struction, the class enemies, the defects of
the past, imperialism...

I should now like to explain the role
played by the personality, the man as the
individual who leads the masses that make
history. This is our experience, and not
a recipe.

Fidel gave impulse to the Revolution in
its first years, he has always given it
leadership and set the tone, but there is a
good group of revolutionaries developing in
the same direction as Fidel and a large mass
that follows its leaders because it has
faith in them. It has faith in them because
these leaders have known how to interpret
the longings of the masses.

## SO THAT THE INDIVIDUAL FEELS MORE FULFILLED

It is not a question of how many kilo-
grams of meat are eaten or how many times a
year someone may go on holiday to the sea
shore or how many pretty imported things can
be bought with present wages. It is rather
that the individual feels greater fulfill-
ment, that he has greater inner wealth and
many more responsibilities. In our country
the individual knows that the glorious period
in which it has fallen to him to live is one
of sacrifice; he is familiar with sacrifice.

The first came to know it in the Sierra
Maestra and wherever there was fighting;
later, we have known it in all Cuba. Cuba is
the vanguard of America and must make sac-
rifices because it occupies the advance po-
sition, because it points out to the Latin
American masses the road to full freedom.

Within the country, the leaders have to
fulfill their vanguard role; and it must be
said with complete sincerity that in a true
revolution, to which you give yourself com-
pletely without any thought for material re-

20

tribution, the task of the vanguard revolu-
tionary is both magnificent and anguishing.

Let me say, with the risk of appearing
ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is
guided by strong feelings of love. It is
impossible to think of an authentic revolu-
tionary without this quality. This is per-
haps one of the great dramas of a leader; he
must combine an impassioned spirit with a
cold mind and make painful decisions without
flinching. Our vanguard revolutionaries
must idealize their love for the people, for
the most hallowed causes, and make it one
and indivisible. They cannot descend, with
small doses of daily affection, to the
terrain where ordinary men put their love
into practice.

## A LARGE DOSE OF HUMANITY

The leaders of the revolution have chil-
dren who do not learn to call their father
with their first faltering words; they have
wives who must be part of the general sacri-
fice of their lives to carry the revolution
to its destination; their friends are stric-
tly limited to their comrades in revolution.
There is no life outside the revolution.

In these conditions, the revolutionary
leaders must have a large dose of humanity,
a large dose of a sense of justice and truth
to avoid falling into dogmatic extremes, in-
to cold scholasticism, into isolation from
the masses. They must struggle every day so
that their love of living humanity is trans-
formed into concrete deeds, into acts that
will serve as an example, as a mobilizing
factor.

The revolutionary, ideological motor
of the revolution within his party, is con-
sumed by this uninterrupted activity that
ends only with death, unless construction be
achieved on a worldwide scale. If his revo-

21

utionary eagerness becomes dulled when the most urgent tasks are carried on a local scale and if he forgets about proletarian internationalism, the revolution that he leads increases do be a driving force and it sinks into a comfortable drowsiness which is taken advantage of by imperialism, our irreconcilable enemy, to gain ground. Proletarian internationalism is a duty, but it is also a revolutionary need. This is how we educate our people.

## DANGERS OF DOGMATISM AND WEAKNESSES

It is evident that there are dangers in the present circumstances. Not only that of dogmatism, not only that of the freezing up of relations with the masses in the midst of the great task; there also exists the danger of weaknesses in which it is possible to incur. If a man thinks that in order to devote his entire life to the revolution, he cannot be distracted by the worry that one of his children lacks a certain article, that the children's shoes are in poor condition; that his family lacks some necessary item; with this reasoning, the seeds of future corruption are allowed to filter through. In our case, we have maintained that our children must have, or lack, what the children of the ordinary citizen have or lack; our family must understand this and struggle for it. The revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

Thus we go forward. Fidel is at the head of the immense column -- we are neither ashamed nor afraid to say so -- followed by the best party adeires and right after them, so close that their great strength is felt, coming the people, a whole, a solid bulk of individuals moving towards a common aim;

22

individuals who have achieved the awareness of what must be done; men who struggle to leave the domain of necessity and enter that of freedom.

That immense multitude is ordering itself; its order responds to an awareness of the need for order; it is no longer a dispersed force, divisible in thousands of fractions shot into space like the fragments of a grenade, trying by any and all means, in a fierce struggle with their equals, to achieve a position that would give them support in the face of an uncertain future.

We know that we have sacrifices ahead of us and that we must pay a price for the heroic fact of constituting a vanguard as a nation. We the leaders know that we must pay a price for having the right to say that we are at the head of the people that is at the head of America.

Each and every one of us punctually pays his share of sacrifice, aware of being rewarded by the satisfaction of fulfilling our duty, aware of advancing with everyone to wards the new human being who is to be glimpsed on the horizon.

## WE ARE MORE FREE BECAUSE WE ARE MORE FULFILLED

Allow me to attempt to come to some conclusions:

We socialists are more free because we are more fulfilled; we are more fulfilled because we are more free.

The skeleton of our complete freedom is formed, but it lacks the protein substance and the draperies; we will create them.

Our freedom and its daily sustenance are the color of blood and swollen with sacrifice.

Our sacrifice is a conscious one; it is in payment for the freedom we are building.

23

2

Then another law was passed, a law canceling the concessions which had been granted by the tyranny of Batista to the telephone company, an American monopoly. Taking advantage of the fact that our people were defenseless, they had obtained valuable concessions. The revolutionary government then canceled these concessions and re-established normal prices for telephone services. Thus began the first conflict with the American monopolies.

The third measure was the reduction of electricity rates, which were the highest in the world. Then followed the second conflict with the American monopolies. We were beginning to appear Communist; they were beginning to daub us in red because we had clashed head on with the interests of the United States monopolies.

Then followed the next law, an essential and inevitable law for our country, and a law which sooner or later will have to be adopted by all countries of the world, at least by those which have not yet adopted it: the Agrarian Reform Law....No one can deny that agrarian reform is one of the essential conditions for the economic development of the country. In Cuba, even the big land-owners agreed about agrarian reform--only they wanted their own kind of reform, such as the one defended by many theoreticians, a reform which would not harm their interests, and, above all, one which would not be put into effect as long as it could be avoided.... In my country, it was absolutely necessary: more than 200,000 peasant families lived in the countryside without land on which to grow essential food crops.

....We made an agrarian reform. Was it a radical agrarian reform? We think not. It was a reform adjusted to the needs of our development, and in keeping with our own possibilities of agricultural development. In other words, it was an agrarian reform which was to solve the problems of the landless peasants, the problem of supplying basic foodstuffs, the problem of rural unemployment, and which was to end, once and for all, the ghastly poverty which existed in the countryside of our native land.

But in our country it was not only the land that was the property of the agrarian monopolies, but the largest and most important mines were also owned by those monopolies. Cuba produces, for example, a great deal of nickel. All of the nickel was exploited by American interests, and, under the tyranny of Batista, an American

company, the Moa Bay Company, had obtained such a juicy concession that in a mere five years--mark my words, in a mere five years--it intended amortizing an investment of $120,000,000. A $120,000,000 investment amortized in five years!

And so the revolutionary government passed a mining law which forced those monopolies to pay a twenty-five percent tax on the exportation of minerals. The attitude of the revolutionary government already had been too bold. It had clashed with the interests of the international electric trust; it had clashed with the interests of the international telephone trust; it had clashed with the interests of the international mining trusts; it had clashed with the interests of the United Fruit Company; and it had, in clashing with these interests, clashed with the most powerful interests of the United States, which, as you know, are very closely linked.

On our honor, we swear that up to that moment we had not had the opportunity even to exchange letters with the distinguished Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. That is to say, that when, for the North American press and the international new agencies that supply information to the world, Cuba was already a Communist government, a Red peril ninety miles from the United States with a government dominated by Communists, the revolutionary government had not even had the opportunity of establishing diplomatic and commercial relations with the Soviet Union.

....We do not have to ask anyone's pardon. What we have done, we have done consciously, and above all, fully convinced of our right to do it.

## Education Central in Developing the Country
April 19, 1966
5th Anniversary of Playa Giron

Our country suffered from a true poverty of technical personnel. And part of the technical personnel--of what little technical personnel this country had--was identified with the interests affected by the Revolution. It was necessary to begin to prepare cadres. And this also takes years. In spite of the efforts made, legions of new technicians have not yet entered production; it will take us a few years but we will get there. We will reach the goal because we have not wasted time,

3

having set about this task from the very beginning. In some activities in some fields, tens of thousands are already prepared. The triumph of the Revolution found almost 10,000 unemployed teachers. All those teachers were given jobs and this did not solve the problem. There weren't enough teachers. Special courses had to be organized in order to send teachers to the mountains and there were still not enough.

Last year almost one thousand teachers were graduated from our Pedagogical Institute. Part of these went to the mountains to replace the teachers who had spent five years in this service and those left were too few to fill the needs. The workers' technological institutes needed teachers and the Army needed teachers, too.

Thousands of soldiers are studying in accelerated courses, because as our military techniques increase and modernize, the knowledge needed also increases. There are not enough teachers. These thousands of men need teachers, as do the thousands of workers who study in the technological institutes and as also do practically all the factories of the country, all the state farms. But there are not enough teachers. Nevertheless, more than 20,000 men and women are in teacher training schools. And we do not want to rush them, we do not want to interrupt their studies to solve immediate problems; we prefer to wait until they have acquired sufficient preparation to be the kind of teachers that we want to produce. An enormous effort is being made in agriculture, but our agriculture also lacks an adequate number of technicians. Nevertheless, approximately 20,000 students are enrolled in our agricultural technological institutes.

Before 1970, those 20,000 will have graduated, as will more than 20,000 teachers, and in addition, by 1970, we shall have some 30,000 new students being trained as teachers, and another 30,000 students in the agricultural technological institutes. That is, our country is moving forward with a huge number of people who are receiving training precisely in order to regain the ground lost during more than a century and in order to attain levels of economic development which we had not been able to reach before.

Where do we stand today? We strive to have the greatest possible number of young people in our universities. If 10,000

enroll, it seems few to us; if 20,000 enroll, they are still too few. Nevertheless, when one reads the news reports about the situation in the universities in other countries of Latin America, the case is different. The number of university students is limited, and problems exist in many countries of Latin America because of this limitation on the number of students who can enter the universities. What future can these economically underdeveloped, technically backward countries have if they close the doors of their universities? For not only do the university graduates have difficulties in getting jobs, but a large number of them emigrate to the United States seeking employment. How can these

countries overcome their underdevelopment
and their poverty if they close the doors
of their universities?

Our need for mechanical engineers is
constantly present. Why? Because the need
constantly arises for machines, machines of
every kind: machines for fertilizing,
clearing, and cultivating; machines for
cutting, cleaning, and transporting sugar
cane. And our need for mechanical engineers
is evident; our need for hydraulic engineers
is evident; for civil engineers, electrical
engineers, architects, chemists, and
research workers. Our need for pedagogues,
university professors, professors for pre-
university and technological institutes; our
need for skilled workers in industry, in
production, for the development of the
country, for the fulfilling of its social
needs, is constantly arising. Because that
is precisely the task of the Revolution; to
develop the country in every way, to
develop the country materially and culturally.

In our system no one works to make
profits for any individual; we work to
satisfy the needs of the people, to enrich
the country, to raise the productivity of
labor; every citizen of this country is
today concerned with increasing labor
productivity; every citizen in this
country is, logically, interested in raising
and multiplying the productivity of a rural
worker, of a caneworker, of a construction
worker, of a mineworker, a transport worker,
a fisherman, because our resources will
increase and it will be possible to take
care of the most pressing needs of the
people in the same measure as labor produc-
tivity increases,

New Possibilities for Women in Cuba
May Day, 1966

In the past the possibilities of work for
women were extremely limited. In this sense,
discrimination certainly existed. But aside
from this, it was logical that in a country
where there were hundreds of thousands of men
without work there would be little or no work
opportunities for women. We already know
what kind of work was reserved for women in
the capitalist society. We know how prevalent
was the custom among the bourgeoisie of hiring
working-class women, pressed by necessity to
work in amusements, in bars, as just one more
kind of commercial attraction. We know of the

considerable numbers of women in our country
who were forced into the most lamentable
form of survival, that is, prostitution. We
know that our bourgeoisie had established
many brothels in this country; brothels in
every Cuban city, brothels for the Yankee
tourists, for the Yankee Marines, in Havana,
in Guantanamo....In any event, it can be

5

concluded that this type of work is one of
the types that capitalist society--all capitol-
alist societies--reserves for women. It was
not possible, of course, to eradicate this
evil from our country in one day. But we can
say with pride and with satisfaction that just
as the Revolution has eradicated other vices,
such as gambling, for example, just as the
Revolution has rid the country of beggars,
just as there are no longer poverty-stricken
children roaming in the streets,....the
Revolution has also eradicated practically
all prostitution from our country. Today a
tremendous number of dignified and decent
activities are accessible to Cuban women.
Many thousands of Cuban women have gone into
public health work during these years of the
Revolution. Many thousands of young women
have become nurses and nurses' aides, assis-
tants in the field of medicine in general.
Thousands of women work in the scholarship
students' centers. Other thousands of women,
tens of thousands, are teaching. Today the
number of women who go into technological
institutes and technical training centers is
incomparably greater. The fact that the number
of women studying in the School of Medicine
almost equals the number of men, will serve
to illustrate the idea. Thousands of women
are working in day nurseries and thousands are
working not only in these public service jobs,
but also in the production of material goods.

Women are working, for example, in the
planting of seedlings in tree nurseries, or
planting coffee seedlings. The whole poultry
plan of four million--now we have somewhat
over four million laying hens, and by the
end of this year we will have 5,800,000
hens in order to cover our needs all year
round--this entire important branch of our
nation's food production is manned by women
workers. Hundreds of poultry centers are
managed by women.

Women have joined agricultural produc-
tion in other activities, such as vegetable
production, the raising of calves, and
rabbit breeding. In short, new job oppor-
tunities are constantly opening up, in
which an extraordinary number of women
have found decent, remunerative, and
satisfying employment.

...the Revolution is making efforts to create more day nurseries, more schools, to establish more school cafeterias, to make it constantly easier for women to work. But when we speak of making it easier for women to work in production, this does not simply mean that society wishes to help women, not only that. Society has a duty to help women, but at the same time society helps itself considerably by helping women, because it means more and more hands joining in the production of goods and services for all the people.

6

In Memory of Major Ernesto Che Guevara

October 18, 1967

And if we search the pages of history it
is likely that we will find no other case
in which a leader with such a limited number
of men has set about a task of such import,
a case in which a leader with such a limited
number of men has set out to fight against
such large forces. Such proof of confidence
in himself, such proof of confidence in the
peoples, such proof of faith in men's capacity
to fight, can be looked for in the pages of
history-but the like of it will never be
found.

And he fell.

The enemy believes it has defeated his
ideas, his guerrilla concepts, his points
of view on revolutionary armed struggle.
And what they accomplished, by a stroke of
luck, was to eliminate him physically; what
they accomplished was to gain an accidental
advantage that an enemy may gain in war.
And we do not know to what degree that stroke
of luck, that stroke of fortune, was helped
along, in a battle like many others, by that
characteristic of which we spoke before--
his excessive aggressiveness, his absolute
disdain for danger.

This also happened in our War of Indepen-
dence. In a battle of Dos Ríos they killed
the Apostle of our Independence. In a
battle of Punta Brava they killed Antonio
Maceo, a veteran of hundreds of battles.
Countless leaders, countless patriots of
our War of Independence were killed in
similar battles. And nevertheless, that
did not spell defeat for the Cuban cause.

The death of Che--as we said a few days
ago--is a hard blow for the revolutionary
movement, in that it deprives it, without a
doubt, of its most experienced and able
leader.

But those who are boasting of victory are
mistaken. They are mistaken when they think
that his death is the end of his ideas, the
end of his tactics, the end of his guerrilla
concepts, the end of his theses. For the
man who fell, as a mortal man, as a man who
faced bullets time and again, as a soldier,
as a leader, is a thousand times more able
than those who killed him by a stroke of
luck.

However, how must revolutionaries face
this serious setback? How must we face this
loss? If Che had to express an opinion on
this point, what would it be? He gave his
opinion, he expressed that opinion quite

clearly when he wrote in his Message to the
Latin American Conference of Solidarity that,
if death surprised him anywhere, it would
be welcomed as long as his battle cry had
reached a receptive ear and another hand
stretched out to take up his rifle.

And his battle cry will reach not just
one receptive ear, but millions of receptive
ears! And not one hand but millions of
hands will stretch out to take up arms.

New leaders will emerge. And the men--
of the receptive ears and the outstretched
hands--will need leaders who emerge from
the ranks of the people, just as leaders
have emerged in all revolutions.

Those hands will not have available a
leader of Che's extraordinary experience and
enormous ability. Those leaders will be
formed in the process of struggle; those
leaders will emerge from among the millions
of receptive ears, from the millions of
hands that will sooner or later stretch out
to take up arms.

It isn't that we feel that his death will
necessarily have immediate repercussions
in the practical sphere of revolutionary
struggle, that his death will necessarily
have immediate repercussions in the prac-
tical sphere of development of the struggle.
The fact is that when Che took up arms
again he was not thinking of an immediate
victory; he was not thinking of a speedy
victory against the forces of the oligarchies
and of imperialism. As an experienced
fighter, he was prepared for a prolonged
struggle of five, ten, fifteen, or twenty
years if necessary. He was ready to fight
for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, or
all his life if need be!

Photo Credits:

p. 1. - Fidel inaugurates new town of "Vado del Yeso" in Oriente province. LNS/Prensa Latina

p. 3. - Fidel donates blood for victims of 1970 Peruvian earthquake. LNS/Prensa Latina

p. 4. - Cuban women
Top by Candy Freelander/LNS
Bottom by Barbara Rothkrug/LNS

p. 5. - Fidel speaking LNS/Prensa Latina

Display on the road to Havana's Plaza de la Revolución.

