Roberto Montesinos Pérez
Official, Department of Education, Science, Culture and Sport
Central Committee, Communist Party of Cuba
www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org
First of all, I would like to bring a fraternal and militant salute to the organisers and to all participants of the Seminar, from the part of the communists and the revolutionary people of Cuba.
The designs of those who, after the collapse of socialism in Europe and the disappearance of the Soviet Union predicted the death of the Cuban Revolution, have not come true. Today I am standing before you, representing the Communist Party of Cuba, with the message that the Revolution of Martí, of Che Guevara and of Fidel Castro, has not been defeated, has not surrendered and will not capitulate. It is this same revolution that we like to call socialist and that has as its most sacred internationalist duty to struggle for the final triumph of the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin in our country, as the most significant contribution that we can make to the cause of the liberation of all those who are fighting for the cause of justice, for the cause of progress, so that we may reach the situation of well-being that our human nature presupposes.
The fact that a delegation of our Party has participated in the Seminar in the preceeding years, allows me to focus our contribution on the event that we consider to be the most useful for you, namely the mark the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, held in October 1997, has left on Cuban society, the evaluation we made there of the accomplishment of our mission and of the current conjuncture, and the process of implementing the political line agreed upon by the Congress for the present and the immediate future.
At the Vth Congress the ranks of our Party were reinforced, qualitatively and quantitatively: of the more than 780,000 militants, 232,000 have entered the organisation over the last five years.
Between the IVth and the Vth Congress, the PCC has grown, in absolute figures, with 140,000 militants. The workers, with 32.1%, continue to be the most numerous group, with a significant representation of professionals and technicians (13.8%), teachers and professors (8.2%) and services workers (7.5%). This growth shows beyond doubt the confidence of the Cuban people in its Party and the identification with its politics in the historically most difficult moment of our Revolution.
Almost the totality of militants who have entered the Party in this period, did so through processes initiated by assemblies, in which the work collectives chose those who were identified as examples. Aside from their merits, they have also demonstrated a willingness to assume sacrifice and responsibilities that presuppose taking up vanguard positions in the hardest and most complex period.
At the same time, in accordance with the age structure of our members - approximately 25% is younger than 35 years - and with our concept of the participation in the leadership of society by the various generations that are pushing the Revolution forward, there has been a renovation of the leading party organs. Young cadres have been incorporated. They are culturally and politically better prepared, caracterised by modesty, austerity and rightmindedness, committed to a style of work that links them closely with the people, and ever ready to be measured by their results.
In the closing of the Congress, comrade Fidel alerted us on the necessity to preserve and enrich these qualities, with an ever-increasing protagonism of the organs of collective leadership. These take the most vital decisions with an ever more collective character, always stay in touch with the people, attend to their needs, opinions and criticisms, and are led by the strong spirit of Martí - personalised in Fidel more than in anyone - in that the execution of public office means to serve the fatherland and the people.
This position of uncompromising commitment for the people and their Revolution has guided the actions of our Party, State and Government in all those years. By adopting far-reaching decisions for the survival of the country in this (as we call it) Special Period, the Party did not only take the necessity of a certain measure or the establishment of a certain policy into account, but its expediency and the understanding of the collective, sector, territory or village to which it was directed.
These years of the Revolution, we have had to take difficult decisions, with contradictory effects, such as the integration in our society and in its economic base of capitalist elements. But in these conditions, a lesson for us has been the honesty of the countryís leadership, averse to any populism or demagoguery; their clarity in explaining things to the people; and their complete assumption of responsibility for the decisions taken.
In the economic field, the Congress has evaluated that as a result of the decisions taken, the country has been able to stop the economic downfall in 1994, and has started a difficult but certain process of restoration, in which we find ourselves today, notwithstanding the opportunist sharpening of the North American blockade against Cuba, which has been converted in a virtual economic war against our country.
In the political field, in circumstances in which any other country would have recurred to restrictive and exceptional measures in accordance with the Law, our country, by vocation, has broadened the peopleís participation in the most vital decisions. This includes the election by direct and secret ballot of all provincial delegates and all representatives to the National Assembly of People Power, the highest representation of the Cuban State. In the recently concluded elections of January 1998, the rate of participation of the popation was 98%, thus maintaining the principle that it are the people who vote and elect and not the Party.
Assemblies for Economic Efficiency and Workersí Parliaments have been established in the factories, cooperatives, service units and others, as a new participatory form of revolucionary trade-unionism. Congresses have been held of workers, students, women and children, all expressions of the development and deepening of our popular, revolutionary and socialist democracy.
Our understanding that socialism is not only social justice, but also development and efficacy, is today at the helm of the Partyís action, in an effort to transform the best experiences in a collective form of action. In the same way, the deep conviction that what is politically and ideologically essesntial and decisive, is linked to the problems of our compatriots in their daily life, , as well as an ever-increasing collective sense of responsibility, are at the basis of the superior attitude and responsibility of each cadre and leader.
Comrades,
The price we have to pay for sustaining our Revolution in our current conditions is high, and we are ready to pay it. But this does not imply that, from the leadership of our Party down to the last militant, we will no longer exert all efforts to reduce and minimise the effects of the measures taken that run counter to socialism; to preserve social justice together with economic development, to maintain a united society with solidarity, in which the redistribution corresponds ever more with the quantity and quality of labour contributed and with its social usefullness. That is what we are working for and we will keep working for in the future.
Thus, the challenges with which the ideological activity of our Party is confronted with today, cannot be reduced to guaranteeing a viable, stable and sustainable economic solution. Rather, foremost is the necessary preservation of the revolutionary values by which our society has been sustained and on which the force the Revolution still has today, has been built. The struggle to continue forming a people of "new men" remains today at the heart of the destiny and future of the Cuban Revolution.
The plan of the enemy to eliminate the Cuban example, to make us disappear as a nation, is based on a strategy to make us renounce socialism, renounce our ideology, abandon our culture. It is based on a strategy to imbibe in our intellectuals, our youth and our people the vision that economic success is associated to the cult of capitalism, its modern techniques and reproductive mechanisms. That they will not succeed, will depend on our capacity, our firmness, our intelligence. That is what we are working for.
In opposition to neoliberal globalisation, let us put forward the globalisation of the solidarity of the peoples, the political forces and the social movements. Let us demonstrate to the world that only socialism has a future, let us not stop to denounce the manifest incapacity of capitalism to produce anything beyond the continuous reproduction of human alienation.
Thank you very much.