Fidel Castro - WE ARE THE STANDARD BEARERS OF THE EXPOLITED PEOPLES lyrics

Fidel's Speech After the insignia and diploma presentations ceremony was over, the Prime Minister, Major Fidel Castro, addressed the numerous audience and members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces; here is the text of his address: Comrade officers of the Rebel Army (Applause); comrades future officers of the militia (applause); ladies and gentlemen: This is the first graduation of Rebel Army officers, approximately 2 years after the triumph of the revolution. This, in my opinion, is another triumph here. We have covered a long road; the task has not been easy. We had practically no means for accomplishing this task easily. The fact that we have been able to graduate 55 officers today, at this Rebel Army officer training school, is in great part due to the effort made by a group of honest military men who gave the revolution their experience and their knowledge. I repeat, the task was not an easy one, in the midst of all of the convulsions of a revolution, in the midst of the tremendous pa**ions which always are aroused in connection with revolutions. We, the rebels, did not know much about military matters; we had learned in the field, on the march, and we learned about military things in war. We learned in the mountains. And our men gradually became leaders in the midst of the struggle, each according to his merits. But in peacetime we had nobody to organize an officer training school. However, a small group of men who did have the necessary knowledge for organizing this school, gave us their collaboration. Likewise, it was not easy to select candidates to take this course at this school. It was difficult to erase from the minds of many youngsters the ancient idea as to what a military school should be like. Many, who liked this career, and who were convinced that they had the capability of serving the country in the military, wanted to enter this school but there were also those who had a misconception as to what it meant to be an officer in the Rebel Army; there were those who had a misconception about the life and the sacrifices of a career military man. And not all of those who first started out are with us here today; we only have about one-third of those who started the course here with us today. Places of Sacrifice In other words, the officers who have graduated here today are the product of a process of selection; they have gone through some tough tests and they have finally reached their goal. It might be possible that, among those who applied for admission and who were accepted, there were some who believed that the Republic had entered an easy stage, a life without risks or sacrifices, that it would be easy to pursue a career in the military. But the facts taught them that, being a revolutionary military man, being a soldier or officer of a revolutionary nature is far from an easy task, far from an easy career, although it is a great honor; any man who pursues this career is worthy of the respect and love of his people; this career provides an opportunity to serve the country with pride but it also means sacrifice and self-denial; it means risk and hard work; it means that this respect and love of the people cannot be given to those who do not deserve them; this sort of thing is not given to those who do not have the equipment for this sort of thing; this sort of thing is not given to those who do not have the necessary spirit of sacrifice, no matter how much they may believe that they are capable of serving in this way. But not all who think they can, can pull it off when it comes down to bra** tacks! (Applause) There are weak men who break or turn coward in the face of difficulties; there are those who see their intentions frustrated; but those who know how to overcome the difficulties, those who pa**ed all the tests, were awarded a prize, a prize such as the one you have just received today; this is the same prize which the militia officers are going to receive very soon. (Applause) That is, those who have pa**ed all of these tough tests. The Test in the Mountains Some time ago, I visited this academy and I met one afternoon with militia officers and with the students at the Army Officer Training School. On that occasion, I explained my viewpoint, to the effect that officers have to pa** much tougher tests than enlisted men; that enlisted men must pa** tough tests also; that it was necessary for a man not only to have the proper technical knowledge but that this particular officer will have to perfect himself more and more as an officer and that an officer who has full prestige in the eyes of the soldiers whom he is going to lead must pa** tests that are tougher than those which the enlisted men have to pa**. I said the same thing to the militia commanders; on that occasion I told them that they soon would be marching toward the mountains of Sierra Maestra. And so they did march into the mountains and many pa**ed the tests; today we have the satisfaction here of graduating a group of officers, who not only studied in the cla**rooms, who not only learned their duties in books and from their instructors, but who also learned to do their duty through the tough tests in the mountains; and I know that they must today feel the kind of satisfaction which they deserve as reward for having gone through all of these rigors; and they must have confidence in themselves as men who have what it takes. And so, these officers can proudly display their insignia of the three points and a star, signifying that the wearer has gone through the exercise of climbing Mt Turquino 10 times. (Applause) But that is not all; together with a group of school instructors, they helped instruct the Havana militia officers. The knowledge which they acquired was then pa**ed on to those who also have a very important task, in other words, those who are going to have to lead militia units. And these comrades likewise went through the tough tests in the mountains and they also successfully went through a very tough and harsh training course. Many of them were family fathers and they spent as many as 40 days without being able to visit with their families; and nobody knows what other sacrifices they may have to make. From time to time, some people