# The Moral Economy of a Revolutionary Society

Conciencia conveys an amalgam of consciousness, conscience, conscientiousness and commitment and is one of the most repeated words in the Cuban language of revolution

JOSEPH A. KAHL

Most commentaries on the Cuban revolution published in the United States stress its economic confusions and difficulties. We read about the "grey" atmosphere of Havana, in contrast to its prerevolutionary gaiety, and learn about long lines of customers waiting to buy, under the rationing system, the few articles to be seen in the stores.

A recent visit of a month in Cuba was enough to convince me of two points that do not deny the prevailing austerity but cast it in a new light:

First, the fundamental driving force behind the revolution and its first decade in power was not a plan for instant prosperity but rather a moral imperative to create a just and dignified society in contrast to memories of a degrading past. Thus the "gaiety" of Havana was dampened since much of it represented vice for tourists and decadent luxury for a handful of Cubans in the midst of a mass of

impoverished fellow-citizens. Redistribution of wealth and the provision of jobs for the many unemployed were seen as the most important tasks; they have been accomplished.

Second, the Cuban economy has turned the corner and is about to produce new abundance. The first five years of emphasis on impractical industrialization have been succeeded by five years of intensive and rational investments in modern agriculture that are beginning to pay off. Only a person who sees the many new coffee and fruit trees in the Cordón, the greenbelt around Havana, planted by urban workers on weekends, or views the citrus trees on the Isle of Pines (renamed the Isle of Youth), planted by thousands of young people who volunteered for two years of work under pioneer conditions, or visits the cattle ranches in the province of Pinar del Río, which are upgrading the herds through advanced methods of artificial

insemination, can appreciate the magnitude of new invest-
ment and its imminent productivity. When the new crops
flow to market, the reconstruction of society will become
clearer, since it will not be obscured by economic failures.

To understand the current scene, one must emphasize
what is central to the Cubans themselves: The starting
point was their society of the 1950's and the emotional
revulsion against it that swept through the "generation of
the Moncada," the young rebels who followed Fidel Castro
in his ill-fated assault against the fortress of that name in
1953 and who stuck with him until they toppled Batista
more than five years later. These were not men with a de-
tailed economic blueprint for a new society; they were in-
tensely nationalist Cubans who hated the corruption, the
foreign influence, and the brutality of life around them. As
Castro explained in his famous defense, "History Will
Absolve Me," at the Moncada trial, the purpose of their
revolt was to cleanse and purify the nation through heroic
action.

Several times during my trip I heard groups reminiscing
about the "bad old days." There seem to be a few standard
stories that are elaborated with personal touches. The un-
derlying theme is corruption. "Do you know that huge
mansion of Senator X on Quinta Avenida?" (At first I
thought this meant Fifth Avenue in New York, and then
realized that it was a street in a luxurious Havana suburb,
but the unintended double meaning conveys more truth
than the literal denotation.) "Well, he got that through
stealing money that was supposed to be used for schools
in my province." Another person in the group would top
the story by telling how rich an acquaintance of his became
through the sale of admissions to public hospitals. "But
what about that guy who controlled space in the Havana
cemetery?" queried another.

One of the most popular programs on TV is a biweekly
episode in the life of a senator (played by an actor who
was a senator) who typifies the old political boss: A fat,
cigar-smoking fellow who gulls peasants and workers with
smooth talk ("let's all contribute for the new school"), and
then runs off with the money to enjoy the "sinful" plea-
sures of Havana. This corruption is not seen as the result of
the weakness of some men. It is interpreted as the inevi-
table consequence of capitalist society, particularly in under-
developed countries. In such nations, where the mass of
men are poor and uneducated, the few who are rich are
uncontrolled in their appetites and powers. The final de-
grading touch in Cuba was the fact that elite position was
based upon links to the United States, which directly or
indirectly controlled so much of Cuban society. Foreigners
or their local allies were seen as despoiling the body and
soul of the nation.

One aging intellectual, an active revolutionary in the
thirties and a more passive but approving one in the fifties,
said, "Never forget that we lived for over a decade (if
you count both of Batista's terms in office) under a particu-
larly crude bunch, utterly lacking in education or refine-
ment. They were sergeants who seized control and sold
out to the American gangsters who ran the gambling and
the prostitution. We had a lot to overcome."

One story told with relish concerns Batista's desire to be-
come a member of the Yacht Club. Since he was a mulatto,
he was not eligible. But with a $50,000 initiation fee, plus
the construction at government expense of a series of canals
that permitted many members to tie up their yachts at their
back doors, he was permitted to join. Tourist guides love
to point out the canals. They also indicate that the private
beaches of the clubs are now open to the public, and the
buildings are either schools or social centers for students.

To the corruption was added brutality. The men and
women who made the revolution were young, often stu-
dent leaders. During the struggle their ranks were decimat-
ed by tortures and cruelties. Indeed, thousands were killed
in Batista's jails, far more than the few who died during
guerrilla battles.

Although the fight against Batista was central, the Cu-
bans date the beginning of their struggle for independence
with the start of the revolt against Spain in 1868; they
speak of "100 years of struggle" climaxed by the "triumph
of the rebellion" against Batista, followed by "10 years of
revolution," the latter referring to the efforts to build a
new society. All of this was necessary in order to be free
from Spain and from the United States. It gives them a
deep identification with the people of Vietnam who are
also fighting foreigners; the Cubans support the Communist
forces, and view the war as a moral crusade. They see in
it proof that American capitalism inevitably leads to im-
perialism, the exploitation of weaker nations, and the de-
struction of human decency.

When I talked with a group of young journalists-in-
training at the offices of Juventud Rebelde (Rebellious
Youth, daily newspaper of the Young Communist League),
I confessed my skepticism of determinist theories of history.
I argued that Americans increasingly saw the Vietnam war
as a tragic mistake and expressed the hope that we had
learned a lesson from it. I appealed for a view of humanity
that would rise above conflicts between capitalism and
Communism, and criticized them for forcing every event
into the mold of that conflict, thus turning their paper into
a stereotype. With the tolerant, smug conviction of com-
mitted youth, tempered by Cuban politeness, they called
me an "incurable romantic."

Schools all over the island remind children about Viet-
nam and its implications—indeed, many schools are named
"Heroic Vietnam." One example conveys the entire lesson
at once: Colored pencils, which are scarce, were passed out
to school children. Then the teacher explained that they
were even scarcer in Vietnam and asked the children vol-
untarily to return the pencils for shipment overseas. The
teacher said every child gave back his pencil.

"Create Wealth Through Conciencia"

One of the key slogans on the big billboards surrounding
the Plaza of the Revolution José Martí, where Fidel ad-
dressed about a million people last January 2, the tenth
anniversary of the triumph of the rebellion, reads:

"El Camino Del Comunismo Es Crear Riqueza Con La
Conciencia." Literallý, it means "The Road of Communism
Is to Create Wealth through Conciencia." That last and

key word conveys an amalgam of consciousness, conscience, conscientiousness, and commitment, and is perhaps the most repeated word in the Cuban language of revolution. The implication is that in the old society the mentality of the people was formed by money or the pursuit of money, and the motivation for work was the fear of poverty, but in the new society people will comprehend the need to work for the common good, and abundance will flow as a result of that understanding. Along with it will come a style of life that is cooperative and humane, and without "alienation," since work will be part of a voluntary social experience.

Fidel bluntly expressed it on March 13, 1968:

> We cannot encourage or even permit selfish attitudes among men if we don't want them to be guided by the instinct of selfishness, by the wolf, by the beast instinct. . . . The concept of socialism and communism, the concept of a higher society, implies a man devoid of those feelings; a man who has overcome such instinct at any cost, placing, above everything, his sense of solidarity and brotherhood among men. . . . If we are going to fail because we believe in man's ability, in his ability to improve, then we will fail; but we will never renounce our faith in mankind.

Society is to be reshaped in the pattern of comradeship of the guerrilla fighters of the Sierra Maestra. Some of the abstractions stem from Marx, but the Cuban color comes from the mountains. That is why Che Guevara, who continued to exemplify the values of the mountains even after the rebellion was won, is a martyr on the way to sanctification. And his phrase "the new man" is used to symbolize the core of revolutionary morality.

To the Cubans, the moral basis of the Revolution is fundamental, and its shifting economic plans are secondary, pragmatic experiments. The fact that per capita income may have gone down slightly is much less important to them than the fact that income is distributed more equally. Under Batista (and his predecessors) only a tiny

fraction of the rural populace had the chance to eat meat, drink milk, wear shoes, visit a doctor, or send their children to school. About a third were chronically unemployed. Now everyone has a job, and the most important services are no longer scarce, or at least are evenly distributed.

Medical care is free, and for the first time it is spread throughout the island instead of being concentrated in Havana. Despite the exodus of many doctors to the United States, enough have been trained to increase the total in practice up to 7,000. There are three medical schools instead of one, 32 teaching hospitals instead of four. The number of hospital beds has doubled to 40,000; more than 250 small clinics have been built in rural and urban neighborhoods; there are 48 rural general hospitals instead of only one. Vaccination and sanitary services have reached a level sufficient to eliminate malaria and polio—not a single case of either last year. The death rate has been reduced from 7.5 to 6.2 (the population is exceptionally young, which lowers the rate), and the life expectancy has risen to about 67 years. These are statistics appropriate to "developed" countries and are far ahead of the rest of Latin America. True, Cuba had a relatively good medical base before the revolution, but its extension to all parts of the country during a time of economic austerity is a considerable accomplishment.

There has been an even more marked expansion in education. The prerevolutionary rate of illiteracy was about 25 percent, and it has been reduced to 3 or 4 percent. Most children now stay in school through the sixth grade, or the end of primary education; the enrollments at that level have doubled to 1,444,000. (In the rest of Latin America, from 1960 through 1967, primary enrollment went up only 50 percent, and the proportion of children attending school increased from 48 to 56 percent. The absolute number of children not attending primary school increased, as a result of population growth, by some 2.5 million.) Cuban night-school classes at primary and secondary

levels have almost half-a-million students. Adults are pressured into getting the sixth grade certificate, and then can continue if they wish. *Twenty-five percent of all Cubans, two of eight million, are registered in a classroom.*

Secondary-school enrollments almost tripled in the decade to 172,000. Vocational training at the secondary level has exploded. There were no schools of agronomy or fishing before; now almost 40,000 students study those subjects. Industrial schools have grown from 6,000 to 30,000 students, and university enrollments have doubled to 40,000. Students from rural areas without nearby schools receive scholarships to attend boarding schools or to go to the cities. About 250,000 students receive some form of scholarship aid; another 160,000 attend "semiboarding" schools that supply three meals a day.

A sharp redistribution of income was provided shortly after victory by a law which cut all rent in half; next year rent will be completely abolished. Meat is scarce, but all share the ration of three-quarters of a pound per week. Milk is rationed to children under seven and to the elderly, and school lunchrooms have milk in abundance; adults do without. In both city and countryside, I became aware of something strange to an observer who has travelled in many Latin American countries: *Not one person was without shoes.*

For the first time Cuba's Negroes—about one-third of the population—share equally in the goods and services and the civic respect of their society. They have been fully integrated in the schools and on the job. The sense of moral superiority about racial integration felt by Cuban leaders was brought home to me by a documentary film. (Short films are the one new art form that has flourished since the revolution; they are imaginative, avant-garde in style, usually didactic and political, but often humorous.) I saw it at a regular movie theatre along with a French cops-and-robbers film. It was entitled "Now," and featured the song of that name sung in English (with a very few subtitles in Spanish). Accompanying the song was a montage of still news photos of blacks in the United States being beaten by police, occasionally interspersed with quick views of the Lincoln Memorial or Martin Luther King; there was no commentary.

## Abundance of Discipline and Restraint

The new Cuban values are not against abundance. Quite the contrary: Fidel promises that the decade of austerity is over and the decade of plenty is beginning. He swears that Cuba will jump from an underdeveloped to a developed society before the 1970's have ended. But he describes it as an abundance of discipline and restraint: Priorities will be set by reason and by plan, egoistic competition that sets one man against another and degenerates into selfishness and corruption will be absent, and men will have learned to work hard and well because they understand the contribution they are making to the common good—because they have conciencia. When all of this comes about, differences in pay between engineers and sweepers can be eliminated as unnecessary; indeed, money itself will go.

These goals are being approached step-by-step. The first problem was to overcome the idea that nirvana had arrived the day after the triumph of the rebellion and everybody could loaf. As Fidel expressed it in his tenth-anniversary address:

> The mirage of class society, of capitalist society, of full store windows, created for the masses the illusory idea that all that was necessary was to break the glass and distribute the riches. But the mirage was based on misery, on unemployment and underemployment. And now the masses understand that riches must be created, for they know how to add and subtract and multiply and divide. When you divide among eight million people the production created by that type of society, even the second-graders discover that it was a production of misery. When 80 percent or 90 percent of the children don't drink milk, 50,000 cows are enough, and there's extra milk in the stores. But when you give milk to all children born in this country, and every one without exception has this right, then 50,000 cows aren't enough, nor 100,000, nor 200,000, but we need half-a-million. Half-a-million milk cows are now growing in this country, and other half-millions will be born, and there will be a quart not only for the children but for all citizens of this country at a date not far distant.

At the beginning, our production did not grow—it decreased. And what we produced was in conditions of misery, sickness, hunger, evictions, dismissals. Cane was cut by hand, 15, 16, 17 hours a day. These bad conditions changed before we had the new machines, the new knowledge. From too much work, some substituted too little. Production went down to 3.8 million tons of sugar.

But now it has changed. In Latin America, agricultural production goes up 1, 2, or 3 percent a year—sometimes less than population growth. But in Cuba, production in 1970 will be double that in 1958. Something absolutely extraordinary, unprecedented. Actually, this doubling will come about in only the last 4 or 5 years. We are learning not only to add, but to multiply.

Thus Fidel proclaims that the first goal was to redistribute wealth and eliminate misery, the second to increase investment, and the third to provide abundance. The first is a fact, the second is well under way, and the third seems just around the bend, for the optimism not only in Havana but especially in the countryside where the work is being done begins to convince the visitor.

All admit that the industrialization drive of the first five years was a disaster—no raw materials, no engineers or skilled workers, no markets. But the new drive to technify and diversify agriculture appears to be on a sounder footing. Technicians are now graduating from the agronomy schools and returning from study abroad. Rice production tripled in 1968. Artificial insemination of cattle is proceeding rapidly, and increases in milk production from the new cross-bred herds are remarkable. New lands were cleared and irrigated, and the new sugar, citrus and coffee are growing. The socialist countries provide guaranteed markets for the sugar, meat and grapefruit—after all, Cuba is their

only tropical partner. And all of Europe enjoys Havana cigars. This new output is not yet counted in the statistics of annual gross national product; but it is counted in the statistics of new acreage and new plantings and can be seen by the visitor who gets out of Havana. If the crops flow to market, then the coming decade will produce a deep shift in the Cuban scene.

Fidel promised a growth of agricultural output of 15 percent a year during the seventies. He said acreage will go up 65 percent (compared to 15 percent in Latin America); that Cuba will use one-half as much fertilizer as all the rest of Latin America combined. The main crops, in order of importance, will be sugar, cattle, citrus, tobacco, coffee. Citrus production went from about 100,000 tons in 1962 to over 150,000 tons now, and is scheduled to reach 4,500,- 000 tons in 1980, close to current American production and double that of Israel. Sugar will go from a low of 3.8 million tons after the rebellion (a normal crop used to be between 5 and 6) to the goal for 1970 of 10 million tons, thereafter to be stabilized. New industries are being developed using agricultural raw materials. Even with a hefty discount for failures to reach the goals, the increases should be remarkable.

But what about the spirit of sacrifice, of dedication, of conciencia? Fidel claims that only in the past few years have the masses begun to understand. They have been led to this understanding partly by his own outstanding skill as a teacher. Listening to him in the Plaza or on the radio, I was surprised to find that most of his speaking was not political diatribe, the impression one gets from seeing his picture in our newspapers with his mouth open and his arm raised. Much of his talk is calmly didactic—patient explanation with colorful examples. He is a superb lecturer who can make the abstractions of economic development come alive. Incidentally, the speeches are now shorter than they were, down to about two hours.

Fidel's lectures are spread by militants, the Communist Party and the Young Communist League, who appear to number from 10 to 20 percent of most work groups. They are the soul of the revolution. The older ones, who are in their thirties or forties, fought in the mountains or in the underground. They are a proud bunch who conquered an army 10 times their number, and then stood off Goliath himself at Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs). They are convinced that willpower and heroism can accomplish anything. The younger militants have to be trained in the schools. As teenagers, many participated in the national mobilization that followed victory: the campaign to abolish illiteracy in 1961. Many city boys and girls lived with peasant families in isolated districts for several months and taught them to read and write, learning in return the hard facts of rural life.

Education is deeply politicized. Politics means much more than the study of Marxism-Leninism; above all, it means conciencia and hard work. A model student is one who masters his textbooks, volunteers for extra labor in the fields, and becomes a militant. The success of the attempt to produce abundance through commitment will depend upon the ability of these militants to maintain their en-

thusiasm after the initial crisis and challenge of establishing the new society has been outgrown, as well as their ability to transfer part of their enthusiasm to the masses.

I asked one Cuban friend, who himself had been a member of the student underground against Batista, how he expected his children to catch his enthusiasm for the new society, since they could not remember the old one and did not have heroic memories of participation in the rebellion. He responded: "It is a problem we are aware of. They learn from me and from the school. When I go out on Sunday to work in the Cordón, I try to take one of my two small children with me. They don't work, but they watch their father, and get the idea that such physical labor is honorable. They also see the fun we have, since I go with pals from the office and we kid around a lot. And in school they are taught about the goal of the revolution to create by cooperative work a society that is just and humane. And they learn to identify with the underprivileged around the world. They come to understand that our revolution cannot be complete until exploitation has ended everywhere—poor as we are, we send a few doctors or technicians to Algeria or Vietnam to help out."

