“Fidel Calls Us Together at a Crucial Moment”: First International Colloquium “Fidel: Legacy and Future” Opens in Havana
On Monday morning, as part of the commemorations marking the centenary of the birth of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, the First International Colloquium “Fidel: Legacy and Future” was inaugurated in the Cuban capital. The opening session was attended by more than 1,500 delegates, including more than 900 foreigners from 63 countries, who defied threats and dangers to join the Cuban people in paying tribute to the historic leader of the Revolution.
Dr. René González Barrios, Director of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, delivered the welcoming remarks, placing the gathering within a global context marked by profound upheavals.
“The historic leader of the Cuban Revolution has brought us together for this meeting. Fidel calls us at a crucial moment in the history of humanity,” González Barrios stated, warning that the planet had never before been so close to self-destruction.
The Director of the Center recalled that the Fidel Castro Ruz Center was officially inaugurated on November 25, 2021, and that since then it has become a reference site for people of good will interested in appreciating the emancipatory work that a noble and determined people built alongside its historic leader, forging a new, free and sovereign homeland.
The ceremony was attended by First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Dr. Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who was invited to deliver the keynote address at the major event.
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez delivered the keynote address at the First International Colloquium “Fidel: Legacy and Future,” with an extensive and profound speech examining the life, thought and enduring relevance of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, as part of the commemorations marking his centenary.
Díaz-Canel began his remarks by placing the first tribute owed to Fidel within the context of Cuba before 1959, “a country marked by injustice, inequality and dependence,” a painful reality that Fidel began to change from his university years.
He recalled the young lawyer who turned his self-defense into the political program of the July 26 Movement; the prisoner who transformed incarceration into a school of struggle; and the Commander-in-Chief who, at just 34 years of age, addressed the United Nations General Assembly with “the longest and most consequential speech ever delivered in defense of the Constitution of the Republic.”
The Cuban President offered a detailed portrait of pre-revolutionary Cuba: 600,000 Cubans without employment, three million people without access to electricity, 37.5 percent of the population illiterate, 60 percent of children in rural areas without teachers, 95 percent of the population suffering from parasites, an extremely high infant mortality rate and a very low life expectancy.
“Eighty-five percent of small farmers paid rent for possession of their land, while an individual representing a major landowner controlled 46 percent of the population,” he explained. He noted that most public services, banking, commerce, refineries and the best lands in Cuba were owned by U.S. companies.
Against this starting point, Díaz-Canel contrasted those conditions with Cuba’s current health, education, science, culture and sports indicators, which, even under the United States economic, financial and commercial blockade, remain higher than those of other countries on the continent. He noted that Cuba has the highest rate of physicians per capita, with more than nine doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, and is among the ten countries in the Americas with the highest life expectancy, at 77.7 years. “And it is the country that has contributed the most to the health and education of its own population and that of other nations,” he added.
The President then cited one of Fidel’s most precise observations regarding the world’s problems, expressed in September 1960: that these problems would worsen with the disappearance of the socialist camp and the imposition of the USSR. “Since the beginning of humanity, they have arisen fundamentally for one reason: the desire of one to overthrow another for their own interests. Let the philosophy of the mirror disappear, and the philosophy of war will have disappeared. Let the colonies disappear, let the exploitation of countries through their territories disappear, and humanity will then have crossed a true stage of indefinite progress,” he recalled from the Commander’s words.
Díaz-Canel then shared what he considered to be Fidel’s fundamental legacies: “He left us the certainty that dreams are achieved by defending ideas. He left us with the conviction that internationalism is an attitude that must distinguish us. He taught us the conviction that socialism is the only path to lift humanity out of poverty.”
He recalled that Fidel was the first to denounce neoliberal globalization as “the empire of death” and also the first to advocate for “a world for all.” He also highlighted Fidel’s environmental legacy, his commitment to the unity of revolutionaries, and his vision of science in the service of the people.
He recalled the October 17, 1953, historic defense statement in which Fidel formulated the five revolutionary laws—agrarian reform, labor rights, labor reform, the allocation of uncultivated lands, and fiscal participation—and noted that he was not presenting a basic university program, but rather diagnosing the cultural ailments of an underdeveloped and dependent economy. “That combination—rigorous diagnosis, a programmatic proposal and determined action—was repeated on every occasion,” he emphasized.
The President highlighted Fidel’s view that “the economy is not an autonomous sphere separate from politics, but its material expression. Without considering its accounting, there is no economy without politics, nor politics without economy.” He also underscored Fidel’s legacy regarding poverty and ethics: “He preached by example. He did not accumulate wealth, he did not betray his principles, he lived as he thought and died as he lived.”
Díaz-Canel also addressed Fidel’s legacies of internationalism, revolutionary optimism and military strategy. “Fidel led the Cuban Revolution as a single nail; for him, the homeland was Cuba. That is why he supported the causes for the liberation of the peoples of Africa and Palestine, denounced genocide, raised his voice against war and against the colonial occupation of any people in the world,” he stated.