suggested to me or asked me whether all of this might not be too much; each time, I told these people: "No, it is not; it is perhaps still not tough enough." (Applause) And I would like to remind you that, for example, some people had to spend years in prisons, without ever seeing their families; there were men who had to spend many years out in the field; and I want to remind you that men who are called upon to lead fighting men in combat must be men who have gone through those tough tests and even tougher ones. However, this does not in any way detract from the sacrifices which you have made in peace time; in peace time, people usually do not see the need for making such sacrifices. But the important thing to keep in mind is that we will very soon have more than 500 militia commanders who will have scaled Mt Turquino 3 times (Applause) and who will have spent several months in rigorous training. Morale and Weapons What does this mean? What is the meaning of the fact that we can today graduate 55 officers and that we can graduate more than 500 militia commanders very soon? It means that we have overcome the biggest obstacle here; it means that we have overcome the obstacle of our own ignorance; it means that we are learning; it means that we are creating; it means that we are planting the seeds that will multiply. Without this, there would be no militia; without this, there would be no defense; without this, there could not have been any revolutionary military power because you have to organize the vast ma** of militia men; you have to organize them in combat units with maximum discipline and maximum effectiveness. The vast ma** of the people must be trained; the people must be prepared; and that is the task which will fall to you, the militia officers. A small group taught a large group and that large group taught another group, still larger, and all of them together, the first, the second, and the third group, are now keeping the tens of thousands of militia men who have been waiting for their instructors; and without these instructors (applause), without these instructors, without these cadres, there would be no training, because, if you want to train and organize a battalion, you have to have men who know their business and who will be sufficiently well trained to organize this unit. You cannot improvise a combat unit; you cannot resolve the technical problems of a combat unit merely through enthusiasm. Ah, yes! If our men in the war, in addition to their understanding of what they were doing, in addition to their tremendous morale and their extraordinary enthusiasm, if they had also had the techniques and the weapons, then many valiant lives could have been saved and the country could have been spared many months of sacrifices. Today we have the rational understanding of what we are doing, the enthusiasm, the high morale, but we are also going to have the techniques and the equipment so that the country can feel much more secure, so that we can save lives, and so that the victories over the enemies of our cause will be much more crushing victories. (Applause) In the old days, in addition to the necessary techniques we were also rather short of weapons but now, in addition to high morale (applause), in addition to enthusiasm, in addition to understanding and techniques, we will also have the weapons! (Applause and shouts of: "We shall win, we shall win.") But the enemy knows this; the enemy knows that, with every day that pa**es, we are organizing another hundred men; the enemy knows that with every day that pa**es, we will organize a thousand more men; the enemy knows that we will soon have hundreds of men busy organizing and training; the enemy knows that each day that pa**es further removes his hopes and this is why the enemy is in such a hurry, this is why I am explaining all of this to the people so clearly, as I always did in the past. This is why the enemy is trying to get ready in a hurry; the enemy knows the tremendous potential of the people and the enemy does not want that strength to be developed. This is why there is all this risk of attack, this is why the attack is so imminent now; and that is the only reason, a very simple reason; they have hopes of accomplishing what they want to accomplish today with a certain number of mercenaries; but they realize that within a few months they will need many more mercenaries in order to accomplish the same thing. The enemy knows that this is so and this is why he is hurrying to attack even before the revolution has developed its tremendous potential; this is why the attack is so imminent; this is why this problem of Cuba has aroused the basest pa**ions among the enemy. The Enemy Unmarked This Cuban problem has become the essential point in the bitter debate between the monopolist groups which aspire to control the government of the United States; and both groups have dropped their masks in a shameful and repugnantly cynical fashion; stupid leaders of monopolish cliques (applause) have been begging for an aggression; they have been begging for intervention, intervention in the affairs of an independent country. They have trampled underfoot the basic principles of respect for the sovereignty of peoples and, before the eyes of the world, the hysterical monopolists have dropped their mask and they have not been able to conceal their thoughts. And the world has been the witness to the scandal which they have staged; the bluntnesss with which they have been recommending direct or indirect intervention in the affairs of our sovereign fatherland! And so our island has almost been turned into an object of the arbitrary desires and ambitions of those people; our island has become a "bone of contention" in an election; this is very dangerous because the group that is currently giving the orders -- in its ruinous ambition -- in the crazy hope of satisfying the interests of the groups that exploit and plunder the people. This is one more reason why we must think of the imminence of the attack during these critical days before the election; however, we will be facing risks also after the elections; the days after anyone of those stupid people who take over the presidency of the imperialism come to power will also be days full of risk. (Applause) However, they know that with each