|
Che Guevara Archive
Notes for the Study of Man and Socialism in Cuba
Guevara wrote "Notes for the Study of Man and Socialism
in Cuba" in the form of a letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of
Marcha, an independent radical weekly published in Montevideo, Uruguay.
It bore the dateline "Havana, 1965." In addition to appearing
in Marcha, it was printed in Verde Olivo, the magazine
of the Cuban armed forces. It is translated in full below.
Though belatedly, I am completing these notes in the course of my
trip through Africa, hoping in this way to keep my promise. I would
like to do so by dealing with the theme set forth in the above title.
I think it may be of interest to Uruguayan readers.
 A
common argument from the mouths of capitalist spokesmen, in the ideological
struggle against socialism, is that socialism, or the period of building
socialism into which we have entered, is characterised by the subordination
of the individual to the state. I will not try to refute this argument
solely on theoretical grounds, but I will try to establish the facts
as they exist in Cuba and then add comments of a general nature. Let
me begin by sketching the history of our revolutionary struggle before
and after the taking of power.
As is well known, the exact date on which the revolutionary struggle
began — which would culminate January 1st, 1959 — was
the 26th of July 1953. A group of men commanded by Fidel Castro attacked
the Moncada barracks in Oriente Province on the morning of that day.
The attack was a failure; the failure became a disaster; and the survivors
ended up in prison, beginning the revolutionary struggle again after
they were freed by an amnesty.
In this stage, in which there was only the germ of socialism, man
was the basic factor. We put our trust in him - individual, specific,
with a first and last name - and the triumph or failure of the mission
entrusted to him depended on his capacity for action.
Then came the stage of guerrilla struggle. It developed in two distinct
elements: the people, the still sleeping mass which it was necessary
to mobilise; and its vanguard, the guerrillas, the motor force of
the movement, the generator of revolutionary consciousness and militant
enthusiasm. It was this vanguard, this catalysing agent, which created
the subjective conditions necessary for victory.
^
Back To Top
Here again, in the course of the process of proletarianizing our thinking,
in this revolution, which took place in our habits and our minds,
the individual was the basic factor. Every one of the fighters of
the Sierra Maestra who reached an upper rank in the revolutionary
forces has a record of outstanding deeds to his credit. They attained
their rank on this basis. It was the first heroic period and in it
they contended for the heaviest responsibilities, for the greatest
dangers, with no other satisfaction than fulfilling a duty.
In our work of revolutionary education we frequently return to this
instructive theme. In the attitude of our fighters could be glimpsed
the man of the future.
On other occasions in our history the act of total dedication to the
revolutionary cause was repeated. During the October crisis and in
the days of Hurricane Flora we saw exceptional deeds of valour and
sacrifice performed by an entire people. Finding the formula to perpetuate
this heroic attitude in daily life is, from the ideological standpoint,
one of our fundamental tasks.
In January 1959, the Revolutionary Government was established with
the participation of various members of the treacherous bourgeoisie.
The existence of the Rebel Army as the basic factor of force constituted
the guarantee of power. Serious contradictions developed subsequently.
In the first instance, in February 1959, these were resolved when
Fidel Castro assumed leadership of the government with the post of
Prime Minister. This stage culminated in July of the same year with
the resignation under mass pressure of President Urrutia.
There now appeared in the history of the Cuban Revolution a force
with well-defined characteristics, which would systematically reappear
— the mass.
This many-faceted agency is not, as is claimed, the sum of units of
the self-same type, behaving like a tame flock of sheep, and reduced,
moreover, to that type by the system imposed from above. It is true
that it follows its leaders, basically Fidel Castro, without hesitation;
but the degree to which he won this trust corresponds precisely to
the degree that he interpreted the people's desires and aspirations
correctly, and to the degree that he made a sincere effort to fulfil
the promises he made.
The mass participated in the agrarian reform and in the difficult
task of the administration of state enterprises; it went through the
heroic experience of Playa Girón; it was hardened in the battles
against various bands of bandits armed by the CIA; it lived through
one of the most important decisions of modern time during the October
crisis; and today it continues to work for the building of socialism.
Viewed superficially, it might appear that those who speak of the
subordination of the individual to the state are right. The mass carries
out with matchless enthusiasm and discipline the tasks set by the
government, whether economic in character, cultural, defensive, athletic,
or whatever.
