BY MEGAN ARNEY

Below are major excerpts of the speech given by Fidel Castro, president of Cuba and first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, at the closing session of the 17th Congress of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC) on April 30. The translation appeared in the May 15 issue of the weekly Granma International. Subheadings are by the Militant. BY FIDEL CASTRO

It's not so easy to make a closing speech at a congress such as this, at a moment such as this, in the complex situations in which we are living; but for any person it is a very great honor to be granted such a privilege, because I believe it is one of the best congresses that I've seen.

In the first place, it is a political congress - as was noted on the first day - a revolutionary congress, an ideological congress. Very accurate and profound things were said here when it was expressed that this was not a congress of workers demanding a share of the power, or struggling to obtain power, but rather a congress of workers in power.

We have learned many things during these years of intense revolutionary struggle, but here we have learned new things, because we, or at least I had never gotten that exact impression of the nature of a people in power, with such clarity and such significance, as we have seen in this congress.

And it is not only that the workers are in power, but that the workers have been in power for 37 years, and are the living expression of the work undertaken during those years. And we have seen a number of workers' congresses, and the numbers have been eloquent: so many university graduates among the delegates, so many intermediate level graduates and so many more statistics that could be read, minus one: there is not one sole illiterate person, not one single person who does not know what he or she is doing, and why he or she is doing it. Only in these circumstances could something so moving and so stimulating as this congress be achieved.

The experience accumulated over years has also been brought to bear here. That was demonstrated from the first day, because - as was so well expressed - it's not a four-day congress, it's a year-long congress, and in one year the Cuban trade unions worked in a really admirable way to guarantee the quality of this event from the first day. You certainly haven't been on vacation, because throughout this special period you've had to participate in supremely important activities and processes, in very hard tasks as part of this major battle for the survival of the Revolution and of the nation, first in the workers' parliaments and then in the assemblies for efficiency.

Duty of defending many things
We cannot forget that we were faced with confronting and solving practically insoluble problems. How were we to do that? How, when the country was left on its own, losing everything overnight: markets, raw materials, fertilizers, fuel, credits; and also blockaded, and on top of that, morally battered, because it was a very hard blow for all of us to see those who had been our allies in the struggle collapsing, while the United States was emerging stronger, wealthier and more influential than ever.

In that task we had the sacred duty of defending many sacred things: we had to defend the nation, the country's history, the Revolution, the country's independence, dignity and even its life, because, can any of you conceive of life without the Revolution [Exclamations of "No!"] And could the millions and millions of patriots who have fought for so long conceive of life without the Revolution? [Exclamations of "No!"] So, the very life of a people was at stake in a unipolar world, on a little island without big rivers, without its own fuel, without large natural resources, and living next door to a power that did not easily resign itself to this country's existence, to this country's valor, to this country's challenge and this country's victories, and a power that has never given up the idea of destroying the Revolution and its achievements.

New information is appearing all the time especially when some files and documents are published relating to the many operations they have carried out against us. This people has had to take on the taming of not just one, two or three tigers, but of a thousand tigers. Somebody once said that it was a paper tiger, and, in the strategic sense it is, because one day it will cease to be master of the world; but for a little country that has had to fight every day since January 1, 1959, throughout the cold war and faced with this monstrous force, that is equivalent to having to tame I don't know how many beasts on countless occasions....

How it must pain them that at this congress we can speak of an infant mortality rate of under ten, and even under nine, after a minimum of five years of the special period! How painful must be the news that life expectancy has increased; that, in spite of the shortage of resources and medicines, our doctors are constantly making ever greater advances!

How can this Cuban miracle be compared with what we know is occurring in other parts of the world and particularly in Latin America? And they've wanted to destroy our country, they have even wanted to charge us with human rights violations, when the lives of approximately one million children and young people have been saved by the work of the Revolution. That reduction in infant mortality in the first year of life from 60 to less than ten signifies hundreds of thousands of babies' lives saved, to which can be added the hundreds of thousands over one year of age who have been saved, and the persons and lives saved by the Revolution, and the raising of life expectancy by 20 years for our compatriots.

The United States, which supported all the bloody regimes responsible for the disappearance of tens of thousands of people -some people affirm that it was hundreds of thousands, because there are countries where over 100,000 people disappeared after U.S. intervention, as was the case in Guatemala, and what happened in South America -with their arms, with their advisers, champions of torture, and of the application of inconceivable methods that they learned in the war in Vietnam and taught to the repressive forces in Latin America, in order to prevent another Cuban Revolution. It didn't matter to them if 100 infants out of every thousand die each year, and more in some countries with an extremely high average....

Recently you all read that a number of persons in England fell sick with an illness that attacks the brain. This is a fairly well known disease which also affects other species, such as sheep and cattle - it's a kind of molecule, they say, so as not to use another technical name - but it's a disease that rarely appears in humans- in the molecules of the sheep and cattle, there are common factors - and when there were ten or 12 cases in young people, a terrible panic broke out in Europe, and almost in the whole world, and there was talk of slaughtering millions of head of cattle, in places like England, just because of a theory.

During that same period, after the first news of that disease in England, between 8,000 and 10,000 persons died of meningitis in West Africa, without immunization or medical care. What would happen in Europe if 8,000 or 10,000 persons died of a similar illness within a few weeks? However, what occurred in Africa went practically unmentioned. How could the world achieve such a level of selfishness, such a lack of solidarity, that such things can happen?

Thus, diseases such as AIDS and others are on the increase; cholera, tuberculosis, this latter also associated with AIDS, and terrible problems of that type are appearing. That's of no importance to them.