Regarding optimism, he noted that “in the darkest days, when the socialist camp was collapsing, he maintained his faith in human beings and in history.” As for Fidel’s military thought, he described him as a “master of guerrilla warfare who led us to the triumph of January 1, 1959” and as a “profound student of contemporary military art.”
The Cuban leader reviewed Fidel’s system of work, based on four principles: the priority of the political—“every economic decision is a political decision”; the tactical-strategic sequence—“tactics change, principles do not”; popular mobilization as a strategic resource; and innovation under constraint—“scarcity is not merely deprivation; it is a stimulus for creativity.”
Díaz-Canel paid tribute to the generation of the centenary of José Martí, “that generation that brought together young people with historic figures: Fidel, Raúl, Che, Allende, Camilo, Celia, and so many others, an entire people willing to give their lives for the unity they had achieved.” He recalled that Fidel understood the need to combine ideological firmness with practical sensitivity, and quoted Lenin: “Marxism is not a dead doctrine, it is not capitalism, but a guide to completely solving the problems of life.”
The President emphasized Fidel’s insatiable curiosity and his passion for history and knowledge, recalling an excerpt from a letter written from prison on the Isle of Pines: “My greatest struggle since I have been here has been to insist, and never tire of insisting, that I absolutely need nothing. Books were necessary, and I have come to regard books as spiritual possessions.”
He noted that Fidel left a record of his reflections in 84 texts published between March 28, 2007, and October 9, 2016, and that ten years after his physical departure, nine books have collected his thought. He cited a reflection dated July 22, 1976: “I did not begin this work as part of a premeditated plan, but out of a strong desire to comment with the main protagonist of our resistance.”
Díaz-Canel recalled the achievements of the Revolution: the literacy campaign that mobilized more than 150,000 people; the most advanced universal healthcare system in the Third World; more than 600,000 health professionals sent to 165 countries; a free education system from primary school through university; and a cultural and sports system that serves as a reference for the world. “The events that transformed, in a very short time, relations between governments and peoples with the most unequal vision of the world definitively entered the history of the 20th century as decisive moments,” he stated.
The President then placed his remarks within the current context. “The world is living in a state of crisis. A climate crisis and a crisis of non-renewable resources, a financial crisis, forced migration that turns the seas into cemeteries, a social fracture in which the wealth of the poor accumulates upon the misery of many. The international order is in crisis. Imperial multilateralism seeks to impose its law through force, but the multipolar world has come to stay,” he affirmed.
He denounced the fact that the empire was intensifying its attacks and that Cuba continued to be one of the preferred targets of imperial fury, with the tightening of the blockade, its arbitrary inclusion on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, and massive media campaigns.
He denounced that the United States had allocated millions of dollars to promote regime change, and cited statements by the U.S. Secretary of State that he described as an “open threat from the government of the United States to the entire people if it does not submit to the yoke of the empire.”
However, he affirmed that Cuba had responded “with the dignity that characterizes us, with the resistance that is inherent to us.” He acknowledged the hardships: “daily life and blackouts that interrupt family life, shortages of water, the deterioration of the purchasing power of wages, fuel shortages that paralyze the economy and transportation, and the difficulty of completing the basic food basket.” But he emphasized: “We are not here to lament our hardships, but to change the things that cause us pain.”
He highlighted the achievements attained amid the crisis, including the sovereign response to the pandemic, the strengthening of urban and suburban agriculture, and the ability to turn adversity into opportunity.
Díaz-Canel announced that more than 30,000 professionals had graduated in recent days, including 705 from other countries.
The Cuban leader stressed the need to produce and generate wealth in order to distribute it with the greatest possible social justice and preserve the historic achievements of the Revolution. He clarified that the economic updating process “is intended to dynamize the economy and not to restore capitalism. There will be no privatization of enterprises; there will be no privatization of fundamental means of production, which will remain under the control of the people, while the country’s sovereignty and independence will be preserved in every respect.”
Díaz-Canel called on the participants in the colloquium to discuss the truth of Cuba and of all the peoples of Our America. “We call on you to discuss the truth of Cuba and of all the peoples of Our America in a world in which the great challenges lie ahead, and those that come from outside—you have the responsibility to be the ones who confront them,” he stated.
Addressing young people, he said: “Every young Cuban, every young person at every conference taking place in your countries is a trench of the Revolution. The battle of ideas has become the most vital trench against ideological obscurantism and the force of everything that stands opposed to progress.”
He concluded with a declaration of principles: “The future of our children, the dreams we must achieve, are in our hands.” He ended by quoting Fidel: “We are prepared to resist with dignity and greatness for as many years as necessary the blockade of imperialism. Cuba will know how to remain an example of a Revolution that does not surrender.”
(Cubadebate- EmbaCuba Bahamas)