## Youngsters Identify With Work Brigades

Instead of the guerrilla bands of their fathers, these youngsters are taught to identify with work brigades, especially in the rural zones. I visited one boarding school in the provinces; it includes grades three through nine. Despite the fact that the pupils are the children of farmers, it is recognized that many will go on to advanced education. Yet rural and collective values are stressed, along with concentration on studies to the limit of individual abilities. For example, the children spend two hours a day in the fields surrounding the school, growing their own rice, fruit, and vegetables. And they do all the work of cleaning and service in the dormitories and the kitchens, except for a few professional male cooks and a few women who clean the bathrooms. Student tribunals, modeled after those in factories or collective farms, handle all problems of discipline.

The teachers, who are all under 21, share the collective life of the students; everybody stays on the grounds except for trips home every second weekend. The teachers convey subject matter and ideological commitment simultaneously. Most came from poor rural families and would have been denied an education under the old regime; they believe in the new one. Incidentally, they continue to study and improve themselves by taking correspondence courses; their distant tutor occasionally visits them and evaluates their work. Talking to them, one catches a spirit of constant effort at change and improvement, rather than "I've got my teaching certificate, now send me the salary check and let me follow the teacher's manual in peace."

Urban secondary schools and university departments as units work for a month or 45 days in the fields during the harvest period. Deans and professors and students live and work together. Rank is changed: the work boss gives the orders, and the professors comply along with the students. This program of "school to the country" not only supplies needed labor, but shapes the perceptions of the new gener-

ation. They understand from aching backs that farm labor
is hard and is the base of the Cuban economy. They learn
that the purpose of education in their country is to pre-
pare technicians who will make such labor easier and more
productive, not to supply soft careers to the educated man.

I think one unspoken lesson may be the most signifi-
cant; they see their teachers, and their cabinet ministers,
and Fidel himself working in the fields. The entire system
takes on a legitimacy that is the opposite of the old corrup-
tion. Leadership means harder work than the average, and
few special privileges. The pressures from such leadership
may be resisted as being more than an ordinary citizen
wishes to bear, for life is more than work; but those pres-
sures will not be turned aside as false phrases coming from
men whose purpose is personal enrichment through ex-
ploitation of others. Even the temporary visitor to the is-
land begins to feel guilty if he does not volunteer to cut
some cane.

The lessons of the schools are solidified on the job,
where collective competition replaces individual competi-
tion. Several times a year, for each anniversary (that of
Moncada on July 26, or the Triumph of the Rebellion on
January 2, or May Day, etc.) awards are granted to top
work units. One of the most coveted awards is "Héroes del
Moncada," which grants the right to fly a flag announcing
superiority. To get it (and keep it, since every year it must
be won again), a garage, a restaurant, a hotel, a factory
must meet or excel all work norms, must have a high num-

ber of "voluntary hours" of overtime labor, on the job or
in the countryside, must show special desire to serve the
public well, and must have everybody who lacks the 6th
grade certificate in attendance at night school. Within the
group, workers' committees have some leeway in deciding
how much sick pay a man will get when he is ill, or exactly
when his retirement will begin. The worker with conciencia
gets an extra break.

Obviously, such a system does not "do away with ma-
terial incentives" as the Cubans claim. What it does is tend
to transfer identification of reward from the individual to
the group. Everybody in the unit will share the honor of
the flag; all of Cuba will have abundance, or nobody
will. Even so, the individual gets direct rewards through
some material advantages such as extended sick leave and
by receiving prestige within the group, which must be
particularly effective in motivating the young. Conciencia
is not all giving; those who show it gain advantages.

For the moment, salary differences persist. The mini-
mum old-age pension is now 60 pesos (equivalent at the
official rate to 60 dollars) a month; the minimum wage ap-
pears to be about 85 pesos; cane-cutters will receive in 1969
a minimum of 96 pesos for a 24-day month; machine op-
erators in the cane fields will earn from 110 to 160 pesos;
the supposed maximum salary is 700 pesos. Until recently,
workers were deliberately attracted to frontier zones by
higher pay, but that policy has ended. The goal is to slowly
eliminate pay differences as motivation evolves from con-

ciencia. Overtime pay has just about been eliminated; min-
mums go up; and more and more types of consumption be-
come free, thus reducing the importance of income. So
far, education, medical care, sporting events, and burials;
next year, rent.

In the meantime, strange remnants of the old society re-
main. For example, all owners of urban or rural real estate
whose lands were confiscated receive two lifetime privi-
leges: (1) they can live in their original houses without
paying rent (one child of a small farmer can inherit the
land); (2) they receive a pension in lieu of rental income,
up to a maximum of 600 pesos a month. Thus hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of former landlords are living on pen-
sions in Havana and provide the main clientele for the
fancy restaurants, since there is not much else to do with
money—there are no cars, furs, jewels, or foreign tours to
buy. The attitude of the new regime toward these people
appears to be: In theory they were exploiters of the poor,
but they are also unfortunate human beings who were
brought up under a bad system and did not really under-
stand what they were doing; so let them live and die in
peace. And let them go to Miami if they insist.

The hardest, indeed, the impossible task for a tourist on
a short visit is to penetrate the rhetoric of conciencia to
find out how it really works. Try as one does to avoid it,
the visitor ends up speaking mainly to leaders, to militants.
With some previous contacts and some luck, he manages
to have private conversations with a few people who are
lukewarm, or even openly opposed to the system, but as he
travels about the island he is attracted toward the new
zones where the action is, and he is introduced to the local
party chairman or the local school principal.

In private conversations, people are not afraid to talk;
there is very little of the supreme caution and suspicion that
I found in the Soviet Union in a visit in 1959 (the peak of
Khrushchev's reform period). Cubans are not afraid of each
other or to be seen with foreigners. So long as one avoids
overt acts of hostility, such as attempting to flee the island
without permission, or fomenting sabotage, one need not
fear the police. Batista's cops were far more dangerous, and
so from their own historical perspective, Cubans can deny
that they live in a police state. Pressures come from the
group, not from above, and they are constant and insidious,
far more effective in shaping individual behavior than
threats of official violence.

But how far does the ordinary citizen, the nonmilitant,
go in granting his allegiance? Does he believe all the
rhetoric or "tune it out" the way we do with TV commer-
cials? When he "volunteers" for extra work, how free is
the will, how generous the impulse? Only by living within
a group over a period of time could one answer the ques-
tion; the technique of participant observation would be the
only way to find out.

There are some objective indicators, although they are
not pure indexes of conciencia. Production declined after
the triumph of the rebellion, but now seems to be restor-
ing itself and on the verge of a major increase. Yet changes
in motivation are only part of the reason. Turnover in the
entire administrative system, the shift to and then away

from industrialization, the flight of the old technicians and
the training of new ones, the perfecting of group methods
of behavior control—all of these also affect absenteeism and
productivity.

Within youth itself, I suspect that the resistance to the
rhetoric of the revolution is not so much counterrevolu-
tionary as it is countersociety, a hunger for privacy, for a
chance to develop individuality in an atmosphere of leisure.
Every adolescent is not by nature a Spartan: some are
Athenians, and they must suffer under the constant pres-
sure to study, to work, and above all, to participate.

My own feeling is that the young militants are convinced
they are building a superior society, and that they are
probably carrying along the masses to a sufficient degree. To
talk with them was profoundly moving, especially in con-
trast to the disillusion and cynicism of many of the best of
young Americans. Cuban youths are not alienated, bitter,
or "turned off." Some are a bit sad, since they often come
from middle-class families and their own commitment to
the revolution has separated them from their parents who
fled the country. But most display a joy, a comradeship, a
combination of a deep belief and an honest and playful
sense of humor about it that is truly refreshing. They are
dedicated but not pompous—an attractive generation, dif-
ficult to resist. After a while I worried less about the fact
that I was spending too much time with leaders and not
enough with followers, since I concluded that these leaders
will shape the future.

Concerning internal affairs, the militants are not dog-
matists. Indeed, they are proud of the fact that their
Marxism-Leninism is pragmatic; they will try anything that
might work. They admit that the early industrialization
drive was a mistake. They say that anything they have done
for ten years should be scrapped, since the essence of revo-
lution is change. Fidel publicly begins to worry that maybe,
at the age of 41, he is getting too old to be a revolutionary
leader.

However, debates about internal policy are largely ver-
bal: There are no channels for publishing openly critical
arguments. The newspapers and magazines are monotonous
reiterations of the official view. Occasionally a work of seri-
ous literature raises some doubts in a guarded vein. Last
year two books were published that became test cases, a play
by Anton Arrufat, *Siete Contra Tebas*, and a collection of
poems by Heberto Padilla, *Fuera del Juego*. They re-
ceived prizes from the international jury assembled each
year by the Casa de las América, the Cuban institute for
cultural interchange with Latin America. Then a committee
of the Cuban National Union of Writers objected and said
that the books contained "antirevolutionary concepts." The
books were published with a prologue by the committee
giving their criticisms; the authors were not molested and
continue to work. Intellectuals are debating the implica-
tions of the incident and future policy.

When they look outside of their country, the Cuban view
appears to become more dogmatic. Their knowledge of the
world is a caricature of reality. True, those who wish may
go to the National Library and read the London *Times* or
*The New York Times* (I tried it—they are available, as
they were not in the Soviet Union), but few bother. More

listen to the Miami radio or watch the late show from Key West. Serious study of the outside world is nonexistent. The books and journals are scarce (because of foreign-exchange shortages, so they say, and thus the United States blockade), and besides, the major interest in the universities is technical competence plus motivation to build the new Cuba. The new generation of Cubans does not have much genuine curiosity about the outside; they are satisfied with the caricatures. Furthermore, they do not seem to care much about telling their own story to the United States. They know we receive a garbled picture of Cuba, but suspect we would not believe the truth.

This dogmatism is perhaps the automatic result of mili-
tant belief in the vision of utopia. True believers of any
creed lose objectivity and curiosity. They know the answers
in advance. American youthful militants (at least the white
ones) have too often lost all belief and become nihilists
and destroyers; Cuban youthful militants have the security
of conviction and the narrowness that goes with it. They
are building utopia, and it completely absorbs their en-
ergies. The independent intellectual, the critic of all societies
and all beliefs, is a luxury they cannot afford.

The Cuban utopia has two colorations: One is Com-
munist society; the other is *patria*, a Cuba free of foreign
domination for the first time in its history. Every new
threat from the United States reinforces patriotism and
drives more people to support the regime. The economic
and military aid from Russia is seen as help from a sympa-
thetic and happily distant partner and not as a sign of con-
trol. The Cubans are Communists, but they are not Slavs
and have no intention of becoming Russianized. They are
something new and still not fully formed: Latin American
Communists.

Upon returning home, I read various articles by jour-
nalists who were in Cuba at the same time I was. It was
striking to see how their observations reflected their per-
spectives. For example, the *Newsweek* correspondent who
is head of the Paris bureau called Havana "the most de-
pressing city on earth." My perspective comes from 15
years of study of various Latin American countries, but no
previous experience in Cuba. I tended to notice the con-
trasts between the commitment of Cuban youth and the
alienation of their counterparts in other Latin American
countries. I was struck by the energy of a society moving
under its own direction toward goals that emerged from its
own history and needs. Surely nobody from Recife or
Guatemala City would call Havana depressing.

Washington, of course, has its own perspective. It
stresses that Cuba is dangerous because it is sending guer-
rilla fighters and arms to Latin American countries and
thus stirring up trouble. Furthermore, Washington con-
demns these policies because they are based on violence.
The Cubans dismiss this line and are convinced that it
shows American duplicity. They point out that throughout
Latin America military regimes keep themselves in power
with United States guns and advice—they ask, why is
American violence "good" and Cuban violence "bad"?
Furthermore they indicate that the real threat from the
United States is our system not our guns. They say we have

dominated Latin America for a century, and yet ignorance,
misery, corruption, and infant mortality go on year after
year. They note that even United States critics now openly
proclaim the failure of the Alliance for Progress. (Fidel
quoted at length in his anniversary address from an article
in the Spanish language edition of *Life* magazine, by a
former State Department man.)

So far, Washington answers with more military aid for
internal supression, and new talk about increasing United
States corporate investment—that is, compounding the dis-
ease. Yet the challenge from Cuba is not, I am sure, a few
isolated guerrilleros; Che is dead, and it is more clear than
ever that revolution cannot be exported.

The challenge from Cuba has not really begun. It will
appear as a serious political threat when and if the Cuban
economy begins to produce and the austerity fades away.
Then the underlying moral thrust of the Cuban revolution
can show itself, unstained by the economic difficulties that
so far have distracted attention from the successes of social
reconstruction. Young people in Latin America who are
sick of stagnant societies and illegitimate leaders increasing-
ly will be inspired by the vigorous example of Cuba. The
militant dedication will seem to them an exhilarating life.
They will try not to import it wholesale but to learn from
it and to emulate it. Working for a subsidiary of General
Motors or submitting to local generals in American uni-
forms will offer no satisfactory alternatives, for they con-
tain no moral uplift. People who are demoralized seek a
way out of despair, not a degrading handout in return for
submission.

FURTHER READING SUGGESTED BY THE AUTHOR:

*Man and Society in Cuba*, by Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Havana, 1965) is a statement of the theory of the "new man" to be nurtured by the new society. It is an important revision of Old Communist doctrine.

*Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel* by Lee Lockwood (New York: Macmillan, 1967). Lockwood, a brilliant photographer, combines his pictures and a transcript of a five-day tape-recorded interview with Fidel Castro in 1965.

*90 Miles From Home* by Warren Miller (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961). A novelist describes his travels in Cuba in the early years of the revolution; he catches the spirit of the revolution in great detail.

*Revolutionary Politics and the Cuban Working Class* by Maurice Zeitlin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). This is perhaps the only scientific attitude study ever done shortly after a major revolution (in 1962).

Joseph A. Kahl is professor of sociology and chairman of the Committee on Latin American Studies at Washington University. Since 1955, he has spent part of every year in Mexico. He has also lived one year in Brazil and has visited several other Latin American countries. Currently he is doing a comparative study of adjustments to urban life in St. Louis and Santiago, Chile. Next fall he will join the department of sociology at Cornell University.

TRANS-ACTION APRIL 1969

# services for all

## story and pictures by Edward Rice

Little is generally known of the new social set-up in Cuba and particularly of the recent medical innovations. A new pattern of public health services has emerged. Gone are the days of private practice. Rural hospitals have sprung up in remote areas of the country, doctors must serve in provinces and the entire active population has been enrolled to fight disease.

In the first two years, the aftermath of the Revolution put a great strain on the medical services. Many doctors left the country. According to reliable sources, out of some 6,300 doctors, around half decided to expatriate themselves. Whatever the figure, Cuba lost a significant number of doctors, technicians, nurses and other health personnel. So the first thing to do was to replace them. To that end, the authorities initiated a very extensive and concentrated training programme. At present there is one doctor for every 1,100 inhabitants.

There are three medical schools, Havana, Santiago and Las Villas, which form most doctors and medical teachers. Dentists, technical assistants and nurses receive their training in various other schools. In all, at present, about 9,000 students are under training. For doctors, the course lasts six

years: for a fully trained nurse, three years, and for an auxiliary nurse, nine months. As soon as doctors have graduated they must practise in a rural area or a provincial hospital.

Young men or women begin their training with the clear understanding that in exchange for their free education they will have to serve in rural districts. Eventually, if he wishes to become a specialist, a young doctor can further his studies. He can even obtain a scholarship to study abroad. WHO has been instrumental, in recent years, in promoting exchanges and granting scholarships. Several Cuban fellows have recently completed their studies in the United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia and various Latin American countries.

At present, practically the whole of the medical profession work for the Government, even those who were trained before 1958. There are still a few doctors in private practice but their number is dwindling.

### Prevention first

The emphasis, both in theory and practice, is placed on preventive medicine. One doctor said: "We are not dogmatic, we use universal scientific principles. The difference between now and before is in the

attitude towards people. Today everything is free care, operations, medicine. Tuition for students also and we work on the principle of prevention first."

Another doctor who works in the mountainous Oriente province explained: " Before the Revolution this region was one of the least developed in Cuba. No medicine, no public assistance, no social programmes existed in these mountainous areas. Now, in less than ten years and in this province alone, 30 new hospitals have been put up. We are trying to shape men of the future, devoid of self-seeking but with a sense of service and duty towards their fellow creatures in the world."

Just as the first phase of the Revolution put tremendous pressure on the medical personnel, the second phase made heavy demands for up-to-date equipment. Most of the available equipment, especially the X-ray installations used to come from the USA and this at one point caused a serious gap. Now, almost all the equipment comes from western and eastern Europe.

Cuba is administratively divided into eight provinces, each with a regional health office, except the provinces of Oriente and Havana, which each have two. The provinces themselves are sub-divided into

various areas with hospitals and satellite
clinics.

The Enrique Cabrera National Hospital in Havana provides medical care for 200,000 people. It is also a teaching hospital where doctors and nurses begin working while still studying, a form of on-the-job training. The hospital provides 526 beds and three kinds of services—for outside (visiting nurses), emergency and in patients. Of the 896 staff members 100 are doctors, 40 of them resident and training to become specialists and 60 are interns. There are 70 nurses, 90 auxiliary nurses and a school of nursing with 250 students who work in the hospital as part of their training.

The Enrique Cabrera is the main
medical unit in the region and works in
close cooperation with polyclinics. The
region itself is divided into five sections
and each of these has a polyclinic which
gives primary medical assistance. Usually
when a specialist's help is required the
polyclinic patient is sent to the Enrique
Cabrera in Havana. In 1966, before the
polyclinics were established, the hospital
treated 138,000 outpatients. The following
year saw a great improvement, with the
new polyclinics treating some 68,000 pa-

tients; the hospital handled 78,000 which
naturally ensured better service for each
individual case. The underlying idea re-
mains that of bringing medical service
nearer to the patient.