How they must suffer knowing that in spite of their blockade of so many years, the collapse of the socialist bloc and the special period, as I said yesterday, we have been able to guarantee, in one form or another, one liter of milk per day to all children under seven years of age, and a considerable quantity of yogurt to children between the ages of seven and 13, at prices totally accessible to the population.

How they would suffer if they were to hear yesterday's story by the comrade from Amancio on how he had created a UBPC [Basic Unit of Cooperative Production].

Imperialist hatred of Cuba
There is hatred and at the same time respect, as I was saying. Contempt there cannot be, but there is a hatred for this country that they believed would fall a few days after the collapse of the socialist bloc and the USSR, but they are seeing the years pass by without it collapsing. On the contrary, and without exaggeration it is stronger; and on the contrary, and without exaggeration, it's beginning to advance and is advancing. It must really be unbearable.

They invent legislation and measures: the Torricelli Act, to destroy us from within, or to destroy us through hunger, through total economic strangulation. There are even lunatics who are thinking along the lines of destroying us, in an case, by force, without the least sense of responsibility for the implacable and unstoppable hornet's nest they would stir up in Cuba, and I am sure, on the whole continent if the craziness of a military action against our country was one day implemented. They come up with new legislation, a more rigorous blockade, new measures, a lot of pressure exerted on the world, anything rather than renouncing their obsessive idea of eliminating the Revolution.

Of course, all this makes us think, helps us to explain the causes. And now, when they are more haughty and arrogant than ever, more irresponsible than ever, they cannot resign themselves to what one day they will have to resign themselves to.

This sentiment of our workers and of our people has been expressed here energetically, patriotically, militantly, with a willingness to work hard and a very profound comprehension of the historical period we are living through, and of the extremely difficult battle that has to be waged.

All of that was expressed in the Congress and in the ideas clearly expressed by [CTC general secretary] Pedro Ross with your unanimous support, and discussed in the theses and supported in the assemblies, to the effect that what we are doing is socialism, and what we want is socialism, and what we are defending is socialism, [Applause] so that nobody should be left in any doubt. [Exclamations of, "Long live socialist Cuba!] That socialist Cuba, that power of the people, those achievements of the Revolution are what we are defending. I agree with what a woman comrade said this afternoon, that the first achievement was precisely the Revolution itself; the power of the people. This sentiment was expressed today as never before.

We have recovered so much morally, politically, in terms of awareness, from that crushing blow we received five or six years ago; it has been demonstrated, in passing - and making another Olympic allusion - that our country as a boxer has a tough, tough jaw, it's impossible to knock it out. [Applause] It resisted, it withheld the ideological blow and was able to resist heroically the tremendous material blow it received. And this can be clearly perceived and is palpable in the tone, in the spirit and in the dignity of the discussions here, which leads to the primary conclusion that the Revolution at this moment is stronger than ever. [Applause]

A new spirit has emerged
This congress has also been a highly important economic and social congress. During this year-long process, and up until today, every possible subject has been discussed, including problems with major implications, and very significant programs. The progress of the renewed effort in the sugar harvest, the planting, the weeding, the harvesting have all been discussed across the length and breadth of the island. Many ideas have been brought out, a great deal of knowledge has been acquired, and a new spirit has emerged....

That battle isn't won in a day! We had to deal with I don't know how many machines without parts; harvesters which had gone for many years without any repairs; no steel for the repairs; no steel for the sugar mills; no resources to buy engines and replace engines. The harvest was carried out with the possibilities we obtained as we went along, because we have resisted, given that the Revolution didn't collapse a few days after the disappearance of the socialist block and businesspeople and the world came to gain confidence in Cuba, and in Cuba's capacity to fight and to resist.

So, resources began to appear which we couldn't have even thought about in the early years: financing for tobacco cultivation, or cane, for rice and then for new products, significant credits of a notable volume, although, in real terms, we have to pay dearly for them, we have to pay them back at higher interest rates. No other country has to pay the interest rates that we are paying for those credits. That's the blockade, those are the pressures, that's the price that we have to pay for every one of these measures we've adopted to obtain resources, but we're doing it, and in this way we've started to raise production with minimal resources.

But you see what can be done today with a ton of fuel, with a ton of steel; we do three times as much as before with the machines we have available. We won those spaces and those possibilities with our fortitude, with our resistance, and that exasperates them.

In other countries they have spent billions to eradicate socialism; they've lent it, donated it and given it away and in exchange, production has fallen lower and lower. There was a time when our production lacked everything: fuel, raw materials for the textile industry and the machine industry, for numerous lines of manufacture, for the production of milk, meat, eggs; and the animal feed imported by our country.

Factories were completely paralyzed for lack of electricity, and entire thermoelectrical plants; there were neither materials to repair them nor sufficient fuel for minimum needs. So many factories had to close down.

And transportation. We had to see how the almost 30,000 daily journeys within City of Havana were reduced to 6,000 or 7,000. The country has had to acquire or manufacture two million bicycles to confront the transportation problems of workers, students, persons who needed mobility, two million bicycles! We set about improvising bicycle factories - to produce some of them, as you heard yesterday - searching for all kinds of solutions.

The loss of raw materials for footwear, clothing, everything. Such a material blow really could not be conceived.

You've seen how factories that were paralyzed have been made operational again, how raw materials have been appearing; how the machine industry is recovering; how the nickel industry is recovering; how sugar production is recovering; and how food production is recovering....

