Fidel's letter to the Cuban People

[malaise]

Message from the Commander in Chief

Dear compatriots:

Last Friday, February 15, I promised you that in my next reflection I would deal with an issue of interest to many compatriots. Thus, this now is rather a message.

The moment has come to nominate and elect the State Council, its President, its Vice-Presidents and Secretary.

For many years I have occupied the honorable position of President. On February 15, 1976 the Socialist Constitution was approved with the free, direct and secret vote of over 95% of the people with the right to cast a vote. The first National Assembly was established on December 2nd that same year; this elected the State Council and its presidency. Before that, I had been a Prime Minister for almost 18 years. I always had the necessary prerogatives to carry forward the revolutionary work with the support of the overwhelming majority of the people.

There were those overseas who, aware of my critical health condition, thought that my provisional resignation, on July 31, 2006, to the position of President of the State Council, which I left to First Vice-President Raul Castro Ruz, was final. But Raul, who is also minister of the Armed Forces on account of his own personal merits, and the other comrades of the Party and State leadership were unwilling to consider me out of public life despite my unstable health condition.

It was an uncomfortable situation for me vis-à-vis an adversary which had done everything possible to get rid of me, and I felt reluctant to comply.

Later, in my necessary retreat, I was able to recover the full command of my mind as well as the possibility for much reading and meditation. I had enough physical strength to write for many hours, which I shared with the corresponding rehabilitation and recovery programs. Basic common sense indicated that such activity was within my reach. On the other hand, when referring to my health I was extremely careful to avoid raising expectations since I felt that an adverse ending would bring traumatic news to our people in the midst of the battle. Thus, my first duty was to prepare our people both politically and psychologically for my absence after so many years of struggle. I kept saying that my recovery "was not without risks."

My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That’s all I can offer.

To my dearest compatriots, who have recently honored me so much by electing me a member of the Parliament where so many agreements should be adopted of utmost importance to the destiny of our Revolution, I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.

In short letters addressed to Randy Alonso, Director of the Round Table National TV Program, --letters which at my request were made public-- I discreetly introduced elements of this message I am writing today, when not even the addressee of such letters was aware of my intention. I trusted Randy, whom I knew very well from his days as a student of Journalism. In those days I met almost on a weekly basis with the main representatives of the University students from the provinces at the library of the large house in Kohly where they lived. Today, the entire country is an immense University.

Following are some paragraphs chosen from the letter addressed to Randy on December 17, 2007:

"I strongly believe that the answers to the current problems facing Cuban society, which has, as an average, a twelfth grade of education, almost a million university graduates, and a real possibility for all its citizens to become educated without their being in any way discriminated against, require more variables for each concrete problem than those contained in a chess game. We cannot ignore one single detail; this is not an easy path to take, if the intelligence of a human being in a revolutionary society is to prevail over instinct.

"My elemental duty is not to cling to positions, much less to stand in the way of younger persons, but rather to contribute my own experience and ideas whose modest value comes from the exceptional era that I had the privilege of living in.

"Like Niemeyer, I believe that one has to be consistent right up to the end."

Letter from January 8, 2008:

"…I am a firm supporter of the united vote (a principle that preserves the unknown merits), which allowed us to avoid the tendency to copy what came to us from countries of the former socialist bloc, including the portrait of the one candidate, as singular as his solidarity towards Cuba. I deeply respect that first attempt at building socialism, thanks to which we were able to continue along the path we had chosen."

And I reiterated in that letter that "…I never forget that ‘all of the world’s glory fits in a kernel of corn."

Therefore, it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer. This I say devoid of all drama.

Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others who were very young in the early stages of the process. Some were very young, almost children, when they joined the fight on the mountains and later they have given glory to the country with their heroic performance and their internationalist missions. They have the authority and the experience to guarantee the replacement. There is also the intermediate generation which learned together with us the basics of the complex and almost unattainable art of organizing and leading a revolution.

The path will always be difficult and require from everyone’s intelligent effort. I distrust the seemingly easy path of apologetics or its antithesis the self-flagellation. We should always be prepared for the worst variable. The principle of being as prudent in success as steady in adversity cannot be forgotten. The adversary to be defeated is extremely strong; however, we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century.

This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the heading of ‘Reflections by comrade Fidel.’ It will be just another weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard. I shall be careful.

Thanks.



Fidel Castro Ruz

February 18, 2008

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/febrero/mar19/mensaje-i.html
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Fidel my friend and neighbour -the Muhammad Ali of world politics.
He is loved and beloved. When I was a young graduate student Fidel kissed me on both cheeks. I did not wash my face for days.

Add.

[Peace Patriot]

1. Interesting how his mind turns to mathematics (all the variables) and chess...

as age and illness bring his life to an end. He has certainly been involved in a most amazing chess game all his life, with the extremely hostile behemoth of the U.S. breathing down Cuba's neck the entire time. And Cuba's weathering of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s is one the stories that few North Americans will ever know, cuz our war profiteering corporate news monopolies don't like tales of the heroics of ordinary people in a leftist cause. They tightened their belts, doubled their efforts at building an unsubsidized Cuban economy, and simply would not let the revolution die.