The cost per day to the hospital for an in-patient is estimated at $14 and the average length of stay is 8 days. All services for in patients are completely free, from the initial examination to the final operation. For out-patients all is free except for some medicines.

Rural hospitals

Only when one travels to the province of
Oriente can these sweeping changes be
fully appreciated. Here in Santiago, almost
600 miles by air from Havana, lies a diffi-
cult mountainous country where earlier
people might have to journey 20 hours on
horseback to get medical attention.

Forty seven rural hospitals have been
built—thirty in Oriente alone. They are
small, simple and efficient.

To reach the townlet of Mayari Arriba,
forty-five miles north of Santiago, one has
first to climb the tawny Sierra Maestra, a
7,000 feet mountain range overlooking the
glittering Caribbean sea. Along the good

asphalt road, bougainvillea and hioiscus
colour the landscape. The Emilio Barcenas
Polyclinic in Mayari dates from 1961. It
has 72 beds of which 42 are reserved for
deliveries. Regulations decreed in 1966
make it compulsory for all women to come
to hospital to give birth. This is being put
into effect progressively. In the past, too
many families employed local untrained
midwives who practised witchcraft and
often caused accidents.

Located in the peaceful tree-shaded vil-
lage of Jarahueca, the Reinaldo Brooks
Polyclinic is even more remote. It has
30 beds—10 for deliveries, 10 for children,
10 for general cases, and serves 10,000
people in an area of 100 square kilometers.

These figures pin-point the main pre-
occupations of the Cuban government.
Priority goes to the health of child and
mother using all available means. To im-
plement this a nation-wide effort has been
deployed to:

- train general practitioners in obstetrics,
  gynaecology and paediatrics

- increase the number of clinics and beds
  available for pregnant women

- have eighty per cent of deliveries take
place in hospital by 1970 (less than
40% ten years ago)

- improve nutrition and dental care for
  mothers and children

- stimulate breast feeding in the first
three months of the infant's life.

Various programmes have been initiated
to combat diarrhoeal diseases, malnutri-
tion, tuberculosis and birth injuries.
Amendments to the legislation give greater
protection to expectant mothers. Women
have priority to buy, at special prices, cer-
tain food-stuffs, dresses and underwear.
These bonuses are distributed to women at
prenatal clinics over a period of several
months in order to encourage regular
attendance. Twenty per cent of the apart-
ments in new blocks are awarded to
couples expecting a child. Women cannot
be refused employment because of preg-
nancy nor can they lose their job until the
child is six months old. From the fourth
month of pregnancy until four months
after delivery, women do not have to work
overtime or on night shift. Their salary is
not cut if they are transferred to easier
work. To encourage breast feeding, nursing
mothers work shorter hours. And, if a

*In the mountainous Oriente province. Most patients still come on horseback to the health centre seen in background.*

child under twelve months is sick, his
mother may stay at home fifteen days to
take care of him without loss of salary.

## Nation-wide effort

The part played by the people constitutes the newest aspect of recent health developments. Participation in nation-wide efforts against disease is enthusiastic. The malaria campaign is a case in point; everything is sprayed and any person showing the slightest signs of fever is immediately tested for malaria. In Oriente, a massive anti-malaria campaign has been carried out. In Havana, young people join inspection and spraying squads under the direction of specialized workers to destroy mosquitos.

Local community organizations also work on anti-TB campaigns. A number of different committees round up people to have their X-rays taken by mobile units to detect TB, positive cases are followed up. The reluctance to take certain health measures is counteracted by the people serving in political organizations. "Tuber-culosis is not only an infectious disease but also a psychological problem," said one doctor, "therefore, political organizations are responsible for working with the clinics and hospitals."

The effort to improve health conditions in Cuba has become the general responsibility of the people. Nation-wide TV and radio campaigns instruct parents how to recognize symptoms and urge them to bring children for treatment to the local polyclinics. Results are already visible. In 1960, polio struck 330 people. Six years later the disease had been completely wiped out. Before 1958, as many as 10% of the children died of gastro-enteritis. The figure has been more than halved and is expected to be further lowered this year. The transmission of malaria has already been interrupted throughout the country. The Pan American Health Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have permanent teams stationed in Cuba and send men once or twice a year to check each area. Finally, rural hospitals have played a crucial role in reducing the prevalence of some diseases and in stamping out others.

WORLD
HEALTH

The Magazine of the World Health Organization

At the Emilio Barcenas health centre in the remote village of Mayari Arriba: as everywhere else, mothers and children are given special attention.

representative attacked economic imperialism in Latin America, he pointed out that many of the causes of revolution in Latin America are documented in publications produced by the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and by UNESCO.

Cuban ambassadors list both failures and successes of the United Nations, and a balance sheet could be drawn from their speeches. On the negative side are instances in which they feel the UN has failed them or sister countries and has worked to the advantage of the countries they consider to be their oppressors and exploiters.

The exclusion of East Germany and the People's Republic of China from UN membership, the occupation of Korea by forces under United Nations sponsorship, the failure of the UN to rescue pre-revolutionary Cuba from the "excesses, tortures, and crimes" of the Batista regime, the failure of the General Assembly to chastise piracy directed toward Cuban ships and planes as well as toward those of other countries, the UN action in the Congo, the unchanged status of Puerto Rico -- all are viewed as situations in which the UN bowed to the pressures exerted by its most powerful members and ignored the wishes of the poorer and less powerful.

Cubans are angered, too, by the times when the UN was made to violate its own principles (in the Congo situation, in which, as Cuba sees it, UN authority was ignored by Moise Tshombe, who initiated the secession of Katanga with Belgian support) or to ignore violations by its members (the Bay of Pigs invasion, in violation of Article 2, Paragraph 4, of the Charter, which states that UN members shall refrain from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State). They have particularly resented the fact that the UN has not dealt with the "Cuban problem" but has instead given it to the Organization of Amer-

ican States for discussion, where, a spokesman said in 1965, the U.S. "can count on resources and majorities."

The influx of new nations into the UN which occurred in the early 1960's Cuba saw as an encouraging sign. By 1963 she felt that the "imperialist" powers could still hinder developing countries but were finding it increasingly difficult, and by 1965 the Cuban spokesman said that the UN was resisting pressures to which in the past it had been "inexorably subject."

## Cuba and the Security Council

The Security Council is the UN body responsible "for the maintenance of international peace and security." (Article 24, United Nations Charter) UN members "agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council" in accordance with the Charter. (Article 25) The Security Council role, however, is often undermined by the failure of UN members to obey the Charter, as Cuban history reveals.

In April, 1961, when Cuba was being bombed by B-26's, shortly before Cuban exiles invaded the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Foreign Minister Raül Roa denounced the attack in the UN as U.S. aggression, claiming that the planes and pilots were North American. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, told by the State Department that the planes were Cuban ones, flown by Cuban deserters, repeated this information to the UN. Later the U.S. government admitted that the planes had been American ones, painted by the Central Intelligence Agency. The American image, and Ambassador Stevenson's standing, were considerably damaged because of the revelation of great power aggression and because of the breakdown of honesty displayed in the international organization.

In the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the UN was peripheral to the decision-making processes, with American and Soviet government officials deciding the final outcome. The Security Council was used as a forum by the countries concerned.

of the UN with which Cuba has cooperated. WHO has many projects in Cuba, dealing with communicable disease control (special projects for lessening malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis, and venereal disease occurrence are underway); sanitation, water supplies, eradication of the yellow fever mosquito, health and laboratory services, nutrition, industrial hygiene, training of health personnel, and medical, public health, sanitary engineering, and veterinary medicine education.

UNESCO's regional center for the Western hemisphere is located in Havana. UNESCO-Cuban relations have involved, among other things, an evaluation of the 1961 Cuban literacy campaign, which in one year transformed the island nation into a "territory free from illiteracy." The UNESCO evaluating team summarized the Cuban effort as one which "offers general ideas and examples which can inspire the teaching of reading and writing to adults and adult education. The Campaign was not a miracle, but rather a difficult conquest obtained through work, technique, and organization."

Two other UN bodies with which Cuba has worked closely are the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Such multinational sources of aid have been necessary to Cuba because, as Castro noted in the 1960 speech (and as a UN economic report documents), private investment capital goes preferably to the more industrialized countries where it finds greater security rather than to the countries where it is most needed for basic industry. Such a fact of international life makes non-private multinational sources of assistance necessary.

## Cuba and UNCTAD

UNCTAD provides a forum for negotiation among nations regarding tariffs and trade. Here, as in other areas, the more powerful nations exert much control. Raul Prebisch, former Secretary-General of UNCTAD, attributed what he called the "very limited positive results" of UNCTAD's second session to the fact that the developed countries did little to meet the needs.

mate aspirations of developing countries. Their failure to act he blamed not on "prevailing circumstances" but on the fact that seemingly "prosperity, in people as well as in nations, tends to form an attitude of detachment if not indifference to the well-being of others."

Cuban representatives seem to share Prebisch's view. One told the 1966 General Assembly that developed countries, rather than attempting to solve problems of international trade which hamper rapid economic growth, "cling tenaciously to those conditions which enable them to exploit the less developed countries."

In 1968 a Cuban spokesman reported to the General Assembly that Cuba was refused its export quota of coffee at an UNCTAD-sponsored event, the International Coffee Conference. For this act and other "arbitrary and harmful clauses" imposed upon it, Cuba was forced to withdraw from the International Coffee Agreement, doubtful of the effectiveness of UNCTAD and cynical of the monopolies working in it.

## UNDP: Technical Assistance and a Political Victory

The Cuban experience with the United Nations Development Programme has perhaps been happier. Five UNDP projects are presently underway in Cuba, and seven more are being planned. These projects include work in public health services, nutrition, the development of fisheries, civil aviation, meteorology, education, telecommunications, the development of cheese industries, marketing studies, and industrializing sugar cane derivatives.

In 1969 Cuba was elected to the governing body of UNDP. Formed in 1965, the governing council consolidates UN work in the fields of development and technical aid. Its 37 members provide direct policy control for all forms of such work done by the UN and allocates many millions of dollars in international aid funds.

2

## ESCUCHA ANALFABETO

Escucha analfabeto
yo canto también para ti
anciano de la voz como un arroyo de piedras
sedientas
yo canto también para ti
Escucha carnicero sin lágrimas y sin piel
que no sabes lo que es estar herido entre
hombro y hombro
yo canto también para ti.

Escucha náufrago viajero de los amaneceres
de coral
Escucha carcelero amarillento
Minero del fondo de la desgracia
Labriego de las lejanías sin canto ni pan
yo canto también para ti.

Sembrador que socavas y haces florecer los
desiertos de Israel
Negro que das forma a la vida y a la muerte
en la gran esmeralda de Africa
yo canto también para ti
Mujer humareda de la juventud
dulce Ilama de siempre
yo canto también para ti.

Mis palabras no se detienen
las olas siguen dando golpes en la tierra
Las estrellas resbalan con un ritmo angustioso
Mañana también estallará la primavera.

Fayad Jamis

3

## TO AN ILLITERATE

Listen to my song, unlettered people
For I also sing for you
Old man with a voice like the sound of water
running over stones
For I also write this verse for you
Listen dry-eyed butcher
Who knows not what it means to be wounded
between the shoulders
For I also sing for you.

And listen good traveler shipwrecked on some
coral reef
Listen cowardly jailer
Miner of the depths of despair
And rustic country man without song nor bread
I also sing for you.

And he who plants the desert of Israel to
make it bloom
Negro giving form to life and death as well
in great green Africa
My verses are for you
And faded woman of my youth
Sweet yearnings of all time
I also sing this song for you.

My words cannot be silenced
Waves continue beating on the shores
Falling stars repeat their dizzy tempo
And tomorrow spring bursts forth anew.

TRANSLATED BY:
R. Frank Hardy

4

## EL JUSTO TIEMPO HUMANO

¡Mira la vida al aire libre!
Los hombres remontan los caminos
recuperados
y canta el que sangraba.

Tú, soñador de dura pupila,
rompe ya esa guarida de astucias
y terrores.
Por el amor de tu pueblo, ¡despierta!
El justo tiempo humano va a nacer.

Herberto Padilla

## POR UN INSTANTE

Esa luz en la noche,
¿Será un reflector muestro?
¿Será un arma de ellos?

(Por un instante
Había olvidado
Que hay en el cielo luna,
que hay estrellas).

Roberto Fernandez Retamar

5

## TIME OF THE JUST AND THE HUMAN

Life has come out into the open!
People are on the roads again,
Rejoicing,
He who bled but yesterday,
Today is singing.

Oh, dreamer of bitter nights,
Eyes hooded with suspicion
And with terror.
Break out of your trance.
For the love of your people,
Awake!
The time of the just and the human
is at hand.

TRANSLATED BY:
Claudia Beck

## FOR AN INSTANT

That glow in the night,
Is it one of our reflectors?
Is it one of their weapons?

(For an instant
I had forgotten
That there is a moon in the sky,
that there are stars.)

TRANSLATED BY:
Angela Boyer

6

ATREVERSE

Que se levante alguno
y diga y haga
o lance la primera piedra.
Que se levante alguno entre vosotros
que se atreva a levantarse
somos los hombres coronados de muerte
precipitándose en el vacío.
Que se levante un hombre entre vosotros
un hombre contra el mundo
para el mundo,
Tan sólo un hombre mire el sol y no se
quede ciego...

Rolando Escardó

7

CHALLENGE

Let one man rise
And speak and act,
Or cast the first stone.
Let one man rise among you,
May he dare to rise.
We are men crowned by death,
Going down into the void.
Let one man rise among you,
One man against the world
And for the world.
Only a man can stare into the sun
Without going blind.

TRANSLATED BY:
Claudia Beck

8

## RESULTA QUE NOSOTROS

Resulta que nosotros

resulta que habitamos este mundo y esta isla
que recomendamos como buena

resulta que mis padres mis abuelos que todos
mis antepasados que pisaron esta tierra

resulta que llegamos hace solamente un rato
hasta este punto

y que habremos de seguir

resulta que todo el mundo nos conoce por el
nombre de esta isla

y por los discursos y las frases y los más
largos cintillos

resulta que somos responsables de los crímenes
más justos

de las más bellas mentiras

y resulta que nos ha costado mucho guardar lo
que hemos hecho

a ver si nos dejan en paz un día de éstos.

Víctor Casaus

9

## IT SO HAPPENS THAT WE

It so happens that we live in this world and
on this island that we uphold as good

It so happens that my parents and my grand-
parents that all my forefathers who walked
this soil

It so happens that we have reached this point
only a short while ago

And that we shall follow our course

It so happens that everyone knows us because
of this island's name

And because of the speeches and the phrases
and the longest headlines

It so happens that we are responsible for the
most honest crimes

For the most beautiful lies

And it so happens that it has cost us a great
deal to keep what we have made

So it's about time that one of these days
we are left in peace.

TRANSLATED BY:
Stasia Stolkowska

10

ESPOSA Y COMPAÑERA

Eres mi compañera,
con la condicional primera
de la Revolución;
te afanas, te fatigas
lo comprendo,
por los niños,
por los barrios de cartón,
lata y desperdicios,
por los enfermos y muertes
prematuras.

Estás hoy aquí,
junto a mis ojoa que te siguen;
mañana en Santiago
o Pinar del Río
o en medio de la madrugada
rectificaciones organizando,
sacando a flote, en fin,
lo hundido,
cercenando lo podrido.
Así, jardinera, así constructora,
ser del viento, sembrando y marchando...

A ti no te destruye
Playa Girón,
nuevos mercenarios ni márinos,
en ti yerra el terror;
tú piensas, tú laboras,
porque sean las cosas
como han de ser.

Alcides Iznaga

11

WIFE AND COMRADE

You are my wife and comrade;
before you, I place only the Revolution;
for it is greater than both of us.
You become anxious and worry yourself sick
caring for the children,
for the plight of yet to be redeemed slums,
for the sick and the dying.

You are here today,
near my watchful eyes;
tomorrow you'll be in Santiago or Pinar del Río.
In the small hours of the night
you'll be checking, organizing, trying to set
things aright.
In short, you'll be cutting away what's rotten;
you'll be busy gardening, building.
You belong to the wind, to the seed, to the
victory march...

Playa Giron cannot destroy you,
neither can new mercenaries nor marines;
terror is wasted on you;
your thoughts and actions are dedicated
to moulding things into their true image.

12

LAS 6 DE LA TARDE

A las 6 de la tarde,
en La Habana,
regresan los abreros
del andamio,
del hierro,
del las prisas eléctricas.

(Admiro
en sus músculos fuertes
la entereza, el orgullo de los héroes.
Ganaron
la batalla cordial de este día de agosto.)

Se abalanzan
corriendo,
se aglomeran
al pie de cada omnibus.

Se ahora
me preguntare alguno
por qué es rápido y firme el paso de estos
hombres,
le hablaría
tan sólo
de unas manos pequeñas - poderosas -
- muy cerca -
la dicha del hogar,
recién fundada.

Adolfo Menéndez Alberdi

13

IN THE AFTERNOON AT SIX

At six in the afternoon
in Havana
the workers return
from scaffoldings
from iron
from electrical haste.

(I admire
in their strong muscles
the integrity
the pride of the heroes.
They won
the friendly battle
of this day in August.)

They became an avalance
run,
they pile up
at the foot of each bus.

If now
someone were to ask me
why these men's steps are rapid and firm
I would talk
of small hands - powerful -
which beckon them - from afar -
but near,
to the joy of the nome
a joy recently founded.

TRANSLATED BY:
Sylvia Carranza

14

LA MUJER FATAL

Dedice este poema a la vida,
a sus vecinos, al paradero, al carnicero,
al bodeguesre,
a la primera, segunda y tercera personas
del Singular, en el Presente de Indicativo

¿Dónde vive ella? ¿Dónde está la mujer, dónde el marido?

