The Awakening of Latin America Read online

  In fact, the Doctrine should be named for the “pure and delicate” place whose “perfume” assaults the noses of all who go along the Vía Blanca Highway—Havana’s garbage dump: Cayo Cruz. That would be just as poetic as and much more accurate than the name it bears now.

  Published in Verde Olivo magazine, July 31, 1960.

  A Tiny Bit is a Big Enough Sample and Other Short Stories

  By Sharpshooter

  In stores all over the world, customers are shown tiny samples to demonstrate the quality of the merchandise. To show the quality of our monopoly merchandise, we transcribe this report:

  “San Juan, P.R. (PL)—The results of the birth control program in Puerto Rico will be studied by Dr. Alan Guttmacher, a professor in the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, who arrived in this capital expressly for this purpose.

  “Sinai Hospital in Puerto Rico is used as an experimental laboratory for developing the contraceptives known as Emko and Enovid.

  “The studies include 17,000 families from all over the island, which has been divided into 20 research areas.

  “Celestina Zalduondo, Executive Director of Family Planning for Puerto Rico, directs the program.

  “Guttmacher declared that the purpose of the studies was to find a simple, effective method for birth control that wouldn’t harm the people’s health and happiness.

  “Enovid pills are the simplest method, but they are still very expensive. The contraceptive Emko has been used most extensively in the projects and is sold at cost, with no profit for the laboratories that produce it, thanks to an annual donation by the Sunnen Foundation.

  “Guttmacher said that many overpopulated countries were watching the studies.”

  This is the kind of aid that the empire offers the underdeveloped countries. Puerto Ricans have the “freedom” to go and die in Korea to defend “the American way of life,” but they don’t have the freedom to have children, because it is not in the interests of the United States for an “inferior” race to breed new offspring that can enter the United States freely. The country that has dispensed dollars all over the world—and now, as a special contribution, offers $500 million for Latin America—has not found a better way of doing away with hunger in Puerto Rico than to keep the Puerto Ricans from having children.

  Poor homeland of Albizu Campos! Poor laboratory of hunger and contraceptives, how sad it is to see you with a noose around your neck, submissively following your arrogant blond master. Shouldn’t this give us the material for a new, however short, fairy tale? One that begins like this:

  “Once upon a time, Puerto Rico, the youngest of the independent nations in the Americas, was born in such and such a month in 196_. Thanks to its republican form of government, its eponymous hero, Pedro Albizu Campos, and its efforts, which are greater now, it is buying four big feet from a European country so it can begin to walk and get as far away as possible from the henchmen who murdered and tortured its children and tried to make them idiots; henchmen who studied hunger in them just as scientists study hunger in mice and who then tried to castrate them, to wipe them out in order to ‘improve the race.’”

  How much we Latin Americans would like to see a fairy tale like this come true! Everybody would go and give the Puerto Ricans advice: “Don’t buy the feet, buddy. You’ll do much better if, like us, you buy some false teeth and learn how to bite—to draw blood.”

  Published in Verde Olivo magazine, August 7, 1960.

  Speeches (1960)

  Che Guevara gave this speech on July 28, 1960, to the delegates to the Latin American Youth Congress and regional political leaders, including Jacobo Árbenz, former president of Guatemala. It contains the nucleus of the ideas later the subject of his important work, “Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban Revolution,”1 and outlined his concept of solidarity with the peoples of Latin America.

  Speech to the Latin American Youth Congress

  Havana, July 28, 1960

  Compañeros of the Americas and the entire world:

  It would take a long time to extend individual greetings on behalf of our country to each of you, and to each of the countries represented here. We nevertheless want to draw attention to some of those who represent countries afflicted by natural catastrophes or catastrophes caused by imperialism.

  We would like to extend special greetings to the representative of the Chilean people, Clotario Bletz, whose youthful voice you heard a moment ago. His maturity can serve as an example and a guide to our fellow working people from that unfortunate land, which has been devastated by one of the most terrible earthquakes in history.

  We would also like to extend special greetings to Jacobo Árbenz, [former] president of the first Latin American nation [Guatemala] to raise its voice fearlessly against colonialism, and to express the cherished desires of its peasant masses, through a deep and courageous agrarian reform. We would like to express our gratitude to him and to the democracy overturned in that country for the example it gave us, and for enabling us to make a correct appreciation of all the weaknesses his government was unable to overcome. In this way, it has been possible for us [here in Cuba] to get at the root of the matter, and to decapitate with one blow those who held power, as well as the henchmen serving them.

  We would also like to greet two of the delegations representing countries that perhaps have suffered the most in the Americas. First of all, Puerto Rico, which today, 150 years after freedom was first proclaimed in the Americas, continues to fight to take the first, and perhaps most difficult step of achieving, at least in formal terms, a free government. I ask Puerto Rico’s delegates to convey my greetings, and those of all Cuba, to Pedro Albizu Campos. We would like to convey to him our heartfelt respect, our recognition of the example he has shown with his valor, and our fraternal feelings as free men toward a man who, despite being in the dungeons of so-called US democracy, is still free.