All those things are visible; however, one thing has a stronger claim on my attention: the reaction of the people, how we are beginning to observe this heartening and healthy state that has been developing since the most critical moments, since the time we were in intensive care; what the people have learned and how the idea of economic efficiency, one of the most important, and most decisive results of this congress, has taken hold.

Controls, savings, efficiency, loss reduction, increased earnings, profitability, the fight for enterprise profitability, the tremendous battle to save a factory, to keep it from closing because of its economic and social importance, all this can now be observed. The spirit of studying every aspect, that process which has been referred to as the reordering of the work force and that famous phrase you use: the redirecting of enterprises....

We have confronted the problems. It is the reverse of what happens everywhere else and of what is advised everywhere else by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United States: all those neoliberal theories that you're familiar with, all those practices, throwing out tens of millions of workers onto the streets, closing schools, closing hospitals, eliminating essential public services, without consulting with anybody, without talking with anybody.

Consulting the workers at every step
We could say that in this whole process of the special period, not a single step was taken without consulting the people, especially the workers. It has been a long process; it has been a long process to confront, from the previous stage to this moment, and we have had to adapt ourselves to unpleasant realities which make us suffer like a sick person in an intensive care unit, or in a state of severe crisis.

We also had to resign ourselves to many things that our minds didn't accept, our minds educated in a great spirit of equity, of equality, of equal possibilities for all, which we were able to enjoy for a number of years, in that stage in which the world was living.

Ramón [Castro] and others spoke of a mental blockade, but the thing is, in our minds we had a number of things, a number of good things. This people's spirit of solidarity has no parallel, its generosity, its willingness to help and give, its love of justice; that communist spirit of our people, because we had a communist spirit without an economy which could permit communism, and for that reason we always explained that socialism was one thing and communism was another....

The Revolution achieved all the things we have talked about, things which no other Third World country has attained and that, of course, many peoples have not attained. In social achievements, almost no other people in the world attained them.

At this moment I can't forget Vietnam, I can't forget China, countries which made enormous efforts, like we did, under difficult conditions. But what capitalist country achieved the level of social security, of social justice that our country has attained, of respect for the people attained in our country, of social security?

Some very rich people - and they became rich at the expense of underdevelopment, as a rule, of the rest of the world -had so much money and were so afraid of communism and socialism that they tried to implement a better distribution of the resources they had. That was before, wasn't it? Now the cold war's over, now the socialist bloc has collapsed, and now indeed measures are taken without concern for any class, and the capitalists and imperialists overdo their neoliberal measures so much that today even the International Monetary Fund speaks of social development, because it sees that the world is turning into a volcano and the situation is unbearable.

We observe those sentiments when our visitors tell us of what's going on; it's clear that the exploiters are starting to get afraid again. They're afraid of social upheaval, a raid of social explosions, afraid of chaos. They had lost these fears when they believed that they could commit injustices in this world with more freedom than ever, and now they're afraid again, so much so that the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other institutions speak about the need to dedicate some resources to social development.

Worldwide attacks on social benefits
Neoliberalism, the globalization of the economy, hegemonic policies, selfishness and the monopoly of all the resources are incompatible with any social development measure. And to tell the truth, no one knows what's happening with the money that these institutions, as a whole, intend to devote to social development. Furthermore, in the world a huge wave of corruption has been unleashed, and not just in Latin American countries or African countries - as they used to say - but also in Europe and the developed countries. There are also waves of violence, of drug consumption, social measures to achieve balanced budgets, and they also are reducing workers' pensions, public health spending for retired people, for the elderly. We see this problem quite a bit in Europe; they are merciless in their desire to balance their budgets, at the expense of social rights.

In the United States, there is a barbarous wave of measures to cut the U.S. population's social benefits, to the detriment of retired workers, the elderly, the sick, everyone. They're doing away with anything that hints of progressive politics in all these countries, in order to impose savage, merciless capitalism, with a fanatic faith that the laws of the market will solve everything. For that reason, they aren't in the state of euphoria and exhilaration that they were five years ago. Now they are full of worry because they don't really know what's going to happen.

Now, what a difference from what has happened in Cuba during the special period, what a different set of procedures for adopting measures. We had to take steps, many difficult measures. In all the countries, as someone who spoke on behalf of the foreign delegates said yesterday, a few people get together, they decide on measures and they apply them to the people mercilessly, with policemen on horseback, with tear gas, with police cars. We see that on television every day, whenever they put on some news from abroad. That's what happens and that's how they impose their measures. How different from the manner in which the Revolution took measures to solve terrible economic situations! First of all, no one was thrown into the street, as they say here, and the workers in the factories that were shut down continued to get paid, maybe not 100 percent but a large part of their previous income, at least a sufficient amount for the few things that could be bought. No one was abandoned....

A revolution, and certainly not this one, could not adopt measures of that kind, and none of us was willing to adopt measures of that kind. At the time there were advisers here of all kinds, we stood our ground, we did things as we thought they should be done. They were discussed in the National Assembly, they were discussed in the streets, they were discussed again in the National Assembly, they were discussed again in the streets, all the measures and economic openings, the joint ventures, the possibilities for foreign investment and the whole set of activities we have been carrying out to face the situation in a form we considered correct, with measures of all kinds.

Democratic and revolutionary methods
The financial situation had reached a critical point, that couldn't continue: 12 billion pesos in the street; and at a moment when we needed more than ever to work, many people were leaving their jobs, because one person's wages were enough to satisfy a family's needs; so, at the very moment when workers were needed, people were leaving their workplaces left, right and center; and on top of all this there was the transportation crisis, it was terrible. And we began to win the battle using these revolutionary and democratic methods, and the amount of money in circulation began to be reduced.