day that pa**es their task will become more difficult; they know that with each day that pa**es, they will need more and more mercenaries than they needed the day before. And mercenaries will have to be recruited and trained and organized and they will have to be "shipped" -- and I mean that in a double sense here! (Applause) And every time they need more mercenaries, they will also need more boats and more aircraft and more training camps; and this is why , with every day that pa**es, they know that the battle will be harder; their possibilities -- if they imagined that they have any possibilities at all -- keep shrinking day after day and this is why the attack is so imminent; and if they do not attack, then this is because they have lost all of their hopes or because they are lazier than we think they are. (Applause) Let Them Go On Fooling Themselves It would therefore be most logical and most intelligent for them to attack right now, rather than a month from now; it would be much more intelligent for them to attack now than to attack in 2 months or 3 months. This is quite logical. And we and you must learn to reason correctly here; if we do not reason this out correctly, then things might not go well with us; it is our duty to reason this thing out correctly and if anybody makes any mistakes in calculations and if anybody makes a wrong situation estimate, then let it be them and not us; when we make our situation estimate, we must not be wrong; but let them fool themselves, let them make the mistakes. (Applause) And if their situation estimate causes them to rush on ahead, well and good! (Applause) I think that what they are going to do is completely different from what they think they can do today; nothing can change this fact, because it is not easy to recruit thousands of men and then to have them just sit around and wait, to do nothing; when anybody begins to play with weapons, when the mercenaries are hired, the people who try to run this thing eventually come to depend on those whom they have hired! (Applause) And the decisions then take their fatal course almost be themselves. This is why we must think this thing out very carefully and this is why we must explain everything; this is why I have said that if they are ready, then, so much the worse for them; but it will be even worse, if they wait any longer; the longer they wait, the stronger will we be! (Applause) However, with their mercenaries they cannot perform the miracle of the fish and the leaves of bread. The number of men they have today, they cannot multiply overnight; the men they have today are the men they will have tomorrow; we are the unknown factor here! (Applause) To them, this is a tremendous unknown factor and we do not want to give them and information that might tell them exactly what we are about to do; but we think very simply that we have enough with what we have. (Applause) Beacon for All the Peoples of America Should we worry, by chance, about what the enemy might do? Once before, we have found ourselves in a situation in which we were attacked by numerically superior forces; there were 5,000 perfectly well-armed men, with air support and with light artillery support, with supplies and lots of resources; and they were advancing against us; we only had about 300 armed men and some of them were poorly armed and had very little ammunition. The enemy commander at that time was sure that he was going to win; he was so sure that he sent us a message and even bewailed the fate that awaited us; it seemed that, in spite of everything, he had some admiration for a group of men who had kept the enemy forces in check for 18 months; and so he might even have felt sorry for us, in the conviction that he was going to wipe us out. And we replied in another message; we replied in a chivalrous manner; we thanked him for his concern and we explained to him that he was in a position to do something for his country, to do something for the revolution; and we thought that we could talk after the offensive was over; we indicated that we did not want to do any talking before the offensive, but we were indeed prepared to talk after the offensive, and we told him that if the men, who were fighting for that bad cause, were to manage to overcome our resistance and wipe out the very last rebel soldier, then he should not be sorry for us because we would be leaving the fatherland a page containing one of the most glorious episodes in its history; even the children of the same soldiers who were capable of destroying us would someday contemplate the peaks of Sierra Maestra with admiration and respect. (Applause) We were completely surrounded; we only had 300 men, some of whom were rather poorly armed; nevertheless, it was not we who were wiped out; the forces that were wiped out, those forces were the 5,000 men who advanced against us. (Applause) And one point, there were less than 10 of us and we were facing tens of thousands, the full power and resources of a government; nevertheless, we saw to it that they did not defeat us; we were sure of victory even when there were less than 10 of us. And this is how we built the Rebel Army; this is how we built the army of which you now are now officers (applause), an army which always fought at a numerical disadvantage and with poorer weapons, at incredible disadvantages, and army that sprang virtually out of nothing, an army that went from victory to victory and sacrifice to sacrifice and an army that came to turn into the force that liberated the fatherland, an army that destroyed the privileges, an army that turned into the force that could face up to the national authority of the privileged; an army that could face down the big foreign privileges and that raised the banner high on the flagstaff, a sovereign and free banner, symbol of a people that would no longer live in humiliation, symbol of a people which would always live in justice, symbol of a people that would have earned glory and prestige throughout the world, symbol of a people that had become a revolutionary people and the right beacon for all of the peoples of Latin America! (Applause) Wait with Discipline Ant they will not be able to rip that symbol from the flag staff anymore, they will never be able to tear that symbol down and throw it on the ground; that