Averiguo su paradero por trazamientos. No fue fácil.
Su madre le buscó esposo, le compró la felicidad
en un estanquillo como se compra una revista. Ella
es obra de la casualidad y de la vieja. Entonces
prefirió la deshonra. Ahora calla. ¡Pobre!

Caballero, ¿usted sabe lo que es comise un cable?
¿No? Preguntese lo a ella.

El marido nunca afrontó la situación. Le embargaron
los muebles de la sala y paulatinamente se fue
quedando sola,

ella y la soledad, ella y un único armarie,
ela y los ganchos de pelo, ella y una flor de papel,
ela y la puerta, ella y la araña del techo,
ela y el cortinaje florido de su pelo,
ela, deshecha, postrado el rostro en la paciencia.

Yo viví en su barrio,
conosco la historia, la rebeldía y finalmente
el divorcio.

Ella tenía toda la razón.

Balkis Cuza Maíz

15

AN ILL-FATED WOMAN

I dedicate this poem to life,
To the neighbors, to the baker,
to the butcher,
To the grocer,
To the first, second and third person
Singular of the Present Indicative.

Where does she live? Where's the woman, where's
her husband?

I learned her whereabouts through others. It
wasn't easy.

Her mother bought her a husband, bought her
happiness

Off a stand, just as one buys a magazine. She

Is the work of chance and the old lady. Then

She preferred dishonor. Now she keeps quiet
Poor girl!

Mister, do you know what it is to be bustped?

No? Ask her.

Her husband never faced the situation. They
put a writ

On the living-room furniture and slowly and
surely

She was left there alone, she and loneliness,

She and one wardrobe closet,

She and the hairpins, she and a paper flower,

She and the door, she and the chandelier,

She and the handsome drapery of her hair,

She, ruined, her meek face taking it patiently.

I lived in her neighborhood.

I know the story, the rebellion and finally

The divorce.

She was entirely in the right.

TRANSLATED BY:
Angelo Boyer

16

SIENDO MUCHOS

¿Cómo ahogaremos al necio,
al bribón,
si somos pocos?

¿Cómo al ruin ambicioso destruiremos
si somos pocos?

¿Y cómo a los
ególatras, violentos en su error
si somos pocos?

Si somos pocos
habrá combate a muerte
y dogmas, violencias, soberbias,
astucias, vilezas, nos raerán los días.

Diás, años, nos raerán,
pero pelearemos por paz y ternura.

Samuel Feijóo

17

SINCE WE ARE MANY

How can we drown the fools,
The wicker-hearted,
If we are few?

How can we do away with mean ambition,
'If we are few?

And those who worship self,
Violent in their error,
If we are few?

If we are few.
There will be struggle unto death
Dogma, violence and arrogance,
Weasely tricks and pettiness
Will fret our days.

Days, may years, may harass us,
But we will fight for peace and tenderness.

TRANSLATED BY:
Claudia Beck

18

VIAJE A LAS TRINCHERAS

I

Los milicianos de mi pueblo muertos por
el invasor
eran zapateros,
albañiles,
músicos y cortadores de caña. Sus madres
eran mis madres.

El odio
los asesino.

Sufro,
miro al horizonte donde los bárbaros
con cañones y aviones y bombas
se aprestan.

Que muera
un millón de campesinos cubanos
no les importa; no son
los que adoran al dólar. Son
como los japoneses de Hiroshima,
inferiores.

Ahora comen, cantan,
esperan.
Los generales no escuchan a las aguas.
Nunca silban a los simples pájaros.

Noviembre, 1962.

Samuel Feijóo

19

TRIP TO THE TRENCHES

I

The militiamen of my town who were killed
by the invader
Were shoemakers,
Bricklayers,
Musicians and canecutters. Their mothers
Were my mothers. Hatred
Murdered them.

I suffer,
Looking at the horizon where the barbarians
Make ready
With cannons and planes and bombs.
What does it matter to them
If a million Cuban peasants
Perish? These are not the ones
Who worship the dollar. Like the
Japanese at Hiroshima, they are
Inferior.

Now they eat, they sing,
They stand alert.

Generals have no ear for the melody of the
waters.
They never whistle at simple birds of the
field.

November, 1962

TRANSLATED BY:
Angelo Boyer

20

CUBA, QUE LINDA ES CUBA

Oye, tú que dices que tu patria no es
tan linda,
Oye, tú que dices que lo tuyo no es tan
belle,
Yo te invito a que busques por el mundo
Otro cielo tan azul como tu cielo,

Una luna tan brillante como aquella
que se filtra en la dulzura de la caña,
Un Fidel que vibra en la montaña,
un rubí, cinco franjas y una estrella.
Un Fidel que vibra en la montaña,
un rubí, cinco franjas y una estrella.

Cuba, qué linda es Cuba,
Quien la defiende la quiere mas. (se repite)

Hoy tus palmeras
en las sabanas
más que palmeras
son milicianas

Cuba, qué linda es Cuba,
Quien la defiende la quiere más. (se repite)

Azul tu cielo, verde es tu mar
y Cuba es faro de libertad

Un Fidel, que vibra en la montaña,
un rubí, cinco franjas y una estrella.

Eduardo Saborit

CANCION DE LA REVOLUCIÓN

21

CUBA, HOW BEAUTIFUL IS CUBA

Listen, you who say that your country isn't so
beautiful,
Listen, you who say that your own is not so
lovely,
I invite you to try to find in all the world
another sky as blue as your sky,

A moon as brilliant as the one
That filters through the sweetness of the
sugarcane,
A Fidel who vibrates in the mountains, ) REPEAT
A ruby, five stripes and a star.* )

Cuba, how beautiful is Cuba,
Those who defend her love her best. ) REPEAT

Today the palm trees
on your plains
Are more than palms,
they are militiamen.

Blue is your sky, Green is your sea,
And Cuba is the beacon of liberty.

A Fidel who vibrates in the mountains,
A ruby, five stripes and a star.*

TRANSLATED BY:
Lou Jones

22

## PADRASTROS

Si un niño con hambre
alguna vez nos ha mirado fijamente,
sin que le hayamos respondido.
Si un niño triste, harapiento y descalzo,
ha llamado, convulso, a nuestra puerta
Y pudiéndole dar un pedazo de pan y una
dulce mirada
le hemos dicho: perdona...

Si después nos hemos sentado en torno de
los hijos
y hemos visto alzarse le estrella del hogar,
y, sonriendo,
nos hemos sentido felices
sin que un pensamiento doloroso nos haya
conturbado...
¡Yo os digo que no somos padres de nuestros
hijos
sino sus obscuros y sórdidos padrastros!

Manuel Navarro Luna

23

## STEPPARENTS

If ever a hungry child
Has stared at us intently
And we have not responded,
If a sad, ragged, barefoot child
Has called, trembling, at our door
And instead of giving him a piece of bread
And a tender look
We have said: Excuse me...

If later we have sat with our children around
us
And smiled in contentment
At our warm, secure home
Without a painful thought breaking in...
I tell you that we are not mothers and
fathers
Of our children, but their obscure and
sordid stepparents.

TRANSLATED BY:
Angela Boyer

24

## UN EXTRAÑO HONOR

El árbol sabe, con sus raíces y sus ramas,
todo aquello que puede ser un árbol:
¿o acaso también falta
a su mitad visible otro esplendor
que es lo que está sufriendo y anhelando?
No lo sabemos. Pero él
no necesita conocerse. Basta
que su misterio sea, sin palabras
que vayan a decirle lo que es, lo que no es.
El árbol, majestuoso como un árbol,
lleno de identidad hasta las puntas,
puede medirse cara a cara con el ángel.

Y nosotros ¿con quién nos mediremos,
quién ha de compartir nuestra congoja?
Ved ese rostro, escrutad esa mirada
donde lo que brilla es un vacío,
repasad como en suños
esas líneas dolorosas en torno de los labios,
eso surco que ha de ahondarse en la mejilla,
la desolada playa de la frente,
la nariz como un túmulo funesto. ¿Que devastado
reino,
qué fiero y melancólico despojo, humsando todavía!
Sólo otro rostro podría comprenderlo.

Así nos miramos cara a cara, el alma desollada,
con el secreto júbilo insondable que nos funda,
que está hecho de vergüenza
y de un extraño honor.

Cinto Vitier

25

## STRANGELY, A SORT OF HONOR

A tree must know, by her roots and boughs
everything any tree holds within her being,
or does her visible half, perhaps,
fail to reveal that other splendor,
those deeper sufferings and yearnings?
We do not know. But she
does not need to know herself. Her mystery
suffices, without the words
which might say what she is, what she is not.
A tree, in majesty simply as a tree,
crammed with selfhood to the tips
can measure up inch for inch to angels.

And we, how shall we measure ourselves?
Who is there to share our anguish?
See this face, scrutinize this countenance
where all that shines forth is a void.
Run your hands, as though in dreams,
over the lines of sorrow near the lips,
the furrow deepening on the cheek,
the desolate waste which was the forehead,
the nose a hideous burial mound.
What kingdom here is overthrown,
what ravaged melancholy ruin, smoke still rising?
Only another face could give it sense.

So we look each other up and down, the soul exposed,
with a secret unfathomable joy uniting us,
Springing from shame
and strangely, from a sort of honor.

TRANSLATED BY:
Claudia Beck

26

EL CANTO DE LA ESTRELLA

Sobre la sangre, en charcos, del sendero,
ya sembrado de crímenes y espanto,
la estrella redentora con su canto
brilló en un cielo limpio de enero.
Despierta, límpia, pura, y por la fuerza
de Fidel y su pueblo suspendida,
ya nada habrá que su camino tuerze
ni que brillar, a toda luz, le impida.

A toda luz de honor y de decoro
y jamás rebajada y de rodillas.
La bestia oscura que a nowa millas,
desde el fango podrido de su oro
a nuestra Patria, por pequeña, ofende
y por libre maltrata y atropella,
no ha medido el tamaño de la estrella
que en su sangriento triángulo se enciende.

La garra imperialista que la acecha
desde la podre dumbre de su escoria,
verá que su medida no está hecha
sino a la exactitud de la victoria.
El gigante Goliat fue derribado
por David, cuya onda enfurecida
ahora la tiene nuestro pueblo armado
y de Playa Girón a la medida.

Desde el heroico triángulo en que riega
su luz, la estrella como nunca brilla,
y ante el imperialismo no se humilla.
No se humilla jamás ni se doblega.

Ya de la libertad en el tramonto
es más firme la lumbre que destella.
¡Si el yanqui nos invade, sabrá pronto
lo que es la quemadura de la estrella!

Manuel Navarro Luna

THE SONG OF THE STAR

27

Upon the pools of blood along the trail
Of crime and sorrow, shines the redeeming star
With its song: it shone in a clear January sky
Alert, clean, pure, held on high
By the force of Fidel and his people.
Nothing can turn its course
Or mar its total brilliance.

Total brilliance of honor and decorum.
Never dimmed nor on its knees
The dark beast at ninety miles
That from the dark mud of its vaults
Offends our small country,
Abuses it because it is free
Has not measured the star
That shines above its bloody triangle.

The imperialists claw that sprouts
From rottenness and gore
Will learn that the star is measured
To the exactness of victory.
The giant Goliath was defeated
By David, whose furious sling,
To the measure of Playa Girón
Now arms our people.

From the heroic triangle sparkles
The light of the star that was never so bright,
And which before imperialism will never be humbled
Will never be humbled nor bowed.

From the liberty in its wake
Shines the firmest of all its light
If the Yankees invade us they will soon know
How hot the star burns!

No force will defeat it
Nor impose yokes or chains
Because all its strength flows
From the virile torrent in our veins
And, even broken, in scattered shards.
That star, the light it sheds
Will always feed its redeeming flame
Upon our ashes, upon our dead.

TRANSLATED BY:
Anita Whitney Romeo

28

ESCRITO EN LA MUERTE DEL SR. KENNEDY

Las vacas apacibles han pacido
veneno

La dulces calabazas han rodado
envenendas

¿Y el arroz? El arroz también ha sido
envenenado

El veneno ha llovido largamente
sobre Vietnam del Sur

Los dientes del napalm han mordido
carne y madera

Carne de la madre
y el hijo y la madera de su techo
y su mesa

El napalm ha mordido
cuánto a Vietnam del Sur

(De los ciento sesenta y dos mil
muertos de Vietnam del Sur te
pertenecen?)

También murió mi compañero Ñico
--Ñico Egozcue de la Rosa carpintero
y doldado dejó a medias la mesa
del Círculo Social --

Mi compañero
murió sobre la carretera Covadonga-Playa Girón
(Hoy hemos comprendido con asombro que
tú también eras mortal)

Luis Marre

29

WRITTEN AT MR. KENNEDY'S DEATH

The placid cows have nibbled
Poison

The sweet squash have tumbled
Poisoned

And the rice? The rice too has been
Poisoned

A long poison rain has fallen
Over South Vietnam.

Napalm teeth have bitten
Flesh and wood

Flesh of mother

And child, wood of roof
And table,

Napalm has bitten

So, so much in South Vietnam
(Of the one hundred sixty-two thousand
dead in South Vietnam, how many do
you claim?)

My comrade Nico died too

--Nico Egozcue de la Rosa, carpenter

And soldier, left the table for the Social
Center

Half-finished
My comrade

Died on the Covadonga-Playa Giron Highway
(Today we realized with wonder
that you too were mortal).

TRANSLATED BY:
Angelo Boyer

30

EL AZORO

Lo más terrible es este azoro
De sentirse uno mismo y no explicarse
De callar lo que no se debe
Lo que perdió su medida al paso de los días
Ser yo inmutable
A pesar del esfuerzo por cambiar
De vida
De labios
De rostros y compromisos previamente fijados
Saberse en perpetuo deterioro
Y no poder hacer nada por remediarlo
Pues las Dominaciones y Potestades
Estan fuera de nuestro alcance
Y cada palabra nos aleja más de la verdad
Y nos pone en una nueva encrucijada.

Armando Alvarez Bravo

31

ANGUISH

This straitened anguish is the worst of all
To feel what one is
And be unable to explain
To suppress what should not be suppressed
That pattern time has shattered
To be the immutable self
Even though one tries to change
One's life
One's lips
The faces around one
And the pacts already made
To know one's in perpetual decline
And not to be able to help it at all
Since Powers and Dominions
Are out of our hands
And every word pushes us further from the truth
And faces us with a new dilemma,

TRANSLATED BY:
Claudia Beck

32

DE LA PIEDRA PURA, LIMPIA, DESNUDA

Keta es la crónica de la grandeza del hombre,
el testimonio augusto y sobrecogedor
de su hermoso destino sobre la tierra.

Ninguna palabra alcanza. No hay poesía
a su medida.

De piedra pura, limpia, desnuda, el poema.
Entrad aquí, en silencio.

En las tierras más altas, en el bosque serrano,
la colada y el desamparo.

Compostas con ojos de páramo estíricas,
que habían conciliándose del hambre sustraña de
cada día,

de la confermidad muestra de cada día,
de la Augustía muestra de cada día.

Entrad aquí, en silencio.

De ramas y de hojas, la escuela,
ten endable que el viento mas pequeño
la destruiría, de no estar como está
hasta con vivo acero de voluntad y amor.

Entrad aquí, en silencio.

33

OF HARD, PURE, CLEAR STONE

This is the chronicle of man's greatness,
A testimony, august and overwhelming
Of his wonderful destiny on earth.

Words cannot tell this tale. No poem
Reaches these heights.

Of hard, pure, clear stone, and poetry
Enters here silently.

On high ground, in wooded mountains,
Solitude and abandonment.

Country people with eyes like a bleak plains

Speak of daily hunger in simple words

And of our daily sickness

Of our suffering each and every day.

Enter here in silence.

A school of mere branches and leaves,
So flimsy that the slightest wind would
destroy it

If it were not built of the steel of love
and dedication.

Enter here in silence.

34

Son veinte niños campesinos de las tierras
mas altas,
escuchando a un maestro voluntario
que vino de muy lejos.

Veinte niños, pobremente vestidos,
todos descalzos.

El maestro,
en su uniforme, cosido y arrugado,
sonriendo y descalzo.

En un rincón, inútiles, sus botas.
De piedra pura, limpia, desnuda, el poema.

Unas pocas palabras, simples, en voz baja,
para explicarlo. Unas pocas palabras
y el poema del hermoso destino del hombre sobre
el mundo
ante los ojos:

"Mientras ellos no tengan sus zapatos, yo no usare
mis botas. Que me sientan igual, que me vean
semejante,
la confianza y la fe, creciendo,
sobre mis pies descalzos."

Ninguna palabra alcanze. No hay poesía a su medida.

Félix Pita Rodríguez

35

There are twenty country children from the hills
Listening to their teacher, a volunteer
Who comes from far away.

Twenty children, poorly dressed,
All barefoot.
The teacher
In his mended and wrinkled uniform
Smiling and barefoot too.

His unused boots standing in a corner
Of hard, pure, clear stone, a poem.

A few words spoken in soft tones
Explain this fact. Just a few words
Represent the poetry of man's destiny on earth
Before one's eyes:

"As long as they have no shoes, I don't wear
mine.
I feel equal, they see me as one of them.
Confidence and faith, growing stronger,
While I remain barefoot,"

No word can match this action. There is no
poetry
so noble.

TRANSLATED BY:
R. Frank Hardy

36

LA CANCION DEL HOMBRE EN LA MUERTE

Cuando pasen las revoluciones sociales sobre el mundo
e implanten su justicia y no haya más hambre
ni crimen de otras hambres, el hombre continuará exhalando
su canción que sube a la vida desde los labios
transitorios donde se ha formado. Extraño destino,
valeroso y claro. Extraño y suave.
Entonces, muchos hombres tendrán pas suficiente
para gozar de la belleza del canto en la belleza
que transita
al cambiante mundo
humano, en el arte humano. Y necessitarán cantos
que los acompañen, y gozarán el arte antiguo y nuevo
en su reto a la muerte.

