Reflections by the Commander
in Chief
Remembering Chibás, 100
years after his birth
When
I read Hart's article, published by Granma
in commemoration of Chibás' birth, and saw it quoted a paragraph of the
speech I delivered at the
The
first problem we faced was getting Batista out of office. Had Chibás been
alive, Batista would not have been able to stage his coup d'état, because the
founder of the Cuban (Orthodox) People's Party kept a close eye on him and
called him into question publicly and methodically. Following Chibás’ death,
Batista was sure to lose the elections scheduled for
I
was at the meeting where the new Orthodox candidate was chosen. I was more of a
bold intruder than an invitee. I was to enter parliament, to struggle in the
name of a radical program. No one could have prevented this. Then, it was
rumored that I was a communist, a word which prompted many negative reactions
inculcated by the dominant classes. To have spoken of Marxism-Leninism then, or
even during the first years of the Revolution, would have been foolish and
clumsy. During the speech I delivered before Chibás' grave, I spoke such that
the people would understand the objective contradictions which our society faced
at the time and which we still must face.
I
spoke every day at a local radio station in the capital to deliver messages
directly to tens of thousands of voters who had spontaneously joined the
Orthodox Party. I also addressed the entire nation through the special
supplements of the Alerta newspaper
on several, nearly consecutive Mondays, publishing the proven accusations of
corruption in the Prío government voiced between January 28 and
The
day in which Chibás --whose body lay in state at the
One
year after the death of Chibás, I wrote a proclamation titled “A Harsh Blow”,
which was mimeographed six days following Batista’s treacherous coup. What
follows is the text of this proclamation.
Not a Revolution, but a harsh blow! Not patriots; but destroyers of civil
liberty, usurpers, backward-minded individuals, adventurers thirsty for gold and
power.
It was not a military uprising against the
apathetic and lazy President Prio; it was a military uprising against the
people, on the eve of an election whose results were a foregone conclusion.
There was no order but it was the people whose
duty it was to decide democratically, in a civilized manner, on the men who
would govern them, by political will and not by force.
A fortune would be spent in favor of the
imposed candidate, nobody denies that, but that wouldn’t change the result just
as the result was not changed by a flood of funds from the Public Treasury in
favor of the candidate imposed by Batista in 1944.
It is completely false, absurd, ridiculous
and childish that Prio would attempt a coup d’état, a clumsy excuse; his impotence
and incapacity to attempt such an enterprise has been irrefutably demonstrated
by the cowardice with which power was seized.
We were suffering from bad governance, but
we were also suffering from years of waiting for a constitutional opportunity
to avert the evil, and you, Batista, who remained in the shadows as a coward
for four years and futilely indulged in politicking for another three, now you
appear with your tardy, disturbing and poisonous remedy, ripping the
Constitution to shreds when we were only two months away from reaching the goal
through the official channels.
Everything you allege is a lie, a cynical
justification, concealed vanity and not patriotic decorum, ambition and not
ideal, greed and not civil nobility.
It was correct to overthrow a government
made up of embezzlers and murderers; we tried to do this by civic channels,
supported by public opinion and with the help of the masses; in contrast, what
right do they who yesterday robbed and killed indiscriminately have to replace
it in the name of bayonets?
It is not peace, it is the seed of hatred
which is being sown. It is not
happiness, it is mourning and sadness which the nation feels as it is faced with
the tragic panorama it begins to discern.
There is nothing in this world as bitter as the spectacle of a people who
go to sleep in liberty and awaken in slavery.
Once again the military boot; once again
All of the ills Prío was responsible for
in three years, you committed in the course of eleven. Your coup is thus unjustifiable; it is not
based on any serious moral reason, or on any social or political doctrine of
any kind. It finds its only reason for
existence in force, and its justification in lies. Your majority lies with the Army, never with
the people. Your ballots are guns, never
free wills; with them you can win a military uprising, but never clean
elections. Your usurping against power
lacks any principles to legitimize it; laugh if you will, but in the long run
principles are more powerful than cannons.
Principles are what form and nourish the people, what embolden them for
battle, what they die for.
Do not call this outrage revolution, this
disquieting and untimely coup, this treacherous stab in the back of the Republic
which you have just given. Trujillo has
been the first one to recognize your government, he knows who his friends are
in the covey of tyrants who are battering America; that shows, more than
anything else, the reactionary, militaristic and criminal nature of your
coup. Nobody even remotely believes in
the governmental success of your old and rotten covey; the thirst for power is
too great; there is no moderation when there is no Constitution and law other
than the will of the tyrant and his gang.
I know beforehand that your guarantee for
life will be torture and humiliation.
