vassals, we too were among the defenseless and the oppressed. Our people were just that until they began to discover their road. Today it seems almost inexplicable to all of us how it was possible for all that savagery, all that injustice, all that heartless exploitation, to maintain itself for so long; how it was possible for that entire social order to exist defended by a mercenary army, defended by tiny squads of soldiers of rural guards. All of that was possible while the entire people believe in the myth that the prevailing force could not be overcome, that the prevailing force was invincible. That system was maintained more -- much more! -- by myth and lie than by the actual force that defended it.
And suppose our oldest comrades -- I don't mean old in years, but those with most experience in the guerrilla fighting -- suppose that our comrades who took part in that struggle were placed back on March 11, 1952, after the coup d'état, with all that they know today, with all their present understanding and knowledge, even if it were without a single bullet, without a single rifle. Suppose they were placed in that situation, which can only be utterly imaginary, of course, and were asked: how long do you think this situation will last? No one would feel that seven years of oppression and bloodshed would lie ahead. Only a few would doubt -- almost no one would doubt with what they know today -- that the revolutionary armed struggle in our country would have begun on March 12 if not on the eleventh or even on the tenth itself (APPLAUSE).
And it would have been sufficient -- yes, sufficient! -~ to take away the rifles of a pair of those rural guards to begin the revolutionary struggle: just a pair!...They would have wiped out one of those hired killers by hitting him with a stone or giving him a good crack on the neck. And I know, I have the conviction, that with what has been learned, with what is known and understood today, the struggle would have begun the next day.
However, we know all that now. What a long time it took us to find that out, what a long time it took us to understand that truth! A long time, that is, from a revolutionary standpoint. When the myth of the invincibility of that army fell away, when the lie was destroyed, the counterrevolutionaries then fell into another myth, into another lie. They were unable to distinguish between the power of exploitation and injustice and the power of the Revolution.
They went so far as to think that it could be just as easy to destroy a revolution as it had been to destroy exploitation and oppression. And then it took time, it took years to establish another truth: the truth that, just as it-is possible to destroy a system of exploitation and injustice, it is absolutely impossible to destroy a revolution, no matter by what means (APPLAUSE).
The imperialists, the CIA, learned that lesson very well. They learned that gimmicks and mercenary bands are worthless against a revolution, that guerrilla tactics get absolutely nowhere against a revolution. For a revolution is defended by the people, a revolution is defended by armed workers and peasants. That's why the imperialists live in a constant state of trauma and see specters everywhere.
How is it possible that, with all their ultramodern weapons and resources and equipment, with the absolute impunity with which they have been able to carry out their crimes on a world scale, they are unable to get a counterrevolutionary movement going? And how is it, nevertheless, that revolutionary movements arise everywhere and the imperialists are unable to crush them (APPLAUSE).
And so a revolutionary movement arose in South Viet Nam (APPLAUSE). To crush it, they organized a huge mercenary army, a puppet army, with all kinds of modern weapons and equipment to crush the revolutionary movement of the peasant and workers of Viet Nam, to crush the guerrillas. But the more the counterrevolutionary army grew in numbers, the more the guerrilla movement grew in strength and power.
They came to have an army of 400,000 men, but it was insufficient; they began to send special troops, first a few hundred, then several thousand, but these were insufficient; then they began to send tens of thousands, but that was not enough either; they began to send hundreds of thousands of Yankee soldiers, but that was not enough either; they sent in mercenary
troops from half a dozen nations, but it wasn't enough; they have used tactical aviation, they have used strategic aviation against the South and against the North, and nevertheless, what have they achieved? Two years have already gone by since they began their massive bombings and what have they achieved?
That is a lesson the imperialists will have to learn, whether they like it or not.
We have said on other occasions, and we will have to repeat it many more times, that the people of Viet Nam have given the world, the revolutionaries, and also the imperialists, a supreme lesson, a lesson they cannot ignore.
The imperialists have seen that there are limits to their might; they have seen that despite their industrial and military resources they have been unable to crush the revolutionary movement in a country many times smaller than the United States. Not with mercenary troops nor with the complicity of the. mercenary armies of several countries, nor with their own troops nor with their own sea and air power have they been able to crush the revolution; they have, it is true, caused much pain and sacrifice, they. have spilled much blood, but they are farther than ever from defeating the revolutionary movement in Viet Nan.