^ Back To Top
The initiative generally comes from Fidel or from the Revolutionary
High Command, and is explained to the people who adopt it as theirs.
In some cases the party and government utilise a local experience
which may be of general value to the people, and follow the same procedure.
Nevertheless, the state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these
mistakes occurs, a decline in collective enthusiasm is reflected by
a resulting quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual,
each of the elements forming the whole of the masses. Work is so paralysed
that insignificant quantities are produced. It is time to make a correction.
That is what happened in March 1962, as a result of the sectarian
policy imposed on the party by Anibal Escalante.
Clearly this mechanism is not adequate for insuring a succession of
judicious measures. A more structured connection with the masses is
needed and we must improve it in the course of the next years. But
as far as initiatives originating in the upper strata of the government
are concerned, we are presently utilising the almost intuitive method
of sounding out general reactions to the great problems we confront.
In this Fidel is a master, whose own special way of fusing himself
with the people can be appreciated only by seeing him in action. At
the great public mass meetings one can observe something like a counterpoint
between two musical melodies whose vibrations provoke still newer
notes. Fidel and the mass begin to vibrate together in a dialogue
of growing intensity until they reach the climax in an abrupt conclusion
culminating in our cry of struggle and victory.
The difficult thing for someone not living the experience of the revolution
to understand is this close dialectical unity between the individual
and the mass, in which the mass, as an aggregate of individuals, is
interconnected with its leaders.
Some phenomena of this kind can be seen under capitalism, when politicians
capable of mobilising popular opinion appear, but these phenomena
are not really genuine social movements. (If they were, it would not
be entirely correct to call them capitalist.) These movements only
live as long as the persons who inspire them do, or until the harshness
of capitalist society puts an end to the popular illusions which made
them possible.
Under capitalism man is controlled by a pitiless code of laws, which
is usually beyond his comprehension. The alienated human individual
is tied to society in its aggregate by an invisible umbilical cord-
the law of value. It is operative in all aspects of his life, shaping
its course and destiny.
The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon
the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness
of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted
by capitalist propagandists, who purport to draw a lesson from the
example of Rockefeller - whether or not it is true — about the
possibilities of success.
^
Back To Top
The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of
a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of
a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture,
and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.
(A discussion of how the workers in the imperialist countries
are losing the spirit of working-class internationalism, due to a
certain degree of complicity in the exploitation of the dependent
countries, and how this weakens the combativity of the masses in the
imperialist countries, would be appropriate here; but that is a theme
which goes beyond the aim of these notes.)
 In
any case the road to success is pictured as one beset with perils
but which, it would seem, an individual with the proper qualities
can overcome to attain the goal. The reward is seen in the distance;
the way is lonely. Further on it is a route for wolves; one can succeed
only at the cost of the failure of others.
I would now like to try to define the individual, the actor in this
strange and moving drama of the building of socialism, in his dual
existence as a unique being and as a member of society. I think it
makes the most sense to recognise his quality of incompleteness, of
being an unfinished product. The sermons of the past have been transposed
to the present in the individual consciousness, and a continual labour
is necessary to eradicate them. The process is two-sided: On the one
side, society acts through direct and indirect education; on the other,
the individual subjects himself to a process of conscious self-education.
The new society being formed has to compete fiercely with the past.
The latter makes itself felt in the consciousness in which the residue
of an education systematically oriented towards isolating the individual
still weighs heavily, and also through the very character of the transitional
period in which the market relationships of the past still persist.
The commodity is the economic cell of capitalist society; so long
as it exists its effects will make themselves felt in the organisation
of production and, consequently, in consciousness.
Marx outlined the period of transition as a period which results from
the explosive transformation of the capitalist system of a country
destroyed by its own contradictions.
^
Back To Top
However in historical reality we have seen that some countries, which
were weak limbs of the tree of imperialism, were torn off first —
a phenomenon foreseen by Lenin.
In these countries, capitalism had developed to a degree, sufficient
to make its effects felt by the people in one way or another. But
having exhausted all its possibilities, it was not its internal contradictions,
which caused these systems to explode. The struggle for liberation
from a foreign oppressor, the misery caused by external events like
war, whose consequences make the privileged classes bear down more
heavily on the oppressed, liberation movements aimed at the overthrow
of neo-colonial regimes - these are the usual factors in this kind
of explosion. Conscious action does the rest.
