In these speeches Guevara challenges youth to work. To become disciplined. To fearlessly join the vanguard on the front lines of struggles, small and large. To read and to study. To aspire to be revolutionary combatants. To politicize the organizations and institutions they are part of and in the process politicize themselves. To become a different kind of human being as they strive together with working people of all lands to transform the world. And, along this line of march, to renew and revel in the spontaneity and joy of being young.

The Union of Young Communists (UJC) was a creation of the Cuban revolution. Initially called the Association of Rebel Youth (AJR), it was created by the Rebel Army Department of Instruction, headed by Guevara, in December 1959. In October 1960 the AJR fused with other revolutionary-minded youth groups, thus bringing together within its ranks young people from three organizations: the July 26 Movement; the youth wing of the Popular Socialist Party; and the March 13 Revolutionary Directorate. In April 1962 the AJR adopted the name Union of Young Communists.

The speech that follows was given May 9, 1964 to a seminar held over six days on "Youth and the Revolution" sponsored by UJC members working in the Ministry of Industry. The closing session was addressed by Guevara, who had headed the ministry since its creation in February 1961.

When the Ministry of Industry was formed, it was given authority over 287 enterprises with some 150,000 workers. Under Guevara's leadership, the ministry set about creating an integrated and centralized national structure of industrial enterprises, giving the working class greater leverage in determining economic and social priorities. Through this effort, the revolutionary government confronted many key challenges in leading the transition to socialism.

In organizing the planning and management of Cuban industry, Guevara emphasized that advances in the productivity of labor depended, first and foremost, on the transformation of the political consciousness of the working class as the toilers carried out the revolutionary task of building socialism. As workers developed their technical and administrative skills and also organized volunteer work brigades to meet pressing social needs, they would develop new, communist attitudes toward work. "We can undertake the task of creating a new consciousness because we have new forms of relations of production," Guevara wrote in February 1964, a few months prior to the seminar. Cuba's legacy of imperialist-imposed economic backwardness did not bar this course, he insisted. "The development of consciousness can advance ahead of the state of the productive forces in any given country" once the means of production belong to society, no longer to individual owners.

The goal is that "man-as-commodity" cease to exist, Guevara explained in "Socialism and Man in Cuba" in early 1965. In the transition to socialism, man "starts to see himself reflected in his work and to understand his full stature as a human being through the object created, through the work accomplished. Work no longer entails surrendering a part of his being in the form of labor power sold, which no longer belongs to him, but represents an expression and extension of himself, a contribution to the common social existence in which he is reflected."

The translation is copyright © 2000 by Pathfinder Press.  
 

I was interested in talking with you, giving you some of my opinions, because I have often had a critical attitude toward the youth—not as youth per se but as an organization. In general, however, my critical approach has not been backed by suggestions for practical solutions to the problem. In other words, my role has been something like a sniper, a role not in keeping with other responsibilities I have, including as a member of the leadership, of the party secretariat, and so forth. There have been conceptual questions over the character of a youth organization that we have never totally agreed on. We have always thought that the youth, as an organization, had somewhat of a mechanical approach. And in our opinion, this prevented it from becoming a genuine vanguard. Naturally, all these problems ended up being discussed for a long time.

The youth organization was in fact born under our direct guidance, in its first embryonic form, when the Association of Rebel Youth was formed, subordinate to the Rebel Army's Department of Instruction. Later on it separated off, acquiring its own political characteristics.

Although I held a critical attitude toward the youth, this attitude was not always accompanied by proposals for systematic and concrete work. This is a very complex problem because it relates to everything that involves the party's organization. From a theoretical point of view—and not just with regard to the youth—we have a series of concerns we still have not been able to fully resolve. What is the role of the party? I'm not talking about its role in abstract, general terms, with which we are all familiar. But what should the party's approach be in each of the various fronts where it has to function? To what degree does it participate in public administration? What should be its degree of responsibility? What should be the relationship, for example, between the various levels of public administration and the party?

These are problems that have not been set down in rules, and that we are all familiar with. They are problems that create frictions at various levels. Take the National Directorate [of the party] and the Council of Ministers—here the interdependence of the two bodies is clear, and often the individuals involved are the same. Beyond this, each of these bodies functions independently. Certain work habits are created in each, concepts that clash in real life, and for which we have yet to find practical solutions. Obviously, this also has to do with the fact that there are different conceptual approaches at work, none of which has been able to prove itself more efficient and rational than the other. In fact, these concepts come from analyzing the deep problems that have occurred inside the socialist camp—from the very moment the first socialist revolution triumphed, from the October Revolution of 1917 up to the present.

These concepts must be analyzed and studied in depth, particularly in light of the specific features of our revolution. This revolution began as a mass movement supporting an insurrectional struggle, without the formation of an organic party of the proletariat. It later merged with the party representing the proletariat, the Popular Socialist Party, which to that time had not been leading the struggle.

Owing to these characteristics, our movement is fully impregnated by the petty bourgeoisie, both on the individual level and politically. In the course of the struggle and the revolution, each of us kept evolving, since the majority of the revolution's leaders, in terms of their class background, come from the petty bourgeoisie, and some even from the bourgeoisie.

This kind of baggage gets dragged along for quite a period of time; it cannot just be cut out of the minds of men overnight. This was so even when the socialist character of the revolution was declared—it was a declaration after the fact; there already was a socialist revolution because we had wrested the majority of the key means of production. But politically we were not moving forward evenly in step with all the advances the revolution was making on the economic level and in certain ideological areas.

This characteristic of our revolution means we have to be very cautious in characterizing our party as the leader of the working class as a whole, and above all with regard to its concrete relations with each of the different administrative bodies, the army, the security apparatus, and so on.

Our party does not yet have statutes. Our party still is not even completely formed. So the question is: Why don't we have statutes? There is plenty of experience; that is to say, experience that goes back almost fifty years. So what is going on? The answer is that there are certain questions about this experience that we are still trying to come to grips with, questions to which you cannot just give a spontaneous or superficial answer, because they have extremely important implications for the revolution's future.

In Cuba the ideology of the old ruling classes maintains its presence through the consciousness of individuals, as I indicated earlier. In addition, it remains present because it is constantly being exported from the United States—the organizing center of world reaction—which physically exports saboteurs, bandits, propagandists of all sorts, and whose constant broadcasts reach the entire national territory with the exception of Havana.

In other words, the Cuban people come in permanent contact with imperialist ideology. This is then repackaged here in Cuba by propaganda outfits scientifically organized with the goal of projecting the dark side of our system, which necessarily has dark sides because we are in a transitional period and because those of us who have led the revolution up to now were not professional economists and politicians with a lot of experience, backed by an entire staff.

At the same time, they promote the most dazzling and fetishistic features of capitalism. This is all introduced into the country, and sometimes it finds an echo in the subconscious of many people. It awakens latent feelings that had barely been touched owing to the speed of the process, to the huge number of emotional salvos we have had to fire to defend our revolution—where the word "revolution" has merged with the word "homeland," has merged with defense of every single one of our interests. These are the most sacred of all things for every individual, regardless of class background.

In face of the threat of thermonuclear aggression, as in October [