But remember all the measures we discussed and how many we had to take, and how many millions of people expressed their views, and how, finally, measures were taken which had been discussed and which had gained widespread consensus. Some of them were extremely hard, not those related to food, but to cigarettes, alcoholic beverages; gratuities were stopped. There are things that hurt and that have an influence....

Other measures were adopted, such as the farmers' markets, to give impetus to food production, to open up the possibility of being able to buy some things which were impossible to obtain, given the situation we were in, although, clearly, they weren't the methods we used before, when we could distribute pork, chicken, eggs, milk, etc., at minimum prices, which was a better way. Nor did we have the resources to establish parallel markets to bring in capital for the state. Nevertheless, we had to find a way of making that money circulate a little, to collect a little money and, moreover, many people were absolutely convinced that the farmers' markets were a solution, and since people with a lot of money in their pockets, who didn't have anything to spend it on, were saying, "It's better to have somebody supplying something, never mind the price...." There are criticisms of the markets because of the prices but, as I understand it, many people who complain about the market also defend it.

For me, it isn't an ideal formula, far from it, but it was a way, a measure that had to be taken, with its advantages and disadvantages. The intermediary inevitably emerged, and remains there because this is a personality associated with the free market....

Of course, one thing was inevitable: people began to spend money, and in the first year almost two billion pesos were brought in, I think it was 1.953 billion; in the second year it was about 700 million, already reduced by almost two-thirds because, naturally, money was being spent.

A relatively significant portion was recovered by the state, it was anti-inflationary; another far smaller portion was recovered by the state in taxes and other measures imposed on the farmers' markets and on self-employed workers. An even smaller portion by the UBPCs, as they are new organizations; and another by state companies; it was appropriate that they should recover money.

However, one of the sacred things that we had to defend was the ration system still available to the population, to guarantee that minimum amount of garden and root vegetables, of other food products where possible, and a significant proportion are imported foodstuffs. This meant guaranteeing rice, guaranteeing specific quantities of beans with what was imported; over 80 percent of the production of the UBPCs, of the cooperatives and of the remaining state enterprises all reached the population at local distribution points, and this year we've seen the miracle of non-rationed products, even if these are only cabbage and potatoes.

The organic farms began to produce results everywhere, they took off in almost all parts of the country; fresh vegetables began to appear at good prices, as a consequence of all those measures; but most of what was sold in the farmers' markets came from the private farmers, and was brought there by intermediaries who, up until now didn't pay taxes, and they are going to have to pay taxes.

Theft, not taxes, raises prices
Those sectors that do not want to pay taxes have created myths and confusion in relation to taxes, to the effect that they make things more expensive. What makes things more expensive is theft, not taxes. And that cabbage which was being sold at just 15 centavos, or that plantain selling at five centavos, as we heard here yesterday, did some tax make them more expensive? It's production that was able to reduce the prices....

A taxation system is very logical and is supremely fair. Don't ever let those sectors deceive a worker by putting the blame on taxes when theft is the cause, because they don't want to pay taxes. And we'll be in a fine fix if we allow a rich sector to emerge, that could wind up having millions if we're not careful, leaving us with the responsibility of paying for daycare centers, schools, hospitals, polyclinics, family doctors and all the social services provided by the Revolution, and which it would never renounce. [Applause] We'd much rather prevent the emergence of millionaires.

You can be sure that none of us shed a tear because there are no millionaires, although we know many honorable campesinos who have worked with the Revolution for many years, who obey the country's laws, who are efficient and who do not speculate or steal, and who have made a lot of money.

The fair prices that the state always paid, especially in the case of those who owned enough land, made that possible. It doesn't bother us that those families have high incomes. A person can work honorably and also fulfill with pleasure his or her most elemental duties to society. But there are some who charge whatever they please for any product or service. They exist, and they're getting rich. And now their money also has a value, because whoever had 150 pesos before could get one dollar and now they can get one dollar for 22 or 23 pesos.

Our rich are getting richer with the unavoidable measures we have had to take, we have to understand that, to know that; but they are also getting richer because the peso is acquiring value, and that's not a bad thing. What is worrying is that the rich who have easy access to pesos are getting richer, that's the truth.

However, we must point out that the wages earned by a worker with his own sweat are also taking on value, although he or she receives far less than the rich. We have nothing against rich people, what we want is for them to not steal from the people and that they pay taxes.

Some people say: "Why don't they set a price for their products and services?" Who can set a price for them if the individuals go to solve a problem here and there and deal privately with somebody who asks how much it costs, and then they come to an agreement? Who's going to be regulating the repair of a boxspring mattress or an old jalopy? But we can say: You have to pay taxes. Taxation is the way to recoup the abusive excess money that some people are taking in, and under a sworn declaration.

And, of course, it hurts all of you and it hurts us that the wages we are able to pay many workers in this country are inferior to what some people here earn in one day. There are people here who earn up to 500 pesos in one day, and more; such as the owner of a vehicle who for moving some family, leaves them completely broke, almost in the position of having to leave the furniture in the car in order to be able to pay the charges, and you know there are people like that.

Thus, I was telling you that we've introduced measures that are tough, that are not adapted to our mentality, nor to our concepts, nor to our things; but they are inevitable, they had to be established.