In these countries a complete education for social labour has not
yet taken place, and wealth is far from being within the reach of
the masses simply through the process of appropriation. Underdevelopment
on the one hand and the inevitable flight of capital on the other,
make a rapid transition impossible without sacrifices. There remains
a long way to go in constructing the economic base, and the temptation
to follow the beaten track of material interest as the moving lever
of accelerated development is very great.
There is the danger that the forest won't be seen for the trees. Following
the will-o'-the-wisp method of achieving socialism with the help of
the dull instruments which link us to capitalism (the commodity as
the economic cell, profitability, individual material interests as
a lever, etc.) can lead into a blind alley.
Further, you get there after having travelled a long distance in which
there were many crossroads and it is hard to figure out just where
it was that you took the wrong turn. The economic foundation, which
has been formed, has already done its work of undermining the development
of consciousness. To build communism, you must build new men as well
as the new economic base.
Hence it is very important to choose correctly the instrument for
mobilising the masses. Basically, this instrument must be moral in
character, without neglecting, however, a correct utilisation of the
material stimulus-especially of a social character.
^
Back To Top
As I have already said, in moments of great peril it is easy to muster
a powerful response to moral stimuli; but for them to retain their
effect requires the development of a consciousness in which there
is a new priority of values. Society as a whole must be converted
into a gigantic school.
In rough outline this phenomenon is similar to the process by which
capitalist consciousness was formed in its initial epoch. Capitalism
uses force but it also educates the people to its system. Direct propaganda
is carried out by those entrusted with explaining the inevitability
of class society, either through some theory of divine origin or through
a mechanical theory of natural selection.
This lulls the masses since they see themselves as being oppressed
by an evil against which it is impossible to struggle. Immediately
following comes the hope of improvement — and in this, capitalism
differed from the preceding caste systems, which offered no possibilities
for advancement.
For some people, the ideology of the caste system will remain in effect:
The reward for the obedient after death is to be transported to some
fabulous otherworld where, in accordance with the old belief, good
people are rewarded. For other people there is this innovation: The
division of society is predestined, but through work, initiative,
etc., individuals can rise out of the class to which they belong.
These two ideologies and the myth of the self-made man have to be
profoundly hypocritical: They consist in self-interested demonstrations
that the lie of the permanence of class divisions is a truth.
In our case direct education acquires a much greater importance. The
explanation is convincing because it is true; no subterfuge is needed.
It is carried on by the state's educational apparatus as a function
of general, technical and ideological culture through such agencies
as the Ministry of Education and the party's informational apparatus.
^ Back To Top
Education takes hold of the masses and the new attitude tends to become
a habit; the masses continue to absorb it and to influence those who
have not yet educated themselves. This is the indirect form of educating
the masses, as powerful as the other.
But the process is a conscious one; the individual continually feels
the impact of the new social power and perceives that he does not
entirely measure up to its standards. Under the pressure of indirect
education, he tries to adjust himself to a norm, which he feels is
just, and which his own lack of development had prevented him from
reaching theretofore. He educates himself
In this period of the building of socialism we can see the new man
being born. His image is not yet completely finished — it never
could be — since the process goes forward hand in hand with
the development of new economic forms.
Leaving out of consideration those whose lack of education makes them
take the solitary road toward satisfying their own personal ambitions,
there are those, even within this new panorama of a unified march
forward, who have a tendency to remain isolated from the masses accompanying
them. But what is important is that everyday men are continuing to
acquire more consciousness of the need for their incorporation into
society and, at the same time, of their importance as the movers of
society do.
 They
no longer travel completely alone over trackless routes toward distant
desires. They follow their vanguard, consisting of the party, the
advanced workers, advanced men who walk in unity with the masses and
in close communion with them. The vanguard has its eyes fixed on the
future and its rewards, but this is not seen as something personal.
The reward is the new society in which men will have attained new
features: the society of communist man.