  Although it may seem paradoxical, I would also like to greet today the delegation representing the purest of the US people. I would like to salute them because the US people are not to blame for the barbarity and injustice of their rulers, and because they are innocent victims of the rage of all the peoples of the world, who sometimes confuse a social system with the people of that country.

  All of Cuba, myself included, open our arms to the individuals and the delegations, to show you what is good here and what is bad, what has been achieved and what has yet to be achieved, the road traveled and the road ahead. Because even though all of you come to deliberate at this Latin American Youth Congress on behalf of your respective countries, I am sure each of you also comes here full of curiosity to find out exactly what is this phenomenon of the Cuban revolution, born on a Caribbean island.

  Many of you, from diverse political tendencies, will ask yourselves, as you did yesterday and as perhaps you will do tomorrow: What is the Cuban revolution? What is its ideology? Immediately the question will arise, as it always does, among both adherents and adversaries: Is the Cuban revolution communist? Some say yes, hoping the answer is yes, or that the revolution is heading in that direction. Others, disappointed perhaps, will also think the answer is yes. There will be disappointed people who believe the answer is no, as well as those who hope the answer is no.

  I might be asked whether this revolution you see is a communist revolution. After the usual explanations about communism (leaving aside the hackneyed accusations by imperialism and the colonial powers, who confuse everything), I would answer that if this revolution is Marxist—and listen well that I say Marxist—it is because the revolution discovered, by its own methods, the road pointed out by Marx.

  In saluting the Cuban revolution recently, Vice-Premier [Anastas] Mikoyan, one of the leading figures of the Soviet Union and a lifelong Marxist, said that the revolution was a phenomenon Marx had not foreseen. He noted that life teaches more than the wisest books and the most profound thinkers.

  The Cuban revolution was moving forward, without worrying
about labels, without checking what others were saying about it, but constantly scrutinizing what the Cuban people wanted of it. The revolution quickly found that it had achieved, or was on the way to achieving, the happiness of its people; and that it had also become the object of inquisitive looks from friend and foe alike—hopeful looks from an entire continent, and furious looks from the king of monopolies.

  This did not come about overnight. Permit me to relate some of my own experience—an experience that could help many people in similar circumstances gain an understanding of how our current revolutionary thinking came about. Even though there is certainly continuity, the Cuban revolution you see today is not the Cuban revolution of yesterday, even after the victory. Much less is it the Cuban insurrection prior to our victory, when those 82 youths made the difficult crossing of the Gulf of Mexico [in November–December 1956] in a leaky boat to reach the shores of the Sierra Maestra. Between those young people and the representatives of Cuba today there is a distance that cannot be accurately measured in years, with 24-hour days and 60-minute hours. All the members of the Cuban government— young in age, young in character, and young in the illusions they held—have nevertheless matured in an extraordinary school of experience; in living contact with the people and with their needs and aspirations.

  Our collective hope had been to arrive one day somewhere in Cuba, and after a few shouts, a few heroic actions, a few deaths and a few radio broadcasts, to take power and drive out the dictator Batista. History showed us it was far more difficult to overthrow a government backed and partnered by an army of murderers, and backed by the greatest colonial power on earth.

  Little by little, each of our ideas changed. We, the children of the cities, learned to respect the peasants. We learned to respect their sense of independence, their loyalty; we learned to recognize their age-old yearning for the land that had been snatched from them; and to recognize their experience in the thousand paths across the hills. From us, the peasants learned how valuable someone is when they have a rifle in their hand, and when they are prepared to fire that rifle at another person, regardless of how many rifles that other person has. The peasants taught us their know-how and we taught the peasants our sense of rebellion. From that moment until now, and forever, the peasants of Cuba and the rebel forces of Cuba—today the Cuban revolutionary government—have united as one.

  The revolution continued to progress, and we drove the troops of the dictatorship from the steep slopes of the Sierra Maestra. We came face-to-face with another reality of Cuba: the workers—both in agricultural and industrial centers. We learned from them, too, while we taught them that at the right moment, a well-aimed shot fired at the right person is much more powerful and effective than the most powerful and effective peaceful demonstration. We learned the value of organization, while again we taught the value of rebellion. Out of this, organized rebellion arose throughout the entire territory of Cuba.

  By then much time had passed. Many deaths marked the road of our victory—many in combat, others innocent victims. The imperialist forces began to see there was something more than a group of bandits in the heights of the Sierra Maestra, something more than a group of ambitious assailants arrayed against the ruling power. The imperialists generously offered their bombs, bullets, planes and tanks to the dictatorship. With those tanks in the lead, the government’s forces again attempted, for the last time, to ascend the Sierra Maestra.

