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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 1 January 1, 2018
(special feature)
Fidel Castro: Our principles are key to Cuban Revolution
Excerpt from book by Cuban leader Armando Hart underscores moral
strength of July 26 Movement
Below is an excerpt from Aldabonazo: Inside the Cuban Revolutionary
Underground, 1952-58, a Participant’s Account by Armando Hart. Hart, who
helped found the July 26 Movement and led its urban underground, died in
Havana Nov. 26. After the overthrow of the U.S.-backed Batista
dictatorship in 1959, Hart served as Minister of Education and later as
Minister of Culture in the new revolutionary government and spent
decades in the central leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba. The
Militant is publishing a series of excerpts from his book. This
selection, titled “Manifesto to the Nation: Response to the Miami Pact,”
was drafted by Fidel Castro, the revolution’s central leader, in
collaboration with Hart and other leaders of the July 26 Movement, and
released Dec. 14, 1957.
The manifesto repudiates the Miami Pact, referred to here as the “unity
document,” which was an agreement among bourgeois opposition forces that
contained both public and private clauses, after its drafters falsely
claimed it had been signed onto by leaders of the July 26 Movement.
Copyright © 2004 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted with permission.
❖
No matter how desperate our situation in face of thousands of the
dictatorship’s troops mobilized to annihilate us, and perhaps with more
determination because of it (since nothing is more humiliating than to
accept an onerous condition under trying circumstances), we would never
accept the sacrifice of certain principles that are fundamental to our
conception of the Cuban Revolution. These principles are contained in
the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra.
To omit from the unity document the explicit declaration that we reject
every form of foreign intervention in the internal affairs of Cuba is a
sign of lukewarm patriotism and of cowardice, which must be condemned in
and of itself.
Declaring that we are opposed to intervention is not simply asking that
there be no intervention in support of the revolution, which would
undercut our sovereignty and undermine a principle that affects all the
peoples of the Americas. It also means opposing all intervention on the
side of the dictatorship by supplying the planes, bombs, tanks, and
modern weapons that maintain it in power. No one knows this better than
we do, not to mention the peasants of the Sierra, who have suffered it
in their own flesh and blood.
In short, ending such intervention means achieving the overthrow of the
dictatorship. Are we such cowards that we won’t even demand no
intervention on the side of Batista? …
The unity document omits the explicit rejection of any kind of military
junta as a provisional government of the republic.
The worst thing that could happen to Cuba at the present time would be
the replacement of Batista by a military junta, as this would be
accompanied by the deceptive illusion that the nation’s problems had
been resolved by the dictator’s absence. …
We do not hesitate to declare that if a military junta replaces Batista,
the July 26 Movement will resolutely continue its struggle for
liberation. It is preferable to do battle today than to fall into a new
and insurmountable abyss tomorrow. …
If one lacks faith in the people, if one lacks confidence in their great
reserves of energy and struggle, then one has no right to interfere with
their destiny, distorting and misdirecting it during the most heroic and
promising moments of the republic’s life. Keep the revolutionary process
free of all dirty politicking, all childish ambitions, all lust for
personal gain, all attempts to divide up the spoils beforehand. Men are
dying in Cuba for something better. …
Another point that is equally unacceptable to the July 26 Movement is
secret provision number 8, which states: “The revolutionary forces are
to be incorporated, with their weapons, into the regular armed bodies of
the republic.” …
Our experience in the territory dominated by our forces has taught us
that the maintenance of public order is a key question for the country.
Events have shown us that as soon as the prevailing order is eliminated,
a series of problems are unleashed and crime, if left unchecked, sprouts
up all over. It was the timely application of severe measures, with full
public blessing, that put an end to the outbreak of banditry. …
Anarchy is the worst enemy of a revolutionary process. To combat it from
now on is a fundamental need. Whoever does not understand this has no
concern for the fate of the revolution, and those who have not
sacrificed for the revolution, logically enough, do not share this
concern. The country needs to know that there will be justice, but under
the strictest order. Crime will be punished no matter where it comes from.
The July 26 Movement claims for itself the role of maintaining public
order and reorganizing the armed forces of the republic.
1. Because it is the only organization that possesses organized and
disciplined militias throughout the country, as well as an army in the
field, with twenty victories over the enemy.
2. Because our combatants have demonstrated a spirit of chivalry free of
all hatred toward the military, invariably respecting the lives of
prisoners, tending their wounded, never torturing an adversary, even
when they are known to possess important information. And they have
maintained this conduct with an unprecedented equanimity.
3. Because the armed forces must be imbued with the spirit of justice
and nobility that the July 26 Movement has instilled in its own soldiers.
4. Because the calmness with which we have acted in this struggle is the
best guarantee that honorable military men have nothing to fear from the
revolution. …
It is the members of the July 26 Movement alone who have spread
rebellion from the wild mountains of Oriente to the western provinces of
the country. It is the members of the July 26 Movement alone who are
carrying out sabotage, the execution of assassins, the burning of cane
fields, and other revolutionary acts. It is the July 26 Movement alone
that has been able to organize workers in revolutionary action
throughout the nation. It is also the July 26 Movement alone that today
can carry out the strategy of strike committees. And it is the July 26
Movement alone that has helped organize the Civic Resistance Movement,
which today groups together the civic sectors in almost all the
localities of Cuba. …
We are prepared, even if alone, to triumph or die. The struggle will
never be as difficult as it was when we were only twelve men; when we
did not have a people organized and tempered by war throughout the
Sierra; when we did not have, as today, a powerful and disciplined
organization throughout the country; when we did not possess the
formidable mass support demonstrated at the time of the death of our
unforgettable Frank País.
To die with dignity does not require company.
Fidel Castro Ruz
For the National Directorate of the July 26 Movement,
Sierra Maestra, December 14, 1957
Related articles:
‘Our system is based on solidarity,’ Cuban revolutionary tells unionists
‘I urge you, go see for yourself the truth of Cuba’s revolution’
Che: Fidel spoke for all of us
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