The situation of the imperialist aggressors is worsening. The consequences in domestic politics, the moral and economic consequences, are increasingly difficult to ignore. One of these consequences is the resistance of the people of the United States itself, who just a few Gays ago staged one of the biggest demonstrations that has ever been seen there, precisely against the brutal and criminal war being waged EY the imperialists in Viet Nam (APPLAUSE
And one more ally -- a most estimable one at that -- is arising right there among the people of the United States. It is really interesting from a historic standpoint, from the point of view of the course of events nowadays, that there -- right in the heart of New York -- hundreds of thousands of citizens joined together under that watchword. The representatives of the movement against racial discrimination were present in considerable numbers with posters saying that the war being waged by the imperialists against the Vietnamese people is inspired in the same feelings that lead to the oppression of black people in the United States (APPLAUSE).
That is, the victims of exploitation and discrimination in the United States have realized that their own cause has an ally in the Vietnamese who are -501-
fighting and dying for their homeland. It is really impressive to see hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens marching through New York, some of them with pictures of Ho Chi Minh, among others (APPLAUSE). And something even more enlightening: along with the picture of Ho Chi Minh and some of the martyrs in the civil-rights cause, the news dispatches reported that there were also pictures of Che Guevara (LENGTHY APPLAUSE).
This is an indication to us, to revolutionaries, that, sooner or later, among the exploited sectors of the United States, among those who suffer discrimination under that system, among the poor of the United States, among the students of the United States, and even among the progressive and intellectual sectors of the United States -- and there are many of these who are fully aware of the brutality of imperialist policies -- among the progressive sectors of the United States, and among the people themselves -- whose awareness will awaken more and more -- the world revolutionary movement, and in particular the Latin-American revolutionary movement, will have -- sooner or later -- a mighty ally.
Imperialist interests, the interests of the small minority of monopolists who rule the United States, attempt to persuade the people of that country that the liberating revolution of the peoples goes against their interests, but the people of the United States will come to see with increasing clarity who represent the most vital interests of the people of the U.S., whether the revolutionaries of the liberation movements or the imperialists who are spending nearly 100 thousand million dollars in warmongering adventures, who spend more all the time, because it is a fact that the U.S. war budget, already over 50 thousand million dollars several years ago, has grown considerably larger in recent years with the war in Viet Nam and its escalation.
Who pays for these expenditures? Who pays for these adventures? Where does the money come from? It is true that a part comes from the labor of the peoples exploited by the monopolists, but a large amount is also extracted from the sweat of U.S. workers.
Not only do the imperialists squander the fruits of the labor of the people of the United States on war adventures and brutal crimes; they divest the U.S. people of a good part of the fruits of their labor in order to augment their monopoly capital, and to foot bloody wars in defense of these monopoly interests. And they squander not only the money of the people of the United States, but also their blood, and they are threatening to cause greater bloodshed with each passing day.
This universal revolutionary and anti-imperialist awareness is growing, both outside the United States, and within.
This lesson, of course, has not been learned by the people of the United States. from speeches or pamphlets. No! It has been a costly lesson; it has been a costly lesson for the peoples; it has cost the Vietnamese people much blood, it has cost Dominican blood, and, unfortunately, it will cost still more blood, of these peoples, and of others.
In other words, the peoples of the world have had to pay the cost of imperialist barbarity so that the people of the United States might open their eyes. And the people of the United States will open their eyes; they will open them more and more as the revolutionary struggle of the peoples grows, and as the imperialists become increasingly impotent and increasingly battered by the revolutionary movement, not only in Viet Nam, but, as Che said, in two, three, four, five, ad infinitum, Viet Nams (APPLAUSE).
The imperialist press has attempted to distort some of the ideas expressed in Che's splendid message to the peoples of the world, affirming that this message proposes the destruction of the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth. The message very clearly expresses the idea that revolutionary strategy aims at the destruction, not of the United States, much less the people of the United States, but at the destruction of the imperialist domination of the United States of America.
Let the imperialists not attempt to confuse the people of the United States, the nation of the United States -- which is not composed of imperialists only -- with the imperialists themselves. And what is perfectly clear in the message of Major Ernesto Guevara is the proposition that revolutionary strategy be directed toward the destruction of imperialist domination.
This means that once imperialist domination is destroyed, and, above all, imperialist domination of Latin America, imperialism as a system will disappear. In other words, the liberation of Latin America will constitute a decisive step in the liberation of the world from its worst enemy: U.S. imperialism.
And it is a clear and evident fact that revolutionary awareness is growing in Latin America, and, as this awareness develops, events also develop and as events develop, revolutionary awareness develops. There is no longer one, nor two, nor three, but four guerrilla movements already developing with steadily increasing strength; four guerrilla -502-
movements that the oligarchies are clearly unable to crush: the Guatemalan guerrilla movement in Central America (APPLAUSE), the guerrilla movements of Colombia and Venezuela (APPLAUSE) and the guerrilla movement of Bolivia (APPLAUSE), all in process of development, slowly at first, but with constantly increasing energy and momentum.
The combatants of the revolutionary movement of this contingent have been gaining experience, and the peoples have been opening their minds to the truth.
The pusillanimous, the weak-spirited, the pseudo revolutionaries who thought that the first setbacks meant that the Revolution had failed and that armed struggle was futile, must wake up anew to reality.
No blow, no setback has ever destroyed the faith, tenacity and firmness of true revolutionaries, nor will it ever, in any country. In some cases, development will be more accelerated than in others.
It is worthy of note that, in Colombia, for example, important actions are being carried out; the revolutionaries attack military convoys being carried on important railway lines, take towns, or engage in intense, hours-long combat in the mountains, victorious combat in which the repressive forces suffer numerous losses. The. strength of the guerrilla movement in Colombia is apparent in equal measure in different regions of the country.
As to Venezuela, Sr. Leoni became a laughingstock recently at the Punta del Este Conference when he insisted that the Venezuelan guerrillas were little more than an invention of the press, that they really did not exist.
How often have they affirmed that the guerrillas have been wiped out? Yet, despite ironclad censorship of the press, everyone knows that the guerrilla movement is growing in Venezuela and that heavily armed detachments are inspiring fear in the regime, and fear in its soldiers. No matter how they try to hide it, they cannot deny that the guerrilla columns under the command of Douglas Bravo (APPLAUSE) have victoriously penetrated not only the Falcén zone, but the state of Lara as well, or that, despite offensive operations by the army, the guerrilla forces in El Bachiller are firmly holding their positions under the leadership of Américo Martin (APPLAUSE).
We learned recently through the news services that the army situated heavy artillery before El Bachiller mountains, from where it carried out an intense bombardment of the mountains.
There are enough old guerrilla fighters present here, and not only old guerilla fighters, but also others who learned the
art of war while hunting down bands of counterrevolutionaries, to know, as anyone who has had guerrilla experience knows, that nothing is more ridiculous than firing a battery of cannons against mountains. If it is ridiculous to shoot ‘from planes that can drop hundreds and thousands of bombs without even one falling anywhere near a guerrilla fighter, of what use is artillery against guerrillas?
And when one reads such news he asks himself, who are they trying to fool? Are they trying to fool Leoni? Or are the "Green Beret" advisers fooling the army? Are they all trying to fool each other? Or are they trying to fool the people? But who on earth are they going to make believe that this is anything other than an act of desperation, an absurdity, an incredible stupidity!
It is a sign of impotence, of inability to crush the guerrilla movement.
And, according to what can be deduced from the press dispatches of the news services, the guerrilla movement in Bolivia grows in strength and combativity. According to what we have read, in a mat-— ter of just a few weeks, the guerrillas, in a series of fulminating attacks have caused the repressive troops of the regime more than 40 losses including dead, wounded and prisoners -- despite the fact that specially trained "antiguerrilla" troops are being used against then.
The fact is that these specially trained troops are effective for repres-— sion of the people in the streets, for wholesale assassination of workers, for attacks on miners, but when they have to confront the guerrillas in the mountains, they are totally useless, perfectly inept, and their fate -- like that of the mercenaries in Viet Nam -- will be to die like insects (APPLAUSE).
Increasing numbers of "Green Berets" are being used in Guatemala, Colombia and Venezuela and, according to news from Bolivia, the imperialists have recently sent about a thousand "Green Berets" to that country. Airline travelers between Panama and Bolivia have told of flights on which as many as 50 Yankee tourists -- very odd tourists, who travel under "superiors" and are met at the different airports by others like themselves -~- arrive and fill the hotels, while in the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the various repressive bodies, at Army Headquarters, etc., very little effort is made to conceal the presence of these special troops of the U.S. army.
The imperialists, of course, try to conceal the magnitude of their intervention in Bolivia. They speak of planeloads of arms being sent and of military instructors who are sent in accordance with agreements that existed before the upsurge of the guerrilla movement, but the fact is that armaments have been taken in by plane and close to a thousand specially trained troops have been sent via different routes to Bolivia.
This illustrates the panic, the desperation, the fear, and the dead-end road of the imperialists. Because, above and beyond the hundreds of thousands of soldiers they already have in Viet Nam and the thousands that still occupy Dominican territory, they are now obliged to mobilize more and more soldiers to send against the different guerrilla fronts in Latin America in a shameless intervention that is, it is logical to assume, the beginning of another imperialist adventure.
Of course, they won't have too many experts to send, because the Vietnamese have put many of the "Green Beret" experts out of commission (APPLAUSE). And if the imperialists send increasing numbers of "Green Berets" against the guerrilla movements, so much the worse for the "Green Berets!" Not only because the revolutionaries are going to settle accounts with them, but also because this will serve to accelerate and strengthen solidarity among the peoples of the world to fight at the side of the revolutionaries! (APPLAUSE. )
The internationalist scope and nature of this revolutionary struggle of all the peoples against the Yankee imperialist -- the enemy -- was superbly described by Che in his message.
Awareness grows. Revolutionary theses gain ground; they are gaining everincreasing support and an ever-increasing number of adepts, while the conformist, reformist, submissive and pseudo-revolutionary theses are being increasingly rejected and grow steadily weaker.
We have not the shadow of a doubt that all of this is a simple matter of time, and that the vacillators, those who prefer to come to terms, and the pseudo revolutionaries, will be swept away in this struggle. As the truth of the peoples makes headway, there will be no one left who will heed any charlatan who advises him to bow his head and accept the yoke. This is clear. The peoples of this continent are becoming more and more aware of the reality of their situation.
To the worldwide revolutionary movement, to those who confront imperialism in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Major Che Guevara's (APPLAUSE) message has been one of far-reaching repercussions. To say nothing of us Cubans. No one here ever believed the fables, the intrigues of the imperialists. We know each other very well here and we know the truth, either because we hear about it or because we can guess it.
Throughout the entire world, the imperialists have made every attempt to sow confusion and spread lies. They reported Che as having appeared in various places and they "kiiled" him a dozen times. This document must have had a traumatic effect upon the imperialists. The presence of Che, his “resurrection, " must have been profoundly discouraging and alarming to them. This Che -- shown both beardless and bearded -- with a beard that is impossible to describe as old or new -- (APPLAUSE) and wearing a beret that seems to symbolize something like a "Red Beret" (APPLAUSE) must have been the cause for great concern among the Yankee imperialists.
This Che, in excellent physical condition, filled with unequaled enthusiasm, and with even greater experience in guerrilla warfare, must certainly be cause for great concern among the imperialists and, conversely, equally the reason for an added stimulus among the revolutionaries.
"Where's Che?" the imperialists ask themselves. "Is he organizing liberation movements or perhaps fighting on one of the liberation fronts?" They certainly would like very much to know. But even if they did, they would only be satisfying their curiosity, because if they ~504-
really wish to preserve the lives of their "Green Berets" they had better see to it that they don't come up against Che (PRO- LONGED APPLAUSE).
Che's presence must have also been quite a lesson to those who tried to capitalize. on his disappearance, to the schemers and liars who took advantage of Che's absence to heap all sorts of lies upon the Revolution. And these people —well, why waste time talking about them? -- have already been punished by history, for it is history that settles accounts with schemers and liars.
That is the reason that the liars' perversity never bothered us, although we did feel a little hurt..We knew that once again history would clear up everything. And this is the punishment for all the schemers and liars who played the imperialists' game to the hilt during the new stage in Comrade Che Guevara's life that began two years ago.
Naturally, we do not know everything, but again let history take care of that. We have all welcomed this message with immense happiness and we do not have the slightest doubt that the following days, weeks, months and years will inevitably bring us more news about Che (PRO- LONGED APPLAUSE).