So, the buses stopped in Las Tunas, and the horse-drawn carriages appeared; they solved the problem, but the drivers were charging one peso for a ten-minute journey, and taking in 3000 to 4000 pesos per month. The People's Power delegates over there wanted to charge higher taxes, in line with what had been established.

The taxation system I'm referring to is not easy. It needs to be very well organized, very well controlled, very well studied, and those measures had to be implemented before the complete organizational structure for collecting taxes was set up. But it has been organized and it has been prepared to collect the taxes, and we have to collect them, because if all the money is accumulated in the hands of a few people in a short time, how are we going to improve somebody's wages, given the great needs that we have at this time? We haven't had as much success with everything as we have had with the cabbages and plantains, although one day we will have that success with many things.

But one thing is for sure already: as production levels have increased, in the UBPCs, in the cooperatives, among the campesinos, and even in the victory gardens, the crops grown for a workplace's own consumption, the organic farms, prices in the farmers' markets have seen a parallel drop, as you all know. And they have fallen not only because of increased production, but also because there is less money in circulation, and somebody who bought a mango for 20 pesos on the first day won't buy it now for more than one peso....

Nevertheless, it's very important that you understand that the money in circulation has not been reduced sufficiently. I already said that in the first year we brought in almost two billion pesos, the second year it was about half that amount; in short, of the almost 12 billion originally in circulation, about 2.8 billion pesos has been recovered....

One of the issues that we have to introduce into our compatriots' consciousness is taxation, something we're not accustomed to in this country, and far less after 37 years of the Revolution. I'm not talking about across-the-board taxation, that's not what's important; it was fully discussed by the CTC in the context of social security, and you have seen how that budget's growing, so that some contribution from the workers was essential. It was even agreed upon. We haven't wanted to rush into that, especially in a situation where money is growing more scarce, but we are ready to implement it at any time. That measure has not been applied in haste.

However, there are problems that we must solve. The social security system has to be backed in some way, as it is something that's growing steadily more expensive, and which, in some aspects, has been abused.

We heard and painfully learned that the number of people retired for total disability has dramatically increased. We have even thought about the idea of reviewing those cases, at least for educational purposes, covering a number of years, because the concept that one third of the retired persons were declared totally incapacitated before reaching retirement age demonstrates disorganization, demonstrates a lack of control, demonstrates the immorality of some doctors who are signing certificates, and the lack of an appropriate mechanism so that retirement for reasons of total disability is granted only in necessary and genuine cases....

Still need to reduce excess currency
There is one thing about which we must all be convinced: we cannot return to the situation we had at one point. We cannot renounce the need to reduce the currency in circulation to suitable amounts, if we want the peso to continue increasing its value, it we want investors who could be our partners to have confidence in us.

That was a movement which was gaining a lot of strength, the demand for investments, advancing rapidly. As I also explained to you yesterday, tourism and other things have been growing, despite the unending pressures and measures imposed by the United States.

Something useful took place with the increased valuation of the peso, the confidence established in those credits, in those loans and everything. And I want you to know that no other country has achieved what we have in terms of increasing the value of its national currency in the course of a year and a half.

This year, 1996, completes almost the second year of that. No other country has achieved it, and when we explain to visitors, businesspeople, that the country achieved that, they can hardly believe that the peso could have gained so much in value....

That boosts confidence, that stimulates loans, financing, joint ventures and all the activities with which we are defending ourselves.

Of course, there are factors which help us. Our neighbors to the North are increasingly making themselves into everybody's enemies; they are more and more hegemonic and arrogant, meriting the whole world's bad will and lack of understanding. And the world doesn't want to be ruled as badly as it is being ruled now, because the United States rules the world but is ruling it badly, and every day more people make up their minds to ignore the United States, to defy it, to fight against it.

This does not mean that we underestimate its strength, which is very great and very influential. But we see the number of disgusted people in the world growing like wildfire, and people are coming up with new ways to invest in Cuba and do business in Cuba one way or another. Since the measures taken by the United States are more and more absurd, we see this sentiment, I repeat, growing in the world.

The Helms-Burton Act has the purpose of halting all of that, of keeping a single cent from being lent to Cuba, of making sure that no one dares to invest in Cuba....

Conflicts among the capitalists
Of course, there are serious conflicts among the great economic powers. That is a law which was discovered by Lenin a long time ago, the economic conflicts among these countries, and sometimes what they create is a dogfight for markets and raw materials.

No one should think that life is happy, and as I said before - although at one point they were super-euphoric about what was happening, now they are more depressed because of what has happened, despite all the money they spent to dismantle socialism. They see that production isn't going up, but instead production is falling, that their illusions are more and more expensive, that capitalism doesn't solve anything, that not only where there was socialism, but also where there was capitalism, they are going to ruin. So they are embittered by these things, but they are also embittered by their inter-capitalist conflicts and struggles.

All of these things are happening, and meanwhile, the Cuban Revolution goes on, and we can speak of the things we have been speaking of in these days, or have been talking about tonight: not a single school has been closed, not a single daycare center, not a single home for the elderly, not a single preschool, not a single institute or educational facility, not a single scientific center; in fact, there are many more scientific centers now. In some places, we have extra capacity in the schools. Of course, we would have continued to build schools to replace the old ones with new ones, but the ones we have are all in operation....

A country like South Africa has asked for 600 doctors, which it will pay for, at a reasonable price, of course, because a doctor out there doesn't know how much his services would cost in a country like South Africa. The first doctors are already there I think there are 70 - and soon there will be several hundred. They are also going to give a part of the doctors' income to the Cuban public health system.