Como todo hombre, el cancionero enfrenta su sombra,
le ha comido niñez, adolescencia, amigos,
padres, días, amores, sueños, entrañas. Entra a ella
mermando en su ilusión, con la fatiga que da
para que no exista violencia de morir, desesperación
por más vida ante la tumba. Entra a ella con el
tesoro inmenso de los sueños de su juventud,
gran manantial despenado en las alusiones del tiempo.
Fueron estos los días mayores;
Llevaba en sí una turbación
inmensa e indecible; jamás pudo cantarla.
Su boca sirve para encender fuegos. Las tardes lo
cansaron.

Samuel Feijóo

37

THE SONG OF MAN FACING DEATH

When social revolutions occur in the world
And establish their justice and there is no
more hunger,
Nor the crime of others hungers, man will
continue breathing forth
His song, which rises to life from the transitory
Lips where it has been formed. Strange destiny,
Valorous and clear. Strange and soft.
Then many men will have tranquility enough
To enjoy the beauty of this song in the beauty
that travels
The changing world
Of man; in the art of man. And they will
need songs
To accompany them, and they will enjoy art,
ancient and new,
In their challenge to death.
Like every man, the songmaker has a shadow
to confront.
She has gnawed at his childhood, adolescence,
friends,
Parents, days, loves, dreams, inmost fiber. He
moves towards her
With his dreams grown less, with the weariness
That subdues resistance to death, desperation
For more life before the grave. He moves toward
her with the
Immense treasury of the dreams of his youth,
Great fountain coursing down the highroads of time.
Those were the splendid days;
To them was an immense, inexpressible
Unrest; he could never sing of it. His
Tongue might have kindled fires. Evening tired him.

TRANSLATED BY:
Angelo Boyer

38

NO ES MÁS

Un poema no es más
que una conversación en la penumbra
del horno viejo, cuando ya
todos se han ido, y cruje
afuera el hondo bosque; un poema

no es más que unas palabras
que uno ha querido, y cambian
de sitio con el tiempo, y ya
no son más que una mancha, una
esperanza indecible;

un poema no es más
que la felicidad, que una conversación
en la penumbra, que todo
cuanto se ha ido, y ya
es silencio.

Elisco Diego

39

ONLY THIS

Poetry is nothing more
Than conversation in the shadows
Cast by an ancient stove
When all have gone,
And beyond the door
Murmur the impenetrable woods.

A poem is only a few words
One has loved,
And whose order time has changed,
So that now
Only a suggestion,
An inexpressible hope,
Remains.

Poetry is nothing more
Than happiness, a conversation
In the shadows
After everything else has gone
And there is only silence.

TRANSLATED BY:
Claudia Beck

The selections in this booklet are taken from _Cuban Poetry 1959-1966_ (Book Institute/Havana, 1967). As the preface to the book points out, "...this selection of poetry is (not) merely social or militant...It is simply the poetic testimonial of men of different ages and different literary backgrounds that carry out their work and are participants in one of the most intense and moving periods of (their) history."

The various contributors, who include both men and women, span several generations; their birth dates range from 1894-1944. The majority are still living and work out of the current Cuban intellectual community as either journalists, authors, radio scriptwriters, university lecturers, musicians, or photographers. Prior to the Revolution they held a variety of jobs outside the literary professions which included a gardener, textile worker, accountant, sugar mill worker, cave explorer and teacher.

## TRANSLATION OF COVER POEM

### Moonlight

What to do in prison, without drink or flowers,
on such a radiant, luminous, and serene night?
The man looks at the moon rising in all its splendor,
The moon looks at the poet, through the prison bars.

Cover Design: Prensa Latina

The Revolution
of
Cuban Women

by Barbara Rothkrug
and Shari Whitehead

LIBERATION news service

NOTE: As evidenced by the
cover for this packet, men
have had the dominant role
in Cuba's 100 years of strug-
gle. However, in working
for their goal of a society
of equality, the Cubans are
making major efforts to
change the formerly "second-
class" situation of women in
Cuba. The following is a
first-hand report by two re-
cent U.S. visitors, both
active in Women's Liberation
in the U.S.A. Eds.

AGUACATE, Cuba (LNS) -- Before coming to Cuba, many North American women wanted to see how a socialist revolution changed the situation of Cuban women. Years of frustrating struggle around such issues as free abortions for those who want them and day care for working mothers made us wonder if any society anywhere had begun to confront the special oppression of women.

Before the triumph of the revolution in 1959, the Cuban woman looked forward to a lifetime of hard labor -- cooking in kitchens that didn't have enough food, washing clothes that couldn't be replaced when worn out, and raising children who would probably never see a teacher, a doctor, or hold a decent job. Thanks to the caprices of the Roman Catholic

page two

Church and Latin Culture a woman had no
way to prevent herself from getting
pregnant and no rights her husband or
father was bound to respect. Prosti-
tution flourished since it was one of
the few ways a woman by herself could
survive in the city.

Eleven years have passed since Fidel's
guerrillas chased Batista out of Cuba
and the Revolution is still reaching
some new people. An eighteen year old
woman we met on the Isle of Youth sud-
denly found herself one year ago in
school for the first time after 17 years
of helping her mother with the house-
hold chores. In the normal course of
things she would have gone on doing
chores at home until she married when
she'd settle down doing chores somewhere
else. Instead there's a revolution in
Cuba and when she heard over the radio
about a free boarding school where she
could get an elementary education as well
as learn the operation of farm machinery
she went down to the radio station and
filled out an application. Soon she was
part of the vast young community on the
Isle of Youth, experimenting with the
abolition of money and the creation of
Cuba's first really communist region.
When we asked her how she felt about
leaving her home to drive tractors and
read and write instead, she exclaimed,
"You know I just couldn't go on like
that!"

Women's lives have been changing like
that for a decade. Most women in Cuba
are now members of the Federation of
Cuban Women,* an organization founded
in 1960 to smash the old mold into which
women were forced. "A woman who spends
all of her time taking care of her hus-
band and children is still a slave," says
the Federation's regional director in
Santa Clara. In every Cuban neighbor-
hood women get together to discuss
topics ranging from Jose Marti to day

care, and from the struggle in Vietnam
to problems of picking citrus fruits.
Larger units of the Federation organize
women's work brigades to combat on one
front or another Cuba's number one prob-
lem: underdevelopment.

From the first years of the Revolution,
many projects brought a new mobility and
independence to Cuban women. In the anti-
illiteracy campaign of 1961 thousands of
young women and men, most of them teen-
agers, left their parents' homes to live
temporarily with illiterate families and
teach them to read and write. Catholic
parents in a society where prostitution
and gambling had been major industries
feared the loss of their daughters' vir-
ginity and were unwilling to permit it.
To calm everyone down, Fidel gave a re-
assuring speech guaranteeing proper be-

*editor's note: The Federation of Cuban Women is a mass-based organization of more than 1,400,000 members, 46% of Cuban women between 15-65 years.

page four

washing, and cooking, to a socialist one
where society as a whole will take on these
responsibilities. Centers for free daily
or weekly child care, circulos infantiles,
have been established all over the country.
In these centers, children as young as two
months are fed, clothed, educated and enter-
tained. Schools, factories, and experimen-
tal communities offer free meals. Moreover,
in a few communities and in all volunteer
campamentos free laundry services are now
available. Even though there are not yet
enough of these facilities, nearly every
girl and woman we encountered was confident
that circulos would soon be available for
her children.

Many women in the Venceremos Brigade were
particularly interested in finding out to
what extent women in Cuba have the freedom
to use birth control and to obtain abortions.
One of the three doctors in a rural hospi-
tal in Oriente explained to us that birth
control (diaphragms and I.U.D.'s) as well
as all other forms of medical and dental
care is not only available but free on de-
mand. No campaign urging women to use birth
control is waged, however, because over-
population is not a problem in Cuba; on the
contrary they feel a population increase is
necessary to meet the demands of the devel-
oping economy.

Aborptions are available on demand for women
who get pregnant with an I.U.D. in place.
However in other cases it is often neces-
sary for the woman to get permission from
her husband or father, for the man is still
considered chiefly responsible for the chil-
dren. In cases where there are special
problems and permission is not possible,
permission may be waived. Many Cubans think
that abortions are hazardous to the mother's
health and others still regard abortions as
murder of an unborn child.

North American women will also be interes-
ted to know that natural childbirth (usu-
ally discouraged in the U.S.) is the norm
in Cuba. Psychological and physical train-
ing begin three months before the woman
gives birth. Anesthetics are available if
medically needed.

Despite the great progress made in incor-
porating women into Cuban society as
equals, contradictions, such as the con-
tinued existence of separate jobs for
men and women, remain. Women staff the
circulos, for example, partly because men
are needed for heavy manual work, but
also as a result of a strongly entrenched
myth about a woman's innate ability to
raise children. Cubans call it "mother
love." Another example is the fact that
women working the cane fields usually
pile rather than cut cane -- including
the physically fit female athletes who
won medals in the Central American Olym-
pics in Panama.

A champion volleyball player told us that
she had cut cane for a week but was not

as strong as the men and so decided to
pile. A courageous exception are the three
hundred female macheteras of the Tania L.
Guerrillera Brigade. These housewives,
students and urban workers who wanted to
work in the zafra (harvest) ignored the
men who told them that they were too weak
to cut. They bought mochas, a kind of
machete, and cut anyway. When they visi-
ted us on International Women's Day they
had already sent a million arrobas of
cane to the mill.

page five

Even when women are trained for the same jobs as men, old prejudices can prevent them doing exactly the same tasks. We visited a military cane technology institute where the women did not stand

guard duty alone. When we asked why, a male guard replied, "A woman might get scared out here alone."

In matters of sex and morality the double

standard of a traditionally Latin Catholic machismo society persists. Like men everywhere, Cuban men maintain the social initiative. Many Cuban men told us, "Of course, neither a man nor a woman should be unfaithful in a marriage, but if a man runs around it is understandable; if a woman does it, it is totally unacceptable." Sex before marriage is the norm for men although discretion is necessary. The issue is more complicated for women, and attitudes are changing among the young students.

Mirta, an English student in Havana, said that she doesn't expect to have intercourse before she is married, but that some sexual contact before marriage is generally carried on. Sometimes students that plan to marry eventually have "intimate relations."

Sexual activity is forbidden in some work camps and institutes but can be carried on in nearby towns. In vanguard work brigades such as the Followers of Che and Camilo, even holding hands inside the camp is not allowed because the work and study schedule is so heavy. At certain times of the year people get only three hours of sleep a night.

Although proud of their new role in production, Cuban women feel it important not to lose their femininity. Women who picked citrus fruits in grey work clothes with rollers in their hair said, "At night and on weekends we get dressed up." However, many North American women felt that the beauty standards for hairdo's and makeup accepted by Cuban women as their own resemble those of Madison Avenue. Black women invariably straighten their hair. It should be pointed out that many African women do too and Cubans claim this is a trait they brought with them from Africa. The lean, fair-skinned, and straight-haired models in the pages of Mujeres, published by the Federation of Cuban Women, sport Vogue fashions.

Beauty, however, is not the capitalist industry it once was, since everyone can afford the hairdresser nowadays. In volunteer brigades the beautician, like clothes,

# Fresh Air Blows Through Havana's San Carlos

The Cuban Church Does Not Want to Be a Ghetto;
It Looks Ahead with Confidence While It Does Its Part
To Restore the Confidence Lost
And to Collaborate in the Construction of the New Cuba.

## Q. Do you feel repudiated, alienated by the Cuban Revolution?

"No, nor do I keep myself apart from it. I think my presence can contribute something to that process, and in following my priestly career I want to share all the risks and hopes of my people. And with no favors asked." So spoke Jose' Pérez Riera, 22 years old, a third-year theology student at San Carlos Seminary in Havana. He once had a job working on the transmitters of a radio station. His father is a shoemaker, his brother a mechanic. Now he shares a room on the third floor with two other seminarians.

The room is about twenty feet square, not counting in the lavatory. The space is well-used, though: beds, chairs and desks cannot undo the initial impression of adequate room. On the walls hang a mahogany crucifix, a Madonna by Rafael, and a green print of a Cuban landscape. Next to the bathroom hangs a freshly ironed shirt and a yellow towel. On the desks notebooks, pens, ashtrays, photos, flowers and books are scattered. The beds are neatly made up, and on one of them is a guitar. On high bookshelves at one end of the room you can see the best of Zola, Chekov, Stevenson, Melville, Kafka, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Bebel, Capote --- whatever is published in Cuba --- together with political works, lives of saints, theological treatises. Opposite the door, a French window opens out on a balcony, from which you clearly see the Morro Castle; you can even pick out the names of ships coming and going in the harbor; and at a distance there is that shimmering dark blue tint that the Caribbean takes on outside Havana. The room is airy and full of a happy serenity.

The furniture and everything else exude confidence, giving the impression it has all been there a long while.

That impression, though, is quite erroneous.

## Q. Under what circumstances did the seminarians leave the country in 1961?

"The climate was very different then," Father Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, rector of San Carlos, told me. "Everything came to a head when many well-off individuals who were feeling the pinch of the revolution tried to use the Church as the standard-bearer for their anti-communism. I wasn't in Cuba at the time, but I have no doubt that many priests actively supported

2

the counter-revolutionary movements that arose, especially after the summer of 1960, and that culminated in the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. I don't know how much, but I am certain that counter-revolutionary meetings were held on Church property, and that some priests urged Catholics to take part in counter-revolutionary activities and to go into exile."

Padre Carlos is an easy man to meet. Like many Cubans, he speaks a simple Spanish, rapidly and with gestures. Despite his baldness, you can tell he is young. He looks athletic: tall, quick, lithe, nervous --- and he chews his nails. He doesn't wear a cassock. In fact, if he were in white, you would take him for a fencer poised to leap on his opponent.

"When the Bay of Pigs took place," he went on, lighting a cigarette, "many of the leaders of the invasion were Catholics, and a number of priests came with them. Everything happened very fast at that time. Fidel had admitted that our revolution was a Marxist one, and I imagine that, generally speaking, those who solidly backed the revolution looked on Catholics as their sworn enemies. For their part, Catholics felt the same: it was a Communist revolution, hence intrinsically bad. You had to fight it or flee. Only the most perceptive and tranquil minority

could imagine themselves joining it. In the summer of 1961, just after the nationalization of education, most of the religious who had been teaching in Catholic schools left Cuba. Many other priests also got out --- some because they had been involved in counter-revolutionary activity, others out of fear; some were expelled, others left voluntarily. It was in that sort of atmosphere that the decision was made to send the seminarians abroad. But a year later, in 1962, seminary courses were again being held in Cuba."

**Q. How many seminarians are there now?**

"A total of 63. Two are doing pre-university studies, 9 are in the humanities, 11 are doing philosophy and social sciences, 29 are in theology, and 12 are doing their compulsory military service."

**Q. How do those figures compare with those of pre-revolutionary days?**

"The total used to vary between 80 and 100, but the apparent difference should not mislead you. A number of the seminarians used to be pre-university students, of whom relatively few persevered. The comparison ought to be made between theology students then and now. In 1958, when I started my studies, we were 27. Today they are 29 --- and if we add in the four others who are doing their compulsory military service, we get a considerably greater total now than in 1958. The number of professors is about the same."

**Q. Financially, does the seminary get along fairly well?**

"Yes, thanks to the contributions of the faithful."

Father Carlos then brought me up in an elevator to hear the students practicing music. A group of them, dressed in sports clothes, were sitting on folding chairs arranged in a horseshoe, tuning up five or six guitars. Others, with maracas and claves, stood behind. In the center there was a tumbadora, a percussion instrument that originated in Africa. The first song they sang, entitled "Santo," with Spanish words set to a rumba and guaguancó

3

rhythm, was the best. One tended to forget the words --- and just move one's feet to the beat of the instruments. It was the new liturgical music for Cuban Catholics --- one of the many changes that Vatican Council II introduced into Church practices.

Still singing, the seminarians moved to a private room, where they snapped some candid photographs. Someone poured out a round of coffee, and then they enthusiastically launched into a sequence of traditional melodies mixed with the latest hits. This was the new wave of seminarians.

### Q. What substantial changes did the Vatican Council bring to seminary life?

"Up to 1965 we followed the norms set by Trent. As for the modifications brought in by Vatican II, I would say that they aimed at achieving greater human and Christian maturity among priestly candidates and allowing them closer contacts with the am-bience in which they will some day exercise their ministry. A good example was the fundamental decision not to offer pre-university courses of our own; if some exceptional candidate is accepted who has not

already finished that stage, he now goes to an official school to finish it. Other good examples are the incorporation of seminarians more intimately into parish apostolic works, a greater participation in governing the seminary, and openness to the surrounding cultural world."

### Q. You mention "openness to the surrounding cultural world." Besides such changes as the new words and music in the liturgy, would you extend that "openness" to include politics?

"Yes. After the expulsion of September 1961, the Church's situation became progressively better. The Church came into a new era, one of reflection and analysis of the *de facto* situation in which it was called on to carry out its evangelizing within a Marxist revolutionary context --- something totally new for the Church in Latin America. After 1962, a couple of dozen new priests, Cuban and foreign, arrived. Even earlier, Mons. Zacchi, the current Vatican representative in Cuba, and Mons. Odi had come; through their objective decisions both of them furthered the trend toward reflection and analysis. Then, between 1962 and 1965, Vatican II was held in Rome. The Church came out of it with a clearer understanding of the problems it faced as it preached the gospel in varying socio-economic and political contexts. The encyclicals *Pacem in Terris* and *Populorum Progressio*, the *Psal* Commission for Justice and Peace, Pope Paul's visits to the UN, to the International Labor Office, and to Africa, the renewed contacts between the Holy See and the Socialist governments of Europe, and the growth of CELAM (council of Latin American bishops) --- all were evidence of the evolution taking place in the Church. Those developments influenced the Cuban Church, so that today it looks on our revolutionary process with a new attitude. We are not unaware, of course, of the divergence between the Marxist and Christian concepts of man and his world, but neither are we unaware of the points of contact and the enormous possibilities for collaboration, in respect and solidarity, in the construction of the new Cuba. Conversely, we also get the impression that Cuban Marxism seems to regard the Church today in a different light than in 1961."

