By Gilberto López y Rivas on January 10, 2022
photo: Raul Corrales
On January 1, 1959, the bearded men led by Fidel Castro entered Havana, whose inhabitants poured into the streets beaming with jubilation for the triumph of the revolution and the flight of dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Cuba became, since then, a watershed in our history. Its dignified voice was heard in every corner of the world, announcing that manifest destiny could be overturned at its roots; that agrarian and urban reforms were possible, that the military apparatus of bourgeois domination could be destroyed, that illiteracy could be eradicated, that democracy could be built with the armed and organized people, that forms of government could be freely agreed upon, that sovereignty could be recovered and that Yankee imperialism could be successfully confronted, that is to say, true independence could be conquered. For the first time in our continent, a social revolution, whose driving forces were the humble, the working people, the peasantry, the middle classes and a committed intelligentsia, proposed a strategy with possibilities of victory.
Being the Cuban people the main architect of the revolutionary gesture from 1959 to date, from the perspective that there is no need to have guiding peoples, much less guiding men, and that what is needed are guiding ideas, it is necessary to recognize the role played by Fidel, who was always consistent with Marti’s morals and principles. For those of us who have accompanied the struggle of the Cuban people during these 63 years, from the solidarity of parallel struggles to transform our realities, Cuba has always been a reference of resistance with profound historical significance, and Fidel was a leader who interpreted the yearnings and aspirations of the people and gave channel to a radical revolutionary process. Commander Fidel Castro, as loved by the oppressed as hated by the exploiters, is the Latin American revolutionary of greatest relevance in the struggle against U.S. domination; the statesman who successfully defied it for more than 50 years, defending Cuba’s national self-determination and, by extension, that of the Latin American peoples.
For the generation of aspiring revolutionaries born in the 1940s, Fidel Castro was a pedagogue of the triumphant revolution, of anti-imperialism, of the sovereignty regained from the United States, of the rescue of a nation from the people, of practicing internationalism and, above all, of ethical coherence. We also remember the polite, respectful, soft-spoken person, incapable of using foul language, who did not allow himself to be dragged by vanity or ambition, aware that, as Martí said: all the glory of the world fits in a kernel of corn.
Fidel and the 26th of July Movement open a revolutionary channel that refutes the reformist scheme of gatopardism, which changes everything so that everything remains the same. Fidel demonstrates that it is possible to make the revolution and establish socialism 145 kilometers from US soil, against the current of geographic determinism; also, Fidel broke with the cliché that revolutions could be made with the army or without the army, but not against the army.
However, Fidel is far from being a theorist of desperate revolution, militaristic adventurism or coup-plotting blanquism. His actions and the implementation of the revolutionary option in Cuba were the result of an in-depth knowledge of the problems of his people and of a program-allegory exposed by Fidel in front of his judges, known as History will absolve me.
Cuba requires a deeper and more critical analysis of the objective and subjective conditions of the revolution. If there is not a firm base of the sectors and groups that aspire to transform the country, a historical continuity with the secular struggles of the people, a deep knowledge of the vital problems of the various social sectors, and, above all, a unity of action of the democratic and revolutionary groupings, and an organic relationship between them, in the extension of the territory, the revolutionary movement is destined to fail.
The process of economic, social, political, ideological and cultural transformation that began in 1959 has no parallel in Latin America. With a permanent mobilization and protagonism of the Cuban people -in tune with a sensitive and united leadership-, this revolution has had the ability to resist for decades the imperialist power, which has tried to subdue it by open and covert military means, and by means of a criminal blockade that subsists to this day. The secret of the vitality of the revolution is its ability to match the radical collectivist course with a majority of popular support, as demonstrated last year with the political defeat of the stateless dissidence.
With Cuba, until always
Source: La Pupilia Insomne