We can do with doctors what we do with teachers and, professors, giving them advanced study courses, converting that scientific strength into an instrument for the medical personnel's further advancement, for retraining, for preparing them more. We had this same idea in the past with other professionals, but the ensuing situation made that impossible.

If there is an excess of professionals, this can be used to retrain, for a year's sabbatical, for all those things. As I said yesterday afternoon or evening, it is much more reasonable to have a person trained as a doctor than to have a lumpen on the streets who doesn't know anything. True, there are much fewer admissions, because we have had to put a limit on admissions in this situation we are in. In a certain sense, we have exchanged quantity for quality, since we have more demanding requirements for entering the universities.

But, well, we have achieved all these things - I repeat - in the context of what is happening in the world, in this country that they left without anything. And I ask again what they would say if they heard the delegates talking here about cutting down spiny marabú bushes by hand. Listen, if cane grew as easily as marabú, we could flood the world with sugar. Those bushes grow by themselves! [Laughter]

I had the urge to ask those comrades from Guantánamo and other places when they talked, who planted the marabú? Because it's as if for the past five or six years we had concentrated on growing marabú. And what a brave battle to confront the marabú with a machete and an ax! What a good idea of using it as fuel, like firewood for cooking, for all those things! And what a valiant job!

The things we heard here today were truly admirable. That's why I spoke of the economic and social importance of what you have discussed throughout the year and above all in this congress.

I really admired what I heard about the contingent from Santiago de Cuba that's working in Ciego de Avila, what it has done, the fact that it has done so through its own willpower and persistence; what the Mambisa Division in Holguín has done, in a relatively short time and in the midst of heavy rainfall; and what the comrades from Guantánamo said about what they were doing; what the comrade from the UBPC said, the one we talked about before, and the other UBPC members who talked here. We heard things we had never heard before, and I know that spirit reigns throughout the country and especially in the rest of the country's provinces. The struggle in the capital is always a little harder, a little more difficult, more problems. But on the visits the comrades from the Political Bureau make to the provinces, all of them bring back very favorable impressions. Some of them, like to go out to the provinces to see the spirit prevailing there, to see that great boost the people are giving.

Before no one could conceive of any project without bulldozers. In any case, we can't send to the Antillana Steelworks the bulldozers [Alfredo] Jordán [minister of agriculture] says he still has left. They would have to get the spare parts. He knows how many spare parts must be obtained in order to get them running. And some of these provinces that make efforts of that kind, if they can hand over a bulldozer or two, they should do so. It's only right, they should have them available.

I want all of you to know that the Revolution bulldozed the marabú areas and planted grass, planted rice, planted cane and planted many things, all kinds of things. I still remember that brigade which, with hundreds of bulldozers, got all the way to Pinar del Rio, and the Revolution also built dams and all the things it did. But there were a lot of resources, a lot of fuel, a lot of trucks, a lot of spare parts and money. The miracle is that now we're doing the things we're doing with the resources we have and with the awareness that we can do much more and we can be more efficient....

Must not lose a moment
Not all lands are alike, not all crops are alike. I think Jordán knows a lot about this, along with Comrade Nelson [Torres, minister the sugar industry], in terms of taking any positive experience to the provinces. We can't go crazy and say that we're going to do everything in one year, but we must not lose a minute in extending these positive experiences. A positive experience in sugar cane is the recovery of the land. You can't imagine how much is saved and what it signifies.

Yesterday we talked of millions of additional tons of sugar needed; a large part of that is hidden in the weeds that grow alongside the cane, in addition to a few more hectares that must be planted - and we must plant all we can - as well as the way it is done, the seriousness with which it is done, the application of fertilizers and herbicides, the use of drainage wherever possible. Aside from all these measures and along with all these measures, we can obtain those millions of tons. We have them, they are there, but it depends a lot on us, on our efforts....

The harvest has these problems I mentioned. I can give you a positive statistic, which is that as of today there were 4.150 million tons. [Applause] That means with 350,000 more tons of sugar, we will reach the minimum goal we had set ourselves. We say this is minimum, it all depends on the climate, the circumstances....

It is indispensable for us to achieve these proposed goals, because they also play a part in all the other things I explained: the confidence in us, the financing, both of which we need so much. That's why this month of May is going to be a month of a lot of work, and very hard work. June and the other months are also important, but this one will be decisive, because we have to cultivate that cane planted in April, which can be cut. Whatever we can plant in the first half of May will be very important.

That's more or less the situation we have in the cane. Now, the problem is also, as I said, to achieve more growth next year, and we can do it if we work with the spirit reflected here and expressed by many comrades - and I repeat - there have been impressive things and impressive results.

Now we're anxious to see what the workers from Santiago de Cuba will achieve in Ciego de Avila with their cucumber, their cabbage, their early potatoes and all those things. [Applause] We're anxious to see how the quality tests on the outer tobacco leaves come out in other provinces.... We're anxious to see how all the rice growing programs are going, to raise the large portion of the production, because rice is scarce, it's going for almost 500 dollars a ton on the world market, and it was worth 240 or 250, and sometimes even with money you can't buy it. So we must work with great speed in all the rice paddies and we need some resources.

We are also progressing in citrus. A set of formulas have appeared and we are going to continue searching for formulas which allow us to find more jobs, more resources for the country.

We have gotten an excellent impression from the construction workers, who were receptive to the things that were pointed out to them, and clear prospects can be seen in all of that.