The road is long and full of difficulties. At times we wander from
the path and must turn back; at other times we go too fast and separate
ourselves from the masses; on occasions we go too slow and feel the
hot breath of those treading on our heels. In our zeal as revolutionists
we try to move ahead as fast as possible, clearing the way, but knowing
we must draw our sustenance from the mass and that it can advance
more rapidly only if we inspire it by our example.
The fact that there remains a division into two main groups (excluding,
of course, that minority not participating for one reason or another
in the building of socialism), despite the importance given to moral
stimuli, indicates the relative lack of development of social consciousness.
^ Back To Top
The vanguard group is ideologically more advanced than the mass; the
latter understands the new values, but not sufficiently. While among
the former there has been a qualitative change, which enables them
to make sacrifices to carry out their function as an advance guard,
the latter go only half way and must be subjected to stimuli and pressures
of certain intensity. That is the dictatorship of the proletariat
operating not only on the defeated class but also on individuals of
the victorious class.
All this means that for total success a series of mechanisms, of revolutionary
institutions, is needed. Fitted into the pattern of the multitudes
marching towards the future is the concept of a harmonious aggregate
of channels, steps, restraints, and smoothly working mechanisms which
would facilitate that advance by ensuring the efficient selection
of those destined to march in the vanguard which, itself, bestows
rewards on those who fulfil their duties, and punishments on those
who attempt to obstruct the development of the new society.
This institutionalisation of the revolution has not yet been achieved.
We are looking for something which will permit a perfect identification
between the government and the community in its entirety, something
appropriate to the special conditions of the building of socialism,
while avoiding to the maximum degree a mere transplanting of the commonplaces
of bourgeois democracy-like legislative chambers- into the society
in formation.
Some experiments aimed at the gradual development of institutionalised
forms of the revolution have been made, but without undue haste. The
greatest obstacle has been our fear lest any appearance of formality
might separate us from the masses and from the individual, might make
us lose sight of the ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration,
which is to see man liberated from his alienation.
Despite the lack of institutions, which must be corrected gradually,
the masses are now making history as a conscious aggregate of individuals
fighting for the same cause. Man under socialism, despite his apparent
standardisation, is more complete; despite the lack of perfect machinery
for it, his opportunities for expressing himself and making himself
felt in the social organism are infinitely greater.
It is still necessary to strengthen his conscious participation, individual
and collective, in all the mechanisms of management and production,
and to link it to the idea of the need for technical and ideological
education, so that he sees how closely interdependent these processes
are and how their advancement is parallel. In this way he will reach
total consciousness of his social function, which is equivalent to
his full realisation as a human being, once the chains of alienation
are broken.
^ Back To Top
This will be translated concretely into the regaining of his true
nature through liberated labour, and the expression of his proper
human condition through culture and art.
In order for him to develop in the first of the above categories,
labour must acquire a new status. Man dominated by commodity relationships
will cease to exist, and a system will be created which establishes
a quota for the fulfilment of his social duty. The means of production
belong to society, and the machine will merely be the trench where
duty is fulfilled.
Man will begin to see himselve mirrored in his work and to realise
his full stature as a human being through the object created, through
the work accomplished. Work will no longer entail surrendering a part
of his being in the form of labour-power sold, which no longer belongs
to him, but will represent an emanation of himself reflecting his
contribution to the common life, the fulfilment of his social duty.
We are doing everything possible to give labour this new status of
social duty and to link it on the one side with the development of
a technology which will create the conditions for greater freedom,
and on the other side with voluntary work based on a Marxist appreciation
of the fact that man truly reaches a full human condition when he
produces without being driven by the physical need to sell his labour
as a commodity.
Of course there are other factors involved even when labour is voluntary:
Man has not transformed all the coercive factors around him into conditioned
reflexes of a social character, and he still produces under the pressures
of his society. (Fidel calls this moral compulsion.)
Man still needs to undergo a complete spiritual rebirth in his attitude
towards his work, freed from the direct pressure of his social environment,
though linked to it by his new habits. That will be communism.
The change in consciousness will not take place automatically, just
as it doesn't take place automatically in the economy. The alterations
are slow and are not harmonious; there are periods of acceleration,
pauses and even retrogressions.
Furthermore we must take into account, as I pointed out before, that
we are not dealing with a period of pure transition, as Marx envisaged
it in his Critique of the Gotha Program, but rather with a new phase
unforeseen by him: an initial period of the transition to communism,
or the construction of socialism. It is taking place in the midst
of violent class struggles and with elements of capitalism within
it which obscure a complete understanding of its essence.