4

### Q. Have you any comment on the recent pastoral letters of the Cuban bishops?

"Both letters --- one last April and the other in November --- were read in every Catholic church in the country. The first one invited Catholics to participate loyally in the effort to develop the country and condemned the economic blockade as an obstacle to that development. The second one urged Catholics, among other things, to have a, sincerely respectful attitude toward other peoples' decisions for or against atheism, and to accept serenely the valid elements in their criticisms of religion that can help us to purify our faith, eliminate wrong ingredients in our religious life, and adopt a positive view of the concrete conditions we live in. I mean, both letters urged the Church not to be a ghetto, much less a faction. On the contrary, the Church looks forward hopefully as it sets out now to win back the confidence it has lost."

### Q. In keeping with the "openness," can you see any impact of the revolution on the seminarians' present training?

"We are at the beginning of a new stage today, so that it is difficult to give a precise answer yet. But I would say, off-hand, that the fact that they are being educated in a revolutionary world provides them with a profound social and economic experience. For example, there was a seminarian who was fulfilling his military ser-

vice: in the recent pop drama festival sponsored by the Revolutionary Armed Forces he took a role in a play about Che Guevara. Some seminarians also participate voluntarily in farm work in the country-side surrounding Havana. We might mention, too, that all seminarians do their pre-university studies in state schools and spend three years of compulsory military service, like everyone else."

....As Father de Céspedes talked, I thought to myself that here is a man devoted to his life's calling. The de Céspedes family came to Cuba early in the 16th century, and one of its members, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, is known as the Father of His Country. Among the forebears of Father Carlos are a number of leaders in the independence struggles, presidents of the Republic, mayors, ministers, and famous writers, painters and musicians. In passing, he told me that he has a degree from the Gregorian University in Rome, and has also studied in France, Belgium, Germany and Austria. He is only 33 years old.

Together we sat down for the mid-day meal of beans, fried eggs, rice, bread and oranges. On the table I was intrigued to see one of those advertising giveaways, an ashtray for Johnny Walker whiskey, with the slogan: "Born in 1820 and still going strong." I thought to myself that this seminary existed long before that date. I thought too of Pope John's words about his wish to convene the Vatican Council: "Let's open the windows so that the fresh air can come in."

There is no doubt that fresh air is blowing through San Carlos seminary today.

********

Reprinted from Cuba Internacional (Havana), February 1970.

Interview text by Antonio Benitez Rojo.

Photos by Nicolas Delgado.

Translation courtesy of LADOC-U.S. Catholic Conference.

CHRISTIAN PARTICIPATION IN THE CUBAN REVOLUTION

"The only way to make the faith effective is for Christians-- Catholics and Protestants-- to participate actively in the struggle to build a more just society, even though this means an armed confrontation." In those terms Sergio Arce Martinez, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of Cuba, defined the role of the religious communities in the Third World, and their specific relations with the revolutionary process which is developing in Cuba.

Dr. Arce, who is also Rector of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Matanzas province, declared that in general "relations of coexistence have been maintained" between Protestant churches and the Revolutionary Government. He explained that some administrative problems had arisen, especially in relation to properties annexed to some churches, but that these had been satisfactorily resolved, and that "channels exist to overcome any difficulty with the Revolutionary Government."

"The triumph of the Rebellion," Rev. Arce explained, "was received with enthusiasm by the Evangelicals, and there were Protestants who were active revolutionaries in the struggle against Batista's dictatorship. Many of them maintain their belief within the revolutionary process."

**"Haven't you had personal conflicts?"**

"... I believe that there is no fundamental conflict when, as Camilo Torres said, Revolution is the way offered us to make our love for our fellow man effective. The conflict would be the meta-physical, philosophical problem. Whether or not God exists is a problem without great consequences, without great importance for me, when we see action. What is important is action."

**_Then participation in the Revolution isn't limited?_**

"There's no reason for it to be limited. The action of the Revolution is consequent with our Christian faith. I don't see any conflict between Christian faith and revolutionary action, on the contrary."

**_Including the shooting of Batista assassins and counterrevolutionaries?_**

"Even that, I believe that society has every right to do. And even if we analyze from a theo-logical point of view the power of society to cleanse itself, I don't see any conflict between one thing and the other."

**_Do you consider the Revolution's atheist proselytism legitimate?_**

"Contemporary atheism-- I'm not even thinking specifically of Marxist theism-- is a phenomenon which occurs in today's cultural world. Atheism characterizes contemporary man. It is a consequence of the practical theism of the Church. Christianity has not shown by deeds that faith which it has professed to have. So it is completely normal that today's man is an atheist."

**_And do you find it normal that an ever-increasing number of Christians are prepared to go into action to make those principles effective?_**

"Absolutely. This is the only way to make the faith really effective, even though it means an armed confrontation. I firmly believe this."

Rev. Arce pointed out the Cuban Revolution's action in facilitating the acquisition of materials needed by Protestants and Catholics. He mentioned concretely the facilities for importing five thousand Bibles for free distribution to believers, as well as complete freedom of worship, and permission for representatives of Protestant churches of the American continent and the whole world to visit Cuba.

**_Have you had to make a special effort to understand the Revolution in light of the Bible?_**

"We interpret revolutionary acts according to the Bible."

Does this mean making concessions?

"This doesn't represent any concessions on our part."

That means that the Bible agrees completely with the development of the Cuban Revolution?

"I believe so. (It agrees) with the Revolution, and within that with the Cuban Revolution as the vanguard within the Revolution."

How do Protestants participate in the tasks of the Revolution?

"There are different attitudes. Our Church-- and Protestant churches in general-- emphasize the participation of their followers in production and defense...."

What role do you propose to fulfill within the Revolution?

"The Church, Christianity, cannot be removed from the social conflict in which it lives. I understand the Church's mission as a historical one. In Cuba its mission is to make the Revolution triumph as such, to make effective (its) humanitarian intentions ..."

What is your opinion of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the Third World?

"Christianity, as Jose Marti said, has died at the hands of Catholicism. In my opinion, he referred to fossilization in dogma and structure. I believe that Christianity must struggle against that structure and dogmatic fossilization, because it is not only anti-revolutionary but anti-Christian."

Is the sermon the only weapon of Christians?

"Well, it is one of the weapons. But I believe that there is no conflict with the Christian faith if at a particular moment it is necessary to take up arms, to defend with those arms the liberation of man and the achievements of the Revolution."

It is a fact that the religiousness of the Cuban people is declining; according to you would that indicate a slackening in morals?

"If we understand morals as a series of rules which over the centuries have become the traditional way of judging a person's morality. I would say that is not what I conceive as morals, nor what the Church must conceive as such. Morals-- in my opinion-- are the product of a specific historical circumstance. Society itself is what defines morals. This means, for me, that today's morals, in revolutionary Cuba, is being revolutionary. Everything which is against being revolutionary is immoral. I would say that in revolutionary Cuba there is a decline in bourgeois moral concepts. They are in crisis and that is positive.... New moral values are being created with the Revolution. The old values served to sustain a society of exploitation."

But these also serve to sustain a society?

"But not a society of exploitation. Everything which helps to sustain a society of mutual companionship, love for your fellow man, brotherhood, humanization of man, is, then, revolutionary morals."

With your experience as a minister in Revolutionary Cuba, what message would you send to Protestants of the (South American) continent?

"I would tell them that Christianity's mission is to struggle against every kind of oppression, against all the forces which dehumanize man, against the structures which lead to the exploitation of man by man. That the fundamental mission of Christianity today, above all in Latin America and the Third World, is to struggle for the socio-economic and political liberation of the Latin American human being. It is necessary for people to become free from oppression so that then they may philosophize. That means, as Camilo Torres said: 'It is not the time to discuss whether the soul is immortal or not; there is something concrete which we must all understand: that hunger is mortal.' And that we all know, and so we must all fight against hunger."

(Excerpted from an interview by Chilean journalist Victor Vaccaro. Prensa Latina feature, 12/31/69)

# THE CUBAN LESSON

by Rafael Cepeda

As Seen From Cuba

CUBA is an extraordinary lesson in history for the contemporary world and specifically for Latin America. A tiny island in the Caribbean Sea, with its scarcely 45,000 square miles (smaller than the state of Pennsylvania) and its eight million inhabitants (fewer than the single city of New York), it has created expectancy and concern, become a potential enemy, symbolized hope and destroyed established myths in the last decade. The events of January 1, 1959, began a revolution that, with its achievements and its errors, has opened new perspectives in the approach to the most complicated and urgent contemporary problems.

By the end of 1958, Cuba had reached the saturation point in graft in high places, dirty politics and abject indifference to the most elemental needs of the great masses of the population. There were over 600,000 unemployed; almost 40 per cent of the adult population was illiterate. Gambling and prostitution were legalized, begging accepted as unavoidable and the deaths of peasant children considered inevitable. The best land, the most profitable companies, the most productive mines and the most prosperous businesses were all in foreign hands. Governing authorities bowed before the Ambassador of the United States of America, the Alpha and Omega of politics and economics in a would-be republic. The army, the prop of those in power, was nothing more than a caste of idle men, almost always corrupt and corrupting. The Christian churches, molded according to imported patterns, were content to practice occasional charity without determining the causes of or proposing effective solutions to the social ills.

The official tourist publicity and propaganda did not reveal the conditions. Wealthy visitors saw great gambling casinos, exclusive beaches and aphrodisiac delicacies, but the hidden side of the national coin was a dirty, sad story of misery and desperation. The Cuban people, divided classically into a minority that has everything, a majority that has nothing and an intermediate group of those who are eager to climb the social ladder, all knew intuitively that the great injustices could only be solved in a violent manner. Earlier desperate and sporadic attempts had been made, but

they had always ended in frustration and temporary defeat. At the beginning of 1959, it was too late to seek a solution through elections or other conventional means. Only a complete overthrow was capable of changing the plight of the Cuban people.

Revolution—Not Coups d'Etat

A nation is born as a consequence of a genuine revolutionary period, and a revolution is channeled

along hundreds of small tributaries, formed separately but flowing into one river of powerful, uncontrollable water, which washes away everything in its path.

General Fulgencio Batista governed Cuba off and on between 1934 and 1958, when he reached a climax of excesses, despotism and tyranny. Backed by bayonets, by ecclesiastical blessing (Cardinal Arteaga was a steady visitor at the

presidential palace), and by United States support (Ambassador Morgan was his main partner in obscure deals), Batista was the worst of the worst in a land where the badmen flourished. During the Batista era a new generation sprang up, "The generation of the centennial." (Fidel Castro's 26th of July movement was named for the attack on the Moncada fortress in 1953, the year of the centennial of José Martí, the great Cuban hero in the fight against Spain.) This generation of rebels was composed principally of young unknown intellectuals and simple workers, who defied Batista and made him and his formidable repressive apparatus totter and fall under the guerrilla drive and a genuine revolutionary morality.

The world believed, and specifically the U.S. State Department, that it was just one more in the traditional series of classical Latin American "coups d'etat." But it is necessary to recognize a revolution when it breaks into the historical scene. The Cuban revolution was a genuine revolution, a daring, radical, convulsive effort to eliminate the errors of the past and produce justice among forgotten and disinherited men. It freely put arms in the hands of all the people and trusted that they would use them well. It was capable of withstanding economic, diplomatic and military aggression on the part of the leaders of the most powerful country on earth, only 90 miles from its shores. It planned the future without looking back.

## Nationhood and Development

Under the spell of their revolution, the Cuban islanders suddenly became passionate participants, highly integrated and achieving a collective personality. What until then was blurred and distant now took on a sudden and clear focus: the image of destiny, a specific sign of a nation that has become a nation. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the Cubans knew what they wanted and where they were going, Defensively, they became dangerously aggressive. Cuba now has to be reckoned with in the processes of change of the world today; her historic thrust will leave permanent marks.

As the tenth year of the revolution is ended, it is possible to evaluate what has been done to bring the country out of its underdeveloped state: the beginning of 1969 found a more just distribution of tillable land with a clear sense of agrarian cooperative farming: equality of opportunity and ample facilities to offer an education to all children of the country with required learning through the tenth grade; encouragement of literate farmers and city workers to continue their education until they

reached at least the sixth grade level; schools of crafts, music and dramatic arts, with a marked emphasis on Cuban culture; electricity, theaters and movies reaching the most remote regions; scientific and highly productive development of agriculture and the cattle industry; a new and well-organized metallurgical industry; intensive technological cultivation of sugar cane, coffee and tobacco and a wise utilization of their by-products; reforestation of millions of lumber and fruit trees; elimination of the luxurious gambling casinos, the small clandestine gambling places in the slums and the national lottery; elimination of prostitution and rehabilitation of exploited women; organized protection of children and absolute suppression of begging; special attention to sports activities with free admission to all spectacles; massive practice of preventive medicine and the absolute elimination of sicknesses such as poliomyelitis and yellow fever; construction of hospitals in rural zones with free services for all; construction of dams for irrigation and thermoelectric stations; total elimination of unemployment with work opportunities for all; old age insurance for each and every citizen of

the country; free hospital and medical attention in every city and free funeral and burial services.

All the population of the country has not joined in this creative effort; there has been a constant flow of exiles out of the country, reaching a total of 250,000 persons, including the guilty as well as humble workers, employees and peasants. (Cuba is the only Socialist country that provides legal means to leave the national territory for good.) This exodus has riddled the nation of its worst human elements, but it has also reduced the number of technical specialists. Graduates of universities and technical schools are only now beginning to fill the void effectively. There is also a sector of the resident population that remains indifferent or negative toward the revolutionary thesis.

Nevertheless, the majority of the population now knows what it wants and what its destiny is. The egotistic individualism is giving way to a collective desire of final triumph. It is now typical to see hundreds of men, women and children going out to the country (generally for agricultural tasks) with a gay spirit and in a sporting mood, desirous of reaching set goals. The government and the majority of the people have joined together in a sacrificial, optimistic, hopeful venture toward high, but not unreachable, objectives.

## The Wolves at the Door

When Fidel Castro triumphantly entered Havana on January 8, 1959, he pointed out in his first speech: "Let's not fool ourselves by thinking that from here on, all will be easy." Unfailingly in every successful guerrilla instruction, unrestrained euphoria abounds in the naiveté of believing that the revolution triumphed. What has triumphed is the insurrectional phase, the rebellion against the status quo. At that point, the revolution begins its most difficult task: the building of a new society; the final triumph of the revolution is still far off. When internal and external interests join together and enter into a conspiracy in a counter-revolutionary front, the worst moment for the revolution has come. In Cuba, this began to happen only a few months after the triumph on January 1, 1959. The wolf, although disguised as Little Red Riding Hood, soon made visible its ears and its intentions were discovered. More than just one wolf, it was a pack of wolves. The most powerful and best known were the North American industrial companies with economic interests in Cuba.

Other less fierce ones were the defeated army (now lying low), the native industrialists and businessmen, the professional politicians and the

Cuban Church: the Church should desire change, support the uprooting of the established situation, cooperate with the establishment of justice and visualize here and now its mission in a transformed society. If the new society is of Marxist orientation, as in Cuba, it is most probable that the Church will have to go through a long period of misunderstanding and hostility. Only the Church itself can change this perspective. In a genuine revolution, the future of the Church depends on a wise and responsible attitude on the part of the believers—not necessarily a tacit acceptance of all the revolution says and does, but an honest mental openness, a desire to understand, a serious interest in the whole man of our times, a resolution to serve without proselytizing, and an unsanctimonious solidarity with all people who undertake the task of becoming a nation.

What has not been learned in Cuba is that the mission of the Church is also indissolubly a part of history, just as the mission of Jesus Christ is destined to the service of man and his circumstances and surroundings. It is impossible for the Church

to carry out its mission in the name of Jesus Christ unless it recognizes the historical fact of this time and the man of this epoch. The historical fact in Cuba is revolution. It is not possible for anyone to carry out any task in Cuba today with his back turned on the revolution, but there are Christians who want to live as if nothing had happened because the revolution confronts them and makes them uncomfortable. The elementary thing is to recognize the revolution as a historical fact, accomplished and irreversible. Revolutionary fact is a judgment of God on the past, and at the same time, a new opportunity that God gives to love and serve as Jesus Christ did. Only in this way is it possible to speak of a "mission of the church of Jesus Christ in Cuba." There are those who speak of the mission of the church as something that occurred exclusively during the period of the North American missionaries, but God continues to send his church in mission: not to the world of personal choosing but to that world where God has placed each individual at a particular place at a particular time. The process of Christian mission

never stops, not even in the face of a Socialist revolution. Some find their mission in an ac cumulative, static, comfortable world. Others serve in the fragmented, unleashed, convulsive, revolutionary world. That is the only difference.

Dr. Cepeda, internationally known ecumenical leader of Cuba, noted author and theologian, now serves as President of the Council of Churches of Cuba.

This article comes from a collection of essays on Latin America, *We Claim Our Future* (Jorge Lara-Braud, ed.) recently published by Friendship Press.

Text reprinted from TEMPO, January 15, 1970.

Photos, pp. 3 & 4: Prensa Latina.

Diabetic children
in
Special Camp

Mesaistical organizations. Behind some of these
titutions could be seen the sinister hands of the
A (Central Intelligence Agency). The result was
stifling economic blockade, diplomatic isolation,
interference in commercial trade deals with any
country in the world, the infiltration of mercen-
aries to carry out sabotage and, as a desperate
climax, the surprise invasion attack in April, 1961.
The military aggression at the Bay of Pigs has been
called, and rightly so, the "first defeat of imperi-
alism in America." Never has a powerful country
made such a costly mistake, completely underesti-
mating the moral forces of a people in the midst
of a revolution and falling into complete discredit.