The sugar workers have had a marvelous response, and things had also been pointed out to them. And what we wanted to say is that we can't win this battle, we can't overcome this special period if we do stupid things, or we're negligent, or we lose faith. There was really no reason why the seed banks and other things were lost, when they should have been preserved.

No hesitation in discussing wages
So we've gotten through these years, which were hard and somewhat demoralizing; there were errors, things that were done badly, and there still are and will be in the future. But our struggle must be implacable, we must come out of this congress like a brave army, which has been able to discuss anything. And there was no hesitation in discussing wages, although we know what many workers are feeling at this moment; they have needs, they have less money. Now the produce is a little cheaper in the farmers' markets, but we have to work very hard so that they get even less expensive and so prices don't go up again.

We've made calculations to the point of exhaustion. It hurts us very much to know that there are sectors making a big effort without a great remuneration, such as teachers, health workers. The health and education sectors must have about 700,000 workers in diverse categories, including doctors, nurses, technicians, hospital personnel, 700,000 to 800,000 workers. A small wage raise would means hundreds of millions of pesos more circulating each year.

We are happy to know that, with the measures taken during the special period and the new forms of payment, formulas of socialist remuneration, with the things we did in agriculture, the creation of the UBPCs and the improvements in the work of the state farms, it is possible to hear that an agricultural worker earned 11,000 pesos in one year working and producing a lot; that the incomes of hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers have gone up in many cases, since they were, in addition, the worst paid in the country. This was an error committed in other times, when some sectors such as agriculture had minimum wages - I remember, it wasn't so many years ago - of 80 pesos a month, and of course that contributed to the exodus to the cities.

Now the situation has changed. It's very good news that so many thousands of people have joined the UBPCs, the state farms, the various plans, and they are building housing, and they even make them from marabú, and we are producing a little more cement, a few more iron rods, and our plans to build about 50,000 low-cost housing units are being met. That wasn't a goal, it was an idea, but it spread rapidly, and we have to see how we progress.

You saw what the members of the UBPCs in Las Tunas have done, the houses they have built, how they found ways to do things, how they have moved in. Really, what gave me a laugh was when he explained how he moved, even though he had a good housing in town, and how the union leader and later the secretary of the Party cell also moved in. That's the way to win the battle, there's no doubt about it. [Applause]

He did what he had to do to plant hundreds of kilometers of plants to serve as fencing when there was no wire. That's very important. To gather up all the cows running around loose and guarantee the milk for a town with hundreds of children, that's a feat and it demonstrates what we can accomplish with what we have. If there is no fencing, there are plants, and there are many other formulas our people have come up with and have been discovering in these years of the special period.

We may have to erect a monument one day to the special period! If we keep on learning the way we have been learning, if two or three congresses more are like this one, we will have to start laying the cornerstone for a monument to the special period, [Applause] for teaching us to live off our own resources - live off our own resources! - and to take much better advantage of everything we have, that invaluable treasure which is our people's intelligence, knowledge and preparation.

How much does that all cost and who has it? How much money would the International Monetary Fund have to lend so that any other country in Latin America could have the levels of education, culture and health that Cuba has today, despite the special period? [Applause] Just to do so in Latin America, that institution wouldn't have enough funds, and we have it, we have to preserve it, every day we have to find one cent more for this project, which we carried out before because there were resources and we wanted to do it, of course, but resources weren't the limiting factor. The limiting factor was our lack of administrative efficiency in investing and other things....

We are a medical power. We are a cultural power, as a result of our modest efforts beginning at the start of the Revolution with art schools and all that. We are an educational power, and we became so principally on the basis of our own experiences and our own teachers. We have all the universities we want, we have a profusion of universities. All the university - educated teachers who stayed I'm not going to say that there are too many of them because they might feel hurt - can work and help us with their knowledge, their science. As has been demonstrated here in this congress, we are in good shape in many things and in not-so-good shape in others.

We don't have an industrial culture, although we have advanced a lot. Others have the advantage of having an industrial culture in their habits, in their respect for technical norms. We don't have a culture for administration and efficiency, and we have to acquire that at all costs and develop with all speed.

Promote men and women with initiative
We need to promote men and women with initiative, because as someone said, "Oh, if only there were 1,000 comrades like the one from Las Tunas!" I'm sure that in this country there are thousands of comrades like the one from Las Tunas, like the one from Ciego de Avila, like the one from Holguín, like the one from Guantánamo, like those from any province in the country. We have them, but we must discover them, we must promote men and women with initiative, ideas, determination, character and a vocation for dealing with people, because in the efforts talked about here, the subjective element played a very important role, winning over all of those involved.

We had an experience, which was the war [that overthrew the Batista dictatorship in 1959]. The war was hard, going up and down mountains is hard and the sacrifices are great. Nevertheless, many people joined such a difficult effort. We wouldn't have been able to win the war it we hadn't won over the people. Whoever wants to win a battle, to achieve an objective, must first win over the people, and the moral stimulus is not only giving someone a diploma but saying "good morning," asking about the relative who's sick.

The capitalists, who exploit the workers, have studied a lot of techniques about how to win the sympathy of the workers, they've really studied it. We socialists, who see work as a duty, don't concern ourselves so much about that, or in general, socialists did not pay much attention to the individual. Now we are doing a much better job of combining material incentives and moral incentives. But that comrade could never have had enough money to do the things he did; it was a matter of winning over those who were going to do things with him. He even had to win over the affection of the cows, who were going to give milk to the people of Guayabal.