If we add to this the scholasticism which has hindered the development
of Marxist philosophy and impeded the systematic development of the
theory of the transition period, we must agree that we are still in
diapers and that it is necessary to devote ourselves to investigating
all the principal characteristics of this period before elaborating
an economic and political theory of greater scope.
^
Back To Top
The resulting theory will, no doubt, put great stress on the two pillars
of the construction of socialism the education of the new man and
the development of technology. There is much for us to do in regard
to both, but delay is least excusable in regard to the concepts of
technology, since here it is not a question of going forward blindly
but of following over a long stretch of road already opened up by
the world's more advanced countries. This is why Fidel pounds away
with such insistence on the need for the technological training of
our people and especially of its vanguard.
In the field of ideas not involving productive activities it is easier
to distinguish the division between material and spiritual necessity.
For a long time man has been trying to free himself from alienation
through culture and art. While he dies every day during the eight
or more hours that he sells his labour, he comes to life afterwards
in his spiritual activities.
But this remedy bears the germs of the same sickness; it is as a solitary
individual that he seeks communion with his environment. He defends
his oppressed individuality through the artistic medium and reacts
to aesthetic ideas, as a unique being whose aspiration is to remain
untarnished.
All that he is doing, however, is attempting to escape. The law of
value is not simply a naked reflection of productive relations: The
monopoly capitalists - even while employing purely empirical methods
- weave around art a complicated web which converts it into a willing
tool. The superstructure of society ordains the type of art in which
the artist has to be educated. Its machinery subdues rebels and only
rare talents may create their own work. The rest become shameless
hacks or are crushed.
A school of artistic "freedom" is created, but its values
also have limits even if they are imperceptible until we come into
conflict with them - that is to say, until the real problem of man
and his alienation arises. Meaningless anguish and vulgar amusement
thus become convenient safety valves for human anxiety. The idea of
using art as a weapon of protest is combated.
If one plays by the rules, he gets all the honours — such honours
as a monkey might get for performing pirouettes. The condition that
has been imposed is that one cannot try to escape from the invisible
cage.
When the revolution took power there was an exodus of those who had
been completely housebroken, the rest - whether they were revolutionaries
or not - saw a new road open to them. Artistic inquiry experienced
a new impulse. The paths, however, had already been more or less laid
out and the escapist concept hid itself behind the word "freedom."
This attitude was often found even among the revolutionaries themselves,
reflecting the bourgeois idealism still in their consciousness.
^ Back To Top
In those countries, which had gone through a similar process, they
tried to combat such tendencies by an exaggerated dogmatism. General
culture was virtually tabooed, and it was declared that the acme of
cultural aspiration was the formally exact representation of nature.
This was later transformed into a mechanical representation of the
social reality they wanted to show: the ideal society almost without
conflicts or contradictions, which they sought to create.
Socialism is young and has made errors. Many times revolutionaries
lack the knowledge and intellectual courage needed to meet the task
of developing the new man with methods different from the conventional
ones - and the conventional methods suffer from the influences of
the society, which created them.
(Again we raise the theme of the relationship between form and content.)
Disorientation is widespread, and the problems of material construction
preoccupy us. There are no artists of great authority who at the same
time have great revolutionary authority. The men of the party must
take this task to hand and seek attainment of the main goal, the education
of the people.
But then they sought simplification. They sought an art that would
be understood by everyone - the kind of 'art' functionaries understand.
True artistic values were disregarded, and the problem of general
culture was reduced to taking some things from the socialist present
and some from the dead past (since dead, not dangerous). Thus Socialist
Realism arose upon the foundations of the art of the last century.
But the realistic art of the nineteenth century is also a class art,
more purely capitalist perhaps than this decadent art of the twentieth
century, which reveals the anguish of alienated man. In the field
of culture capitalism has given all that it had to give, and nothing
of it remains but the offensive stench of a decaying corpse, today's
decadence in art.