All the attempts to destroy the revolution have
been fruitless, but they have slowed down its
progress. Another hindering factor has been the
tactical errors of the revolution as a whole and the
costly mistakes of the revolutionaries as individ-
uals. It is true that not only Fidel Castro but other
leaders of the revolution have publicly recognized
their inexperience in the management of the gov-
ernment and even their errors in certain decisions.
It is also true that a mistake has sometimes been
repeated over and over until it becomes a peculiar
ill with no signs of rectification. Even more true is
the fact that when officials act irrèspohsibly and
the error is discovered, it is necessary to undo
what has been done and to begin again.

The tremendous commotion that a radical
revolutionary movement produces is felt also in the
Church. José Marti declared that "sometimes it is
necessary to shake the world, so that all that is rot-
ten falls to the ground." All that was fragile has
been shattered into a thousand pieces. The golden
calves have been melted. The unsteady scaffold-
ings have fallen to the ground. Sanctimoniousness,
prudery, inconsequential verbiage, curtains of
piety have disappeared or disintegrated. The rev-
olution lays bare the bones and reveals the insipid
presentation of the Gospel, the sluggardly sacri-
ficial service, the apathy, the indolence, the com-
fort loving, the egotism.

Looking at it another way, the Church pre-
pared us to understand the revolutionary process
better. Some churches taught of the urgent need to

eradicate gambling, houses of prostitution, ad-
ministrative dishonesty, insanitary shacks, urban
overcrowding, infant parasitism, begging, the lati-
fundia (large land estates), the peasant misery, the
wasteful cutting down of our best forests. Now
in revolution, the impression exists that these
evils are being obliterated.

Cuban Protestant churches are children of
eighteenth-century pietism with its tremendous
emphasis on the "salvation of the soul," and the
first Christian missionaries were themselves the
products of an accentuated pietist movement. The
primary emphasis was always on the person with
very little on the collective effort and structures of
society. The church saw the ills of the world, but
did not see itself with a transforming social re-
sponsibility.

Therefore, the revolution surprised the church
and caught it completely unprepared to find itself
and its road of love and service in the midst of a
changing society. It can now be understood why

the highest number of exiles corresponds to Chris-
tian believers, both Catholic and Protestant. They
came to identify the Church as the sanctuary of an
easy and comfortable life, a place of refuge. In ad-
dition, the Cuban church administratively was a
carbon copy of the Mother Church in the United
States. For some, faithfulness to Jesus Christ and
to his church came to be identified with a fidelity
to the policy followed by the United States Gov-
ernment in regard to Cuba.

While Christians were singing hymns and
praying long prayers, the revolutionaries were
studying and fighting. (In the interest of fairness,
there are innumerable examples of Christians who
manifested a correct attitude of social concern and
revolutionary action.) During the years of rebel-
lion, the revolutionaries were aware that one day
they would obtain power, but the Church contin-
ued its life and its customs as if the status quo
were unchangeable. This is one lesson that the
Latin American churches should learn from the

2. Become acquainted with and distribute in your community *current materials on Cuba*. Several organization have available useful resource materials on U.S./Cuba (and U.S./Latin America) relations:

NACLA - North American Congress on Latin America, P.O. Box 57, New York, N.Y. 10025. Publishes a monthly newsletter of political and economic conditions in Latin America. Subscriptions $5.00 per year.

NINOLA - National Information Network on Latin America, Box 548, Cathedral Station, New York, N.Y. 10025. Makes available information on happenings within the U.S. in relation to U.S./Latin America relations. Subscriptions $3.00 per year.

3. Take advantage of special days to organize a program or teach-in on Cuba:

**July 26th** - date of the abortive attack led by Fidel in 1953 on the Moncada Fortress in Santiago de Cuba.

**January 1st** - date of the coming into power in 1959 of the revolutionary forces.

**April 17th** - date of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion by mercenaries supported by the CIA.

4. Organize actions of solidarity with the Cuban people. The economic embargo is one of the major pressures exercised by the U.S. government on the Cuban people. This embargo prohibits importation by the Cuban government of any U.S. manufacture, or any material containing a U.S. patent. Efforts to break the embargo include:

**CUBAN HEALTH EXCHANGE** - seeks to promote an understanding of the Cuban health care system and to break the blockade on medical information and supplies imposed by the U.S. government. Activities include: collecting books and journal subscriptions to be sent to Cuba; providing speakers on medical care in Cuba; reprinting and circulating articles about Cuban health care; encouraging interested medical groups or scientific meetings to invite Cuban colleagues to speak through lectureships, fellowships. Contact: Cuban Health Exchange, c/o Committee of Returned Volunteers, P.O. Box 380, Cooper Station, New York, N.Y. 10003.

**NEW UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE** - sponsoring a campaign to send U.S. scientific books to Cuba. For further information and a list of books needed in various fields, write to: Ruth Misheloff, 32 West 71st Street, New York, N.Y. 10023.

## VISIT CUBA

It is possible to arrange to visit Cuba. Such a trip can give you a chance to see first-hand the achievements and difficulties of the Revolution. Although the State Department asks that you clear travel plans with them, according to a Supreme Court ruling, this is not legally necessary. (Travel without State Department "permission" may, however, subsequently subject you to FBI harassment.) You might go on a "Brigade" to help with the harvest (for further information, write Venceremos Brigade, P.O. Box 245, Cathedral Station, New York, N.Y. 10025.); or perhaps you could arrange a group visit with others from your community. For information about obtaining a Cuban visa, write to the Consulate of Czechoslovakia, Washington, D.C.

2

Printings

The best way to understand contemporary Cuba is to read the accounts of those central
in bringing the revolutionary forces to power. Therefore, suggested first priority
is reading materials from Cuban sources, particularly Castro and Guevara. Other ma-
terials are supplementary to these accounts.

Castro, Fidel.

Fidel Castro Speaks, edited by Martin Kenner and James Petras (New York: Grove Press, 1969). A selection of 16 of Fidel's major speeches during the period from 1959 to 1968.

Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel, Lee Lockwood (New York: Macmillan, 1967). The bulk of this text is a long interview with Fidel; a good vicarious trip for someone who has not been to revolutionary Cuba. Also includes substantial section of photographs.

Guevara, Ernesto "Che".

Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (New York: Grove Press, 1968). Composed of articles taken from Che's field notes kept in the Sierra Maestra during 1957 and 1958. Critical for understanding the period and Che.

Diary of Che Guevara (New York: Bantam, 1968). Covers the period from November 1966 until his death in October 1967 when he was fighting with the guerrillas in Bolivia.

Che: Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara, edited by R. E. Bonachea and N. P. Valdes (Boston: M.I.T. Press, 1969). Rather expensive hardback, but the most recent and comprehensive version of his writings.

Venceremos: The Speeches and Writings of Ernesto Che Guevara, edited by John Gerassi (New York: Macmillan, 1968). Comprehensive 450 page paperback selection. Only Guerrilla Warfare (1961) and Bolivian Diary (1968) are omitted.

CUBAN FICTION

Cohen, J. M. ed., Writers in the New Cuba (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967). An anthology of revolutionary stories, poems, and a play.

Desnoes, Edmundo, Inconsolable Memories (New York: New American Library, 1967). The original Spanish title, Memorias des Subdesarrollo or Memories of Underdevelopment, is much more descriptive of the book's theme. A sensitive brief characterization of the difficulties encountered by a middle class intellectual sympathetic to the Revolution but finding it hard to live out day by day.

OTHER CUBAN PUBLICATIONS

Granma, Cuba's daily newspaper (available in weekly English edition) can be obtained from the New Yorker Book Shop, Inc., 250 W. 89th St., New York City 10024, and from Taylor's House of Paperback Books, 2915 Broadway, New York City 10025. Additional materials, particularly for use by university and other libraries, may

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be requested --- with permission of the Cuban government --- from Senor Nestor García, Departamento de Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad de Habana, Habana, Cuba. These materials include *Pensamiento Crítico* (periodical of philosophical and critical essays), *Cuba Internacional* (Cuba's monthly pictorial magazine), and *Tricontinental* (political publications on Third World revolutionary movements).

## SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL - BOOKS

Alvarez Dias, Jose R., and others, *Estudio Sobre Cuba* (Miami: University of Miami Press, 1963). This was subsequently published in an English version entitled *A Study on Cuba*. A 1700 page work by a group of Cubans in exile, it is brim full of data, starting with the 19th century. Very caustic interpretation of the Castro period presented.

Alvarez Dias, Jose R., and others, *Labor Conditions in Communist Cuba* (Miami: University of Miami Press, 1963). Cubans in exile doing a study of their homeland. Very polemical conclusions, but useful references and some useful analysis.

Boorstein, Edward, *The Economic Transformation of Cuba* (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968). The best single volume on the economics of the revolution from 1959 until 1963. Offers important insights on how the priorities within the economy changed.

Lara-Braud, Jorge (ed.), *Our Claim on the Future* (New York: Friendship Press, 1970). Six writers speak about the Latin American situation --- its social and economic revolutions and the role of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

Nelson, Lowry, *Rural Cuba* (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1950). A standard work on pre-revolutionary Cuba.

Petras, James, and Zeitlin, Maurice, eds., *Latin America: Reform or Revolution?* (New York: Fawcett Premier Books, 1968). A reader on why the Latin American poor get poorer, and the rich get richer, and what some authors see to be the alternatives to this situation.

Roberts, Paul, *Statistical Abstract Supplement: Cuba 1968* (U.C.L.A. Latin American Center, Los Angeles, 1969). A compilation of official Cuban statistics, covering the pre-revolutionary years, the years of transition, and the socialist years.

Smith, Earl E. T., *The Fourth Floor: An Account of the Castro Communist Revolution* (New York: Random House, 1962). Former U.S. Ambassador to the Batista government blames all but himself for "losing" Cuba. Useful window into the thinking of an important part of U.S. elite opinion.

Sutherland, Elizabeth, *The Youngest Revolution* (New York: Dial Press, 1969). In-sightful comments on race relations, Cuban women, and youth. A refreshing contrast to academic social and economic analyses.

Zeitlin, Maurice, *Revolutionary Politics and the Cuban Working Class* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). A study of attitudes among the working class, done in the early years of the revolution. Seeks to determine who supported the revolution and how strongly.

UNESCO, *Methods and Means Utilized in Cuba to Eliminate Illiteracy* (Paris: Unesco, 1965. Report of a 1964 Unesco mission on 1961 Cuban literacy campaign.

U.S. Department of State, *Republic of Cuba*, December 1968 (Background notes). Official U.S. government view of Cuba.

Yglesias, Jose, *In the Fist of the Revolution: Life in a Cuban Country Town* (New York: Pantheon, 1968). An account of three months in a small town in Oriente Province in 1967.

## SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS - ARTICLES

Kahl, Joseph A., "The Moral Economy of a Revolutionary Society," chapter in *Cuban Communism* (Irving Louis Horowitz, ed., Trans-Action Books, 1970.) Originally appeared as April 1969 issue of Trans-Action magazine.) An extended consideration of the meaning of political and economic conciencia. This is a crucial issue in Cuba, involving the whole problem of "moral incentives" and the nature of socialist man and society.

Plank, John, "We Should Start Talking with Castro," *New York Times Magazine*, March 30, 1969. A former State Department research director for Latin America now at Brookings Institute argues that present U.S. policies work to Castro's benefit rather than the U.S. government's, and that Castro could be more effectively isolated and defeated by reaching an accommodation with him and normalizing relations.

Seers, Dudley, "Cuba: Economic and Social Background," chapter 1 in *Cuba: the Economic and Social Revolution* (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965). A scholarly, thoroughly documented analysis of Cuba's economic situation --- both pre- and post-revolutionary --- by a leading economist. Other chapters contain detailed discussions of agriculture and industry.

"Cuba", *Youth Magazine* (Philadelphia: United Church Board of Homeland Ministries), May 4, 1969. Collection of articles in special issue on Cuba.

Zeitlin, Maurice, "Inside Cuba: Workers and Revolution," *Ramparts*, March 1970. A report on Cuban efforts to create an egalitarian and non-authoritarian socialism, with worker and government assessments of achievements and short-comings of those efforts.

## FOR FURTHER READING AND RESEARCH

MacGaffey, Wyatt, and Barnett, Clifford R., *Twentieth Century Cuba: The Background of the Cuban Revolution* (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1965). Good one-volume introduction to the society, polity, and economy of Cuba when Castro came to power. Contains good bibliography.

Smith, Robert F., ed. *Background to Revolution: The Development of Modern Cuba* (New York: Knopf, 1966). A useful collection of writings edited out of books and articles, including materials from the pre-Castro period. Contains long bibliographical essay.

Smith, Robert F., ed., *What Happened in Cuba? A Documentary History* (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1963). Contains parts or wholes of several-hundred documents relating to U.S.-Cuban affairs, going back to the late 18th century.

Suchlick, Jaime, ed., *The Cuban Revolution: A Documentary and Bibliography, 1952-1968* (Research Institute for Cuba and the Caribbean, University of Miami, 1968). Well done way to get to a document or speech if time of its appearance is known.

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MEDIA

SLIDES

Venceremos Brigade and Committee of Returned Volunteers contact persons (see PEOPLE list) have extensive resources in slides from Cuba.

TAPES

"Revolution is Preventive Medicine." This tape on the Cuban health system also makes specific suggestions for re-directing the U.S. approach to health from curative to preventive.

RFP 69-11 Sale $4.80 7 1/2 ips; $3.40 3 3/4 ips 30 minutes

POSTERS

"Como en Vietnam" and "Fidel", 11x17" reproductions of Cuban silk screens; "Che" by NYC Art Workers' Coalition. $1. each. Order from Venceremos Brigade, Box 643, Cathedral Station, New York, N.Y. 10025.

FILMS - About Cuba by Cubans

"Historia de Una Batalla." Story of the 1961 literacy campaign in Cuba. Places the battle for literacy in the context of the total battle against imperialism in Cuba and the rest of Latin America.

NR 115 Rental $60. 40 minutes
ADF Rental $40. Sale $200. 30 minutes

"Cuban Teachers." Young Cubans who volunteer to teach in the mountains and rural villages are shown during their training program. An important element in their development as teachers is the experience of living together as a self-sufficient community.

NR 119 Rental $30. 22 minutes

"Men of the Canefields." The success of the sugar harvest is essential to the survival of the Cuban economy. This film shows urban volunteer workers participating in the collective effort in the canefields.

NR 102 Rental $25. 20 minutes

"Cerro Pelado." Cerro Pelado is the boat which carried the Cuban delegation to the Pan American Games in Puerto Rico. Film shows the athletes on the boat and at the Games, where they won in numerous competitions.

NR 116 Rental $70. 60 minutes

FILMS - By Cubans about Revolutionary Movements Elsewhere in the World

"Hasta la Victoria Siempre." Speeches of Che Guevara, plus footage of the guerrilla struggle in Bolivia, Che's last battleground.

NR 114 Rental $30. 30 minutes
ADF Rental $35. Sale $200 28 minutes

"NOW." Images of the repression of the U.S. civil rights movement are set to words of the song "Now" sung by Lena Horne. The implication of the film is that militant action is the only alternative.

NR 109 Rental $10. 5 minutes
ADF Rental $20. Sale $100. 15 minutes

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"Hanoi 13." Cuban filmmakers have documented everyday activity around Hanoi --- building irrigation ditches, planting in rice paddies, fishing, weaving, etc. During the bombing raid, peasants and workers form armed self-defense units.

NR 107 Rental $60. 42 minutes

"79 Springtimes." Brilliant impressionist biographical tribute to Ho Chi Minh, by Santiago Alvarez.

ADF Rental $40. 25 minutes

## FILMS - About Cuba by Sympathetic Observers

"One Way to Change the World." Cuba, 1968-1969: the progress of the revolution, the concept of the new man.

ADF Rental $45. Sale $200. 30 minutes

"End of a Revolution." The murder of Che Guevara by the Bolivian government; the trial of Regis Debray.

ADF Rental $50. 26 minutes

"Isle of Youth." Newsreel film on an experiment on a small Cuban island where money and private property are becoming irrelevant, as young people living and working together begin to construct a new model for the future.

NR 130 Rental $15. 10 minutes

"FIDEL." Saul Landau's in-depth report on Fidel and the continuing revolution in Cuba. Contains new footage on the Bay of Pigs invasion and on Fidel and Che in the mountains during the revolution. Includes frank interviews with political prisoners.

RP Rental $300. - Feature length/color/16 mm. 96 minutes

## FILM DISTRIBUTORS

NR - Newsreel - a Movement filmmaker and distributor which seeks to analyze and explore realities that most mass media ignore. Newsreel members are willing to accompany their films and serve as resources for them. Their offices are located in the following cities:

<table><tr><td>Atlanta</td><td>P.O. Box 5432, Sta. E, Atlanta, Ga. 30307</td><td>Phone 404-373-7903</td></tr><tr><td>Boston</td><td>595 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Mass.</td><td>Phone 617-864-2600</td></tr><tr><td>Chicago</td><td>2440 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, Ill.</td><td>Phone 312-248-2018</td></tr><tr><td>New York</td><td>322 7th Ave., New York, N.Y. 10001</td><td>Phone 212-565-4930</td></tr><tr><td>San Francisco</td><td>451 Cortland Ave., San Francisco, Cal.</td><td>Phone 415-826-2989</td></tr></table>

ADF - American Documentary Films - an independent non-profit educational organization dedicated to building an alternative to commercial mass media. Produces and distributes films, audio tapes and graphics that document, examine and illuminate social change from a human and independent point of view.

West of the Mississippi - 379 Bay Street, San Francisco, Cal. 94133 - 415-982-7475

East of the Mississippi - 336 West 84th St., New York, N.Y. 10024 - 212-799-7440

RP - New York Review Presentations - a service of the New York Review of Books.
250 West 57th Street, New York, New York 10019. 212-CO 5-1690.

## TAPE DISTRIBUTOR

RFP - Radio Free People - an independent group using the medium of sound to help create new forms of social organization.

133 Mercer Street, New York, New York 10012. 212-966-6729.

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