For a long time we were too optimistic about ideas. Moral incentives were practically the focus, and actually we did many things with moral incentives. What our people have done is tremendous. And what about the 500,000 citizens who have gone on internationalist missions, what have we paid them with? I say this because we cannot underestimate moral influences in the slightest, even, I repeat, wishing someone good morning. This people has done great things with moral force and moral incentives.

I think that now we are happily combining these concepts, in terms of payment for work, at least. I don't know if there is the same concern today about moral incentives as there is for material incentives, but at least in terms of ideas, in terms of concepts, we are clear that they must be combined.

Now I am convinced that there is no moral incentive comparable to what those comrades experienced when they spoke here - many of them - explaining what they had done, the pride they felt. They're like the independence fighters. Everything they did was for honor, patriotism, pride.

Let's combine the two things: people's satisfaction with what they have done and the benefits they and their families can receive from what they have done. I think that also is an important lesson of the special period.

The path is really very clear. I don't want to fail to mention how moved I was to see all the different examples here, and permit me to say that the congress has had great moral and human worth.

It's almost frightening to think about that worker who turned over - and he completed them today - 71,000 pesos earned through voluntary work to defend the country. [Applause] It's even a blow to the excess currency in circulation. He didn't spend it - and this is not a criticism of anyone who goes to buy anything in the farmers' markets - he turned it in. What an example.

Equally moving was the case of the woman from Holguín who turned over 16,000 dollars. And the man from Ciénaga de Zapata, who turned over 20,000 dollars. [Applause]

Don't you think that these examples will go down in history and symbolize this period? And we're not urging other citizens to do the same, it would be inconceivable, that's not what we're asking. But you feel pride and admiration for the human species when you find people so unselfish, so generous....

`We calmly view enemy's maneuvers'
It's admirable how ideas are so powerful that they can be truly invincible. That is why we here serenely and calmly view the enemy's maneuvers, what they could be thinking, and sometimes we even know what they're thinking, but we have the luxury of analyzing them calmly, serenely. We know they suffer because of what we've done, how we've stood our ground. We know it makes them furious and that rage can be dangerous.

That country is also going through an election campaign which is madness. Politicking reigns, and that makes them dangerous. At this moment, people with the necessary character are not at the forefront. Sometimes we see symptoms of weakness which are amazing. The very fact that this administration would in the end support the cruel, inhumane, brutal and stupid Helms-Burton Act demonstrates an undeniable weakness of character and a lack of ethics.

But I didn't come here to stir you up; on the contrary, I came here to urge all of you and ourselves to be composed, patient, to combine patience with intelligence.

If there is one thing our enemies should know, it was summed up once in a phrase that went: "Intelligence must be accompanied by valor and valor must be accompanied by intelligence." Believe in the Party, in the serenity and composure of the Party, because we clearly see all the maneuvers and provocation aimed at creating conflicts, if possible, since they cannot bear to see Cuba's heroic resistance. Let's say it makes them heartsick.

It seems that everything Cuba has done in these years, the trial it is going through, the successes it is beginning to have, cause very sharp chest pains and heart attacks. And we have such good medications for heart attacks, produced in our laboratories! Streptokinase is excellent and doesn't cause any clotting. [Laughter]

The superpower, always super-arrogant, without - I repeat - the necessary character in certain circumstances, without ethics, is dangerous.

The Revolution's goal is not to win wars, no. Its goal is to win a war if it is imposed on us; but we have no intention of promoting war or of being provoked.

This country's situation is far from desperate, and for that reason we are calm, hopeful, we have no need for conflict. We can win our battles without conflict. That is, we do not want war, but no one better get the crazy idea of taking military action against Cuba, even with illusions about their technological resources. No one better get the notion that they could force this people to its knees.

No one should get carried away with the notion that this country can be humbled, or that we wouldn't be able to fight for 100 years and all the years necessary. [Applause]

We want and need peace in order to continue with this heroic work, but no one should get the idea of interfering with the effort we're making, or trying to destroy what we're doing, no one should get the notion of provoking us, because we have accomplished feats up until now, but this people is capable of feats much greater still. [Applause]

This defines our policies. Our Party, our country have an excellent leadership team, in the Party and the government, in the CTC, in the mass organizations. We have everything necessary to achieve our objectives and we have the will to accomplish them.

We want all those millions of children to be able to benefit from what we are building today. Anyone who attacks Cuba's interests is not attacking our interests. We do not fight principally for ourselves, but for children such as the one we saw here today; we are fighting for our young people, for our students, and we want to nurture our dream that one day they can live in a country like the country we know we are capable of building. We cherish the illusion that all that hope expressed to us by our illustrious visitors will never be betrayed, and that the symbol Cuba has become will be maintained. We didn't want Cuba to become a symbol, but the symbolism stems from our duty and our need, plus our enemies' hostility and hatred at the fact that we want to do what we consider just and noble, because what we want is the best not only for our people, but for all the peoples.

That is why we like to call ourselves internationalists, socialists, Communists. [Prolonged applause] And they are going to respect us more because of it, since those who betray their ideals are not respected, those who betray their principals have never been respected and will never be respected. For that reason, we are certain that Cuba will be respected, Cubans will be respected, our people will be respected. [Prolonged applause]

There are three things that fortify us, which have become very clear since the Central Committee plenum and since this congress: the expression of what we have wanted to be, of what we are and of what we will always be. [Applause]

Therefore, with true pride we can all say today, so that no one can doubt it:

Socialism or death!

Patria o muerte! [Homeland or death]

Venceremos! [We shall win]  
 
 
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