Your followers will kill even though you don’t want them to, and you
will tranquilly consent because you owe yourself completely to them. Despots are masters of the people they
oppress and slaves to the force on which they base their oppression. A torrent
of lying and demagogic propaganda will rain down on us now, in your favor, from
all sources, using both soft and hard methods, and your opposition will be
deluged with vile slander; Prío did that also and it had no effect on the
people's consciousness. But the truth
which illuminates the fate of Cuba and guides the steps of our people in this
their difficult hour, that truth which you will forbid to be told, the whole
world will know it; it will race clandestinely from mouth to mouth, down every
man and woman, even though no one says it in public or publishes it in the
press, and everyone will believe it and the seeds of heroic rebellion shall be
sown in every heart; that is what guides every conscience.
I do not know what the furious pleasure of
the oppressors will be, when their treacherous whip hits human backs like a new
Cain against their brothers, but I do know that there is an infinite happiness
in fighting them and raising a strong arm while saying: I don’t want to be a
slave!
Cubans: again we have a tyrant, but again
we will have the likes of Mella, Trejo and Guiteras; there is oppression in our
homeland but one day there will be freedom again.
I invite all brave Cubans, all the brave
militants of the Glorious Party of Chibás; the time has come to make sacrifices
and fight; should our lives be lost, nothing is lost; “to live enchained is to
live in dishonor and outrage. To die for
the Homeland is to live.”
Fidel Castro
When
this irreverent article was not published —who would dare publish it?— it was
distributed at the
On
Above
and beyond the commotion of the cowards, the mediocre and the fainthearted, it
is necessary to voice a brief but courageous and constructive assessment of the
Orthodox Movement, following the fall of its great leader Eduardo Chibás.
The formidable and sharp criticisms of the
champion of the Orthodox Party left it such an immense profusion of popular
emotion that it brought it right to the doors of Power. Everything was done, and all that remained
was to know how to hold on to the ground already gained.
The first question each honest Orthodox
member must ask himself is the following: Have we enhanced the moral and
revolutionary legacy left us by Chibás…, or, on the contrary, have we
misappropriated part of that legacy…?
He who thinks that until this moment
everything has been done well, that we have nothing to reproach ourselves for,
is not sufficiently severe with his conscience.
Those sterile feuds that followed the
death of Chibás, those colossal scandals, for reasons that were not exactly
ideological but purely selfish and personal, still echo like bitter blows of
the hammer on our conscience.
That dreadful process of going to the
rostrum to clarify pointless disputes was a grave symptom of lack of discipline
and responsibility.
March 10th came
unexpectedly. It was to be expected that
such a serious event would rip from the roots of the Party the petty quarrels
and the sterile personal ambitions. Was
that what actually happened…?
To the amazement and indignation of the
Party masses, the clumsy disputes cropped up again. The culprits were so foolish that they did
not realize that there was narrow room in the press to attack the regime, but
ample room to attack the Orthodox Party.
Those who have helped Batista in like fashion have not been few.
No one would be shocked that such a
necessary recount should be made today, when it is the time for the great
masses who, in bitter silence, have suffered these losses, and there is no more
fitting moment than today to be accountable to Chibás at his tomb.
That immense mass of the Cuban People’s
Party is on its feet, more determined than ever. It asks at this hard moment…Where are those
who were candidates…those who wanted to be the first in the positions of honor
at the assemblies and in the executive, those who would go on tours and chart
tendencies, those who would claim their places on the platform at the large
rallies and who now no longer go on tours, or mobilize the grass roots, or ask
for the positions of honor in the front line of combat…?
Whoever has a traditional concept of
politics could be pessimistic when faced with this vision of truths. On the other hand, for those with a blind
faith in the masses, for those who believe in the uncompromising force of great
ideas, the indecision of the leaders will not be a reason for weakness or
despair, because these vacancies will be occupied in short order by upright men
who come from the rank and file.
The moment has come for revolution and not
politics. Politics is the consecration
of the opportunism of those who have the means and the resources. Revolution opens the door to true worthiness,
to those who possess courage and sincere ideals, to those who bare their chest
and uplift the banner. The Revolutionary
Party requires a revolutionary leadership, young and from the ranks of the
people, in order to save
Alejandro.
Later, we set up a clandestine radio
station which did what Radio Rebelde would later do in the Sierra. In
relatively little time, the mimeograph, broadcaster and the few things we had
fell to the hands of the coup officers. I then learned the rigorous rules to
which the conspiracy which culminated with the attack on the Moncada garrison
had to adhere.
Shortly,
a small volume which expounds on two fundamental ideas that were expressed in
two of my speeches —the one I delivered at the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development held in
Fidel Castro Ruz