The entire dream of the communist revolution, to ordinary people--equal education for all, worker ownership of the means of production, the elimination of capitalist greed and hoarding, and so much more--died out everywhere else, for many reasons, one of them being that the big countries where this revolution occurred--Russia, China--had absolutely no democratic traditions, no historical experience of democracy, and flipped over suddenly and violently from rule by tyrannical tsars and warlords, to egalitarian communal ownership of a most radical kind. They were therefore easy prey to dictatorial personalities. Stalin differed little from the Tsarist rulers who preceded him, sans Orthodox Catholic ritual and mysticism. And, by the 1980s--and it was evident in the early 1970s when I visited Leningrad--the insularity of Soviet Russian society, induced by Stalin's paranoia, and exacerbated by U.S. hostility, was eating the country alive. People were seething with resentment of the government, back in the early 1970s. They did not understand the material deprivations they were subjected to--the lack of goods, the lack of variety, the lack of prosperity in a country so rich in resources and with such a highly educated population. The Chinese communist revolution has died essentially for the same reasons. The society became much too insular as a result of its struggles to provide basic necessities--after centuries of misrule by despots--and also its legitimate fear of the "west" (primarily the U.S.). Even Vietnam has essentially abandoned communism--which fought so hard, and lost so many people, in the war with U.S. to establish its right to choose a communist government. Now Intel is being invited in, promising thousands of jobs, and Vietnam wants to join the "global economy."

But not in Cuba! In Cuba, the revolution lives on. And that has got to be one of the most remarkable success stories of the last one hundred years. It didn't become insular, even under constant threat from the U.S. Cuba has widespread relations and contacts with almost every other country in the world except us. They are an eclectic society. They are not rich, but everybody eats, everybody has a free education, everybody has a home, and everybody has a job. They have revolutionized the social/political aspects of medical care, and have exported both their medical care system and their literacy programs all over South America. They are HAPPY. They don't seem to experience that sullen discontent that I saw in Leningrad. This is, admittedly, a broad generalization--and I've never visited Cuba. I'm relying on reports and research. But I think there is truth to it. Maybe it's the climate. Maybe it's something about the Cuban personality. But most Cubans LIKE, and approve of, the Cuban revolution, and are not at all interested in overthrowing it, or becoming "corporatized." And maybe it's the leadership. Maybe it's Fidel--who, despite the fact that he led a violent revolution, and is reviled in the U.S. as a "dictator"--didn't really become a dictator, at least not in the way that Stalin did, or Mao. He became a beloved, not a hated, figure. And he is revered throughout South America, not just in Cuba.

South America has taken a different path to social justice--by means of political democracy. And the Cuban system of economic equality without political democracy is not something most of us would want to adopt. But it is admired now for what it tried to do, and what it has accomplished, in dire circumstances--the lowest infant mortality rate in the world, one of the highest literacy rates, and true economic equality without the corruption that was endemic in the Soviet Union, and without the purges and gulags and social tumult that occurred in both the Soviet Union and Red China. And also--and perhaps most important--without domination and bullying of satellite countries (such as the Eastern European countries, and Tibet). Cuba on its own, and, in the end, without the support of the Soviet Union, has made a go of it. The revolution as it was meant to be--as ordinary people hoped and dreamed for it be--has substantially succeeded in Cuba, and only in Cuba.

The Castro letter above is hard to parse. I don't know if it's a translation problem or what. But anyway Castro seems to me to be referring to this--to the difference between the Cuban and other revolutions--when he says the "something" (the "united vote"?) "allowed us to avoid the tendency to copy what came to us from countries of the former socialist bloc." Perhaps he is simply referring to voting--that Cuba actually has quite developed democratic institutions, below the level of Castro. He may also mean that Cuba did not succumb to eastern communist bloc-type dictatorships--because it is more democratic? That seems to be the gist. And he has a point. Only Cuba succeeded. Why? Because the people are content with it, on the whole.

It is unfortunate that U.S. foreign policy is so in the grip of the Miami "mafia"--which was born of the heinous Batista regime, whose fascists and criminals fled to Miami when the Cuban revolution occurred. It has changed and evolved. The old guard has died off. But it remains a rightwing enclave with way too much influence in Washington DC. We are one of the few countries in the world that has such a nutso policy about Cuba. We should long ago have opened diplomatic relations with Cuba, and opened up travel and trade--and we should welcome Cuba to the community of nations with violent revolutions in their history--our own violent revolution being one of the most notable. We have a lot to learn from this revolution, and much catching up to do on what life is really like on that beautiful, unspoiled, uncorporatized island. And we should make common cause with the Cuban people on social justice issues, and in achieving political democracy here and there. We have a long way to go ourselves on both matters.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Here's a quote from Robert Kennedy that sounds very similar to Castro,

in the above letter--although they are talking about two different economic/political systems:

FIDEL CASTRO: "...this is not an easy path to take, if the intelligence of a human being in a revolutionary society is to prevail over instinct."

ROBERT KENNEDY: "Democracy is no easy form of government. Few nations have been able to sustain it. For it requires that we take the chances of freedom; that the liberating play of reason be brought to bear of events filled with passion; that dissent be allowed to make its appeal for acceptance; that men chance error in their search for the truth." Statement on Vietnam, February 19, 1966.
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Quotations+of+Robert+F.+Kennedy.htm

[malaise]

4. Lovely post

You grasped the essence of his point - they did not buy anyone else's revolutionary ideas - particularly the Soviets with the one man above institutions. What Fidel and Cubans managed was to establish stable political institutions which are bottom up. That will facilitate continuity and prevent chaos.
You know it is the internationalist nature of the revolution in terms of the Cubans' help in health care and education that earned them so much respect. Additionally I don't think enough people have analyzed Cuba's role in breaking the back of apartheid. Additionally Fidel is loved in our region because he stood up to the bully.

He wasn't perfect but since life is what matters, the best heath care, the best education and the best disaster plan really isn't a bad legacy.

Thanks for the Kennedy quote. Interesting.

add.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. K&R n/t