flag will never be the flag of a people that must live on its knees. (Applause) Now, what does it matter how many they send? What does it matter, what kind of support they have when they come? Our people will remain steadfast; when they come, we do not expect anybody to leave his job; on the contrary, the very first thing to do is to keep our production effort up and to keep the country fractioning normally. (Applause) There is one thing that I must alert the people to and that is the danger that everybody might want to pick up a rifle; the danger that everybody might rush to take up weapons, that the citizens might leave their jobs; this is precisely what we want to avoid and this is why nobody should be downcast, and nobody should interfere with the work of the responsible comrades, the officials and functionaries, by asking them for weapons, because this is not the only way to resist aggression. The most thing is to keep the schools and the factories and the life of the country functioning properly; we cannot have everybody running off with a rifle to fight the enemy. We can fight the enemy only with a portion of our manpower and resources and it is our job to fined the men and the women who are going to do this. (Applause) This is why, in the face of any aggression, the first duty is to remain calm, not to become inpatient, not to despair, but to wait with discipline until you are called, because we are going to call those we are going to need; we cannot become the victims of our own enthusiasm; we cannot become the victim of our own patriotic fervor; we must remember what we say here today and we must do our routine jobs under any circumstances; and we must wait calmly, with full a**urance that we will destroy the enemies that might come over! (Applause) And we are going to step up our organizational efforts even further; we are going to keep up our efforts to organize battalion after battalion, even after the fight has begun, even under fire. We have the cadres for instructional and organizational purposes so that we will not have to slow down our organizational effort under any circumstances and so that we will not have to slow down the accelerated growth rate which we have achieved today; and we are going to turn out battalions in series because we have already laid the foundation and established the pattern. (Applause) Revolutions Have Never Been Defeated At any rate, regardless of who attacks us, the whole thing involves the application of an inexorable law of history, and unchanging law of all revolutions: the attack from the reactionary forces, the international reactionary forces, the struggle which characterizes all of the revolutions and which has been a law of world history. They will come at us, just as there has always been a reaction against the revolutionary peoples; but there is also another inexorable law of history: the revolutionary peoples, that is to say, the revolutions, have never been defeated in the history of the world! (Prolonged applause and shouts of: "We shall win! We shall win!") This is because of the strength and the solidarity of the other peoples. We are going to see what happens in America, when they attack us directly or indirectly: we are going to see what the reaction will be form the peoples of America when they know that the Cuban fatherland and the heroic and revolutionary people of Cuba are fighting once again not only for their own liberty and future but also for all of the other sister nations on the continent! (Applause) Our People Will Win And we are going to see what the reaction will be when they hear of the heroism of our people; when they learn of the ferocious resistance which the attacking enemies will encounter; when they fine out that not a single man left his post; when they know that there was not a single company of soldiers or militia men who abandoned its position! (Prolonged applause) When they know that each Cuban knows how to die at his post! And as he dies at his post, he also k**s many of those who intend to attack and enslave the fatherland! (Prolonged applause) When they learn of the devotion with which the sons of this land defend this land; when they learn of the firmness with which the standard bearers of justice defend their cause; when they learn of the honor with which the liberators of Cuba and of the oppressed people...because with our example, with our victory, with our example alone, we will destroy the enemy! With our victory here, alone, we will destroy the enemy! And, because of our example here, we therefore are the standard bearers of all of the colonized and exploited and plundered and oppressed peoples of the world; when they learn of the honor which we defend that banner, with which we will defend that banner, from the first to the last, because we do not know the word retreat! (Prolonged applause) We do not want to be buried in any other soil than the soil of our country! (Prolonged applause) Let them come and let them attack us! What do we care! Our calmness springs from the secure belief in our victory, it springs from the conviction of our destiny, and this calmness and this belief will not desert us for one moment. I can repeat to you today what the Titan in Bronze said: "Anyone who intends to seize Cuba will only hold the blood-soaked dust of that land!" (Prolonged applause) But we have another slogan here: "Fatherland or d**h!" (Applause) And there is just one certainty that gives us strength: the certainty that our people will win! (Ovation) ...of solidarity with our sister nation of Venezuela which is under the barbarian repression of the pro-imperialist authorities which run that country, we have received declarations from the provincial directorate of the Association of Young Rebels of Oriente; the post office and telegraph employees of San Jose de las Lajas; the worker and peasant militias of Tapaste; the "Victor Gonzalez" nursery employees in San Jose de las Lajas; the No 16 Defense Committee, San Jose de las Lajas; the "Paco Cabrera" Peasant Association in the districts of Chavez, Pedro Pi, Ganuza, Jaula, Santa Barbara, El Peru, Zenea, Tapaste, Citilla, and Nevio, region of San Jose de las Lajas; delegation of the Federation of Cuban Women of San Jose de las Lajas; Union of Workers of the Communications in Camaguey. -END-