  By then, columns of our forces had already left the Sierra to take over other regions of Cuba and had formed the “Frank País” Second Eastern Front under Commander Raúl Castro. We were winning over public opinion—we were now headline material in the international pages of newspapers from every corner of the world. Yet despite all this, the Cuban revolution at that time possessed only 200 rifles—not 200 men, but 200 rifles—to stop the regime’s last offensive, in which the dictatorship amassed 10,000 soldiers and every type of instrument of death. Each one those 200 rifles carries a history of sacrifice and blood. They were rifles of imperialism that the blood and determination of our martyrs dignified and transformed into rifles of the people.

  In this way, the last stage of the army’s great offensive unfolded, under the name of “encirclement and annihilation.”

  What I am saying to you, young people from throughout the Americas who are diligent and eager to learn, is that if today we are putting into practice what is known as Marxism, it is because we discovered it here. In those days, after defeating the dictatorship’s troops and inflicting 1,000 casualties on their ranks—five times as many casualties as the sum total of our combat forces, and after seizing more than 600 weapons—a small pamphlet written by Mao Tse-tung fell into our hands. The pamphlet dealt with strategic problems of the revolutionary war in China and described the campaigns that the dictator Chiang Kai-shek carried out against the popular forces, which just like here were called “campaigns of encirclement and annihilation.”

  Not only had the same words been used on opposite sides of the globe to describe their campaigns, but both dictators had resorted to the same types of campaigns to try to destroy the popular forces. The popular forces here, without knowing of the manuals already written about the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare, used the same methods as those used on the opposite side of the world to combat the dictatorship’s forces. Naturally, when somebody lives through an experience, that experience can be utilized by somebody else. But it is also possible to go through the same experience without knowing of the earlier one.

  We were unaware of the experiences the Chinese troops accumulated during 20 years of struggle in their territory. But we knew our own territory, we knew our enemy, and we used something every person has on their shoulders—which is worth a lot if they know how to use it—we used our heads to guide our fight against the enemy. As a result, we defeated it.

  The westward moves came later, and the breaking of Batista’s communication lines, and the crushing fall of the dictatorship when no one expected it. Then came January 1 [1959] and the revolution, without thinking about what had been written, but hearing what was needed from the lips of the people, decided first and foremost to punish the guilty, and it did so.

  Immediately the colonial powers splashed the story all over the front pages, calling it murder, immediately trying to do what imperialists always try to do: sow division. “Communist murderers are killing people,” they said. “There is, however, a naive patriot Fidel Castro, who had nothing to do with it and can be saved.” In this way they tried to sow divisions among those who had fought for the same cause. They maintained this hope for some time.

  One day they happened upon the Agrarian Reform Law, and saw that it was much more violent and profound than the law their very intellectual, self-appointed advisers had counseled. All of those advisers, by the way, are today in Miami or some other US city, like Pepín Rivero of Diario de la Marina, or Medrano of Prensa Libre. Others, including a prime minister in our government, also counseled great moderation, saying, “one must handle such things with moderation.”

  “Moderation” is one of those words the agents of colonialism like to use. Those who are afraid, or who think of betraying in one way or another, are moderates. In no sense, however, are the people moderate.

  The advice given was to divide up marabú land—marabú is a wild shrub that plagues our fields—and have the peasants cut marabú with machetes, or settle in swamps, or grab pieces of public land that might somehow have escaped the voraciousness of the large landowners. To touch the holdings of the large landowners was a sin greater than anything they imagined to be possible. But it was possible.

  I recall a conversation I had in those days with a gentleman who said he had no problems at all with the revolutionary government because he owned only 900 caballerías. Nine hundred caballerías comes to more than 10,000 hectares [25,000 acres]. This gentleman, of course, did eventually have problems with the revolutionary government; his lands were seized, divided up, and turned ov
er to individual peasants. In addition, cooperatives were created on lands where agricultural workers were already beginning to work collectively for a wage.

  This is one of the peculiar features of the Cuban revolution that must be studied. For the first time in Latin America, a revolution carried out an agrarian reform that attacked property relations other than feudal ones. There were feudal remnants in the tobacco and coffee industries, and in these areas land was turned over to individuals who had been working small plots and wanted their land. But given how sugarcane, rice and cattle were cultivated and worked in Cuba, that land was seized as a unit and worked by workers who were granted joint ownership. Those workers are not owners of single parcels of land, but of the whole great joint enterprise called a cooperative. This has enabled our far-reaching agrarian reform to move rapidly. Each of you should let it sink in, as an incontrovertible truth, that no government here in Latin America can call itself revolutionary unless its first measure is agrarian reform.

  A government that says it will implement timid agrarian reform cannot call itself revolutionary. A revolutionary government carries out agrarian reform that transforms the system of property relations—that does not just give peasants unused land, but primarily gives peasants land that was in use, land that belonged to large landowners, the best land with the greatest yield, land that, moreover, had been stolen from the peasants in past epochs.