“The decision to win is not a utopian decision! The decision to win is a practical decision, a decision that we carry into the fields every day along with our machetes!”
—Riso, head of the Cuban Delegation, young communists working with the Venceremos Brigade
Special from Cuba — In Cuba, the gun, which used to mean repression and terror as it does in the United States, now symbolizes revolution and its defense. Because the will of the people decides which way the barrel shall point…..
The centrals, or sugar refineries, now represent the chance for the country’s economic development instead of standing as strongholds of colonialist exploitation. Because the economy now serves the people of the country instead of exploiting them….
Free medical care, free telephones, food for everyone. Organization to meet the people’s common needs, instead of destructive competition to profit from people’s needs….
And the ultimate example that unites all these indications of the massive transformation that the revolution has brought to Cuba: the mobilization of the whole country to reach the goal of the ten million ton zafra (sugar cane harvest).
Participation in the government, economic development, organization. The Cuban revolution is using all its resources to mechanize its agriculture and to start industrialization through the ten million tons. Like the posters here say: “La palabra en Cuba es ‘Van’!” (The word in Cuba is ‘They’re going!’)
Fifteen years ago, no one could have believed the changes that have taken place in Cuba since the revolution—just like we wouldn’t be able to believe what the United States is gonna look like fifteen years from now….
- Clean air. Clean water.
- Leaders and office workers alike learn humility by collecting garbage.
- The people armed. Pigs behind bars.
- No more money.
- World production effort to redistribute the world economy since imperialism was smashed.
- Dancing on the grass down Woodward Avenue.
- And a whole lot more….all your dreams a reality.
The point is—it’s possible. Anything can happen that we put our minds to and struggle to create. That is the main message of the Cuban revolution at this time. Instead of developing its economy to insulate itself from imperialism, the Cuban revolution is developing its economy to show the people of the world how socialism can build what imperialism destroys.
The Cuban revolution is pulling itself out from underdevelopment not to protect itself or to win a better bargaining position for a share of capitalist riches. The Cuban revolution is consciously acting as a model for the planetary revolution. The vanguard of a new way of life.
Che Guevara appears everywhere all over Cuba. He is the symbol of this Cuban internationalism. “Dos, tres….muchos Vietnams.” “Como en Vietnam” (“Like in Vietnam”). As Che outlined, Vietnam is the Cuban’s model for struggle. Because to the Cuban revolution, the struggle against imperialism is not only just but necessary.
Cuba is not a strong country itself. Just a large island with a population of seven million people. But Cuba represents all the newly liberated energy of the repressed third world countries. And that’s what has the United States of Amerika shaking in its big black boots.
The Cuban leaders are conscious of the threat that they represent to imperialism and the hope that they represent to the other peoples of the world. The Cuban leaders have learned through experience that it requires bold and daring strategies to win. So, like Vietnam, they have put all their chips on the table. Like in Vietnam, they’re betting on their confidence in the people.
Cuba is counting on the fact that the people of the world will be able to get a glimpse of the transformations here. They know that what happened in Cuba will stir the imagination. And they hope that all over the world imagination will catalyze action.
Remember: two thirds of the world’s population ain’t white. Ninety-five percent of the world’s population ain’t ruling class.
“The decision to win is not a utopian decision! The decision to win is a practical decision, a decision that we carry into the fields every day along with our machetes!”
Last week we were shown a Cuban newsreel called “Camp of the 15th of May,” about a group of young European student revolutionaries who visited Cuba to work and observe. Interspersed among the pictures of the students loving and working in the warm island sun were vivid shots of street-fighting in France and Germany.
There was respect and solidarity between the Europeans and the Cubans. Cuba is an underdeveloped country, but the same hopes and goals made students and young workers take to the streets together in May, 1968 in industrialized France. We all have a common enemy. Revolution is possible, revolution is just.
The Cuban’s guns are ours. Our guns will be theirs.