Why then should we try to find the only valid prescription for art
in the frozen forms of Socialist Realism? We cannot counterpose the
concept of Socialist Realism to that of freedom because the latter
does not yet exist and will not exist until the complete development
of the new society. Let us not attempt, from the pontifical throne
of realism-at-any-cost, to condemn all the art forms which have evolved
since the first half of the nineteenth century for we would then fall
into the Proudhonian mistake of returning to the past, of putting
a straitjacket on the artistic expression of the man who is being
born and is in the process of making himself.
^
Back To Top
What are needed are the development of an ideological-cultural mechanism
which permits both free inquiry and the uprooting of the weeds which
multiply so easily in the fertile soil of state subsidies.
In our country we don't find the error of mechanical realism, but
rather its opposite, and that is so because the need for the creation
of a new man has not been understood, a new man who would represent
neither the ideas of the nineteenth century nor those of our own decadent
and morbid century.
 What
we must create is the man of the twenty-first century, although this
is still a subjective and not a realised aspiration. It is precisely
this man of the next century who is one of the fundamental objectives
of our work; and to the extent that we achieve concrete successes
on a theoretical plane-or, vice versa, to the extent we draw theoretical
conclusions of a broad character on the basis of our concrete research-we
shall have made an important contribution to Marxism-Leninism, to
the cause of humanity.
Reaction against the man of the nineteenth century has brought us
a relapse into the decadence of the twentieth century; it is not a
fatal error, but we must overcome it lest we open a breach for revisionism.
The great multitudes continue to develop; the new ideas continue to
attain their proper force within society; the material possibilities
for the full development of all members of society make the task much
more fruitful. The present is a time for struggle; the future is ours.
^ Back To Top
To sum up, the fault of our artists and intellectuals lies in their
original sin: They are not truly revolutionary. We can try to graft
the elm tree so that it will bear pears, but at the same time we must
plant pear trees. New generations will come who will be free of the
original sin. The probabilities that great artists will appear will
be greater to the degree that the field of culture and the possibilities
for expression are broadened.
Our task is to prevent the present generation, torn asunder by its
conflicts, from becoming perverted and from perverting new generations.
We must not bring into being either docile servant of official thought
or scholarship students who live at the expense of the state - practising
"freedom." Already there are revolutionaries coming who
will sing the song of the new man in the true voice of the people.
This is a process, which takes time.
In our society the youth and the party play an important role. The
former is especially important because it is the malleable clay from
which the new man can be shaped without any of the old faults. The
youth is treated in accordance with our aspirations.
Its education steadily grows more full, and we are not forgetting
about its integration into the labour force from the beginning. Our
scholarship students do physical work during their vacations or along
with their studying. Work is a reward in some cases, a means of education
in others, but it is never a punishment. A new generation is being
born.
The party is a vanguard organisation. The best workers are proposed
by their fellow workers for admission into it. It is a minority, but
it has great authority because of the quality of its cadres. Our aspiration
is that the party will become a mass party, but only when the masses
have reached the level of the vanguard, that is, when they are educated
for communism.
Our work constantly aims at this education. The party is the living
example; its cadres should be teachers of hard work and sacrifice.
They should lead the masses by their deeds to the completion of the
revolutionary task, which involves years of hard struggle against
the difficulties of construction, class enemies, the sicknesses of
the past, imperialism . . .
Now, I would like to explain the role played by personality, by man
as the individual leader of the masses, which make history. This has
been our experience; it is not a prescription.
^
Back To Top
Fidel gave the revolution its impulse in the first years, and also
its leadership. He always strengthened it; but there is a good group
who are developing in the same way as the outstanding leader, and
there is a great mass which follows its leaders because it has faith
in them, and it has faith in them because they have been able to interpret
its desires.
This is not a matter of how many pounds of meat one might be able
to eat, nor of how many times a year someone can go to the beach,
nor how many ornaments from abroad you might be able to buy with present
salaries. What is really involved is that the individual feels more
complete, with much more internal richness and much more responsibility.
The individual in our country knows that the illustrious epoch in
which it was determined that he lives is one of sacrifice; he is familiar
with sacrifice. The first came to know it in the Sierra Maestra and
wherever else they fought; afterwards all of Cuba came to know it.
Cuba is the vanguard of the Americas and must make sacrifices because
it occupies the post of advance guard, because it shows the road to
full freedom to the masses of Latin America.
Within the country the leadership has to carry out its vanguard role,
and it must be said with all sincerity that in a real revolution,
to which one gives himself entirely and from which he expects no material
remuneration, the task of the revolutionary vanguard is at one and
the same time glorious and agonising.
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary
is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of
a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. Perhaps it is one of
the great dramas of the leader that he must combine a passionate spirit
with a cold intelligence and make painful decisions without contracting
a muscle. Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealise this love of
the people, the most sacred cause, and make it one and indivisible.
They cannot descend, with small doses of daily affection, to the level
where ordinary men put their love into practice.
The leaders of the revolution have children just beginning to talk,
who are not learning to call their fathers by name; wives, from whom
they have to be separated as part of the general sacrifice of their
lives to bring the revolution to its fulfilment; the circle of their
friends is limited strictly to the number of fellow revolutionists.
There is no life outside of the revolution.
^
Back To Top
In these circumstances one must have a great deal of humanity and
a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme
dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses.
We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will
be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples,
as a moving force.
The revolutionary, the ideological motor force of the revolution,
is consumed by his uninterrupted activity, which can come to an end
only with death until the building of socialism on a world scale has
been accomplished. If his revolutionary zeal is blunted when the most
urgent tasks are being accomplished on a local scale, and he forgets
his proletarian internationalism, the revolution which he leads will
cease to be an inspiring force, and he will sink into a comfortable
lethargy which imperialism, our irreconcilable enemy, will utilise
well. Proletarian internationalism is a duty, but it is also a revolutionary
necessity. So we educate our people.
Of course there are dangers in the present situation, and not only
that of dogmatism, not only that of weakening the ties with the masses
midway in the great task. There is also the danger of weaknesses.
If a man thinks that dedicating his entire life to the revolution
means, that in return he should not have such worries as that his
son lacks certain things, or that his children's shoes are worn out,
or that his family lacks some necessity, then he is entering into
rationalisations which open his mind to infection by the seeds of
future corruption.
In our case we have maintained that our children should have or should
go without those things that the children of the average man have
or go without, and that our families should understand this and strive
to uphold this standard. The revolution is made through man, but man
must forge his revolutionary spirit day by day.
 Thus
we march on. At the head of the immense column we are neither afraid
nor ashamed to say it - is Fidel. After him come the best cadres of
the party, and immediately behind them, so close that we feel its
tremendous force, comes the people in its entirety, a solid mass of
individualities moving toward a common goal, individuals who have
attained consciousness of what must be done, men who fight to escape
from the realm of necessity and to enter that of freedom.
This great throng becomes organised; its clarity of program corresponds
to its consciousness of the necessity of organisation. it is no longer
a dispersed force, divisible into thousands of fragments thrown into
space like splinters from a hand grenade, trying by any means to achieve
some protection against an uncertain future, in desperate struggle
with their fellows.
We know that sacrifices lie before us and that we must pay a price
for the heroic act of being a vanguard nation. We leaders know that
we must pay a price for the right to say that we are at the head of
a people, which is at the head of the Americas. Each and every one
of us must pay his exact quota of sacrifice, conscious that he will
get his reward in the satisfaction of fulfilling a duty, conscious
that he will advance with all toward the image of the new man dimly
visible on the horizon.
^ Back
To Top
Let me attempt some conclusions:
We socialists are freer because we are more complete; we are more
complete because we are freer.
The skeleton of our complete freedom is already formed. The flesh
and the clothing are lacking. We will create them.
Our freedom and its daily maintenance are paid for in blood and sacrifice.
Our sacrifice is conscious: an instalment payment on the freedom that
we are building.
The road is long and in part unknown. We understand our limitations.
We will create the man of the twenty-first century — we, ourselves.
We will forge ourselves in daily action, creating a new man with a
new technology.
Individual personality plays a role in mobilising and leading the
masses insofar as it embodies the highest virtues and aspirations
of the people and does not wander from the path.
It is the vanguard group, which clears the way, the best among the
good, the party.
The basic clay of our work is the youth. We place our hope in them
and prepare them to take the banner from our hands.
If
this inarticulate letter clarifies anything it has accomplished the
objective which motivated it. I close with our greeting — which
is as much of a ritual as a handshake or an 'Ave Maria Purissima'
— Our Country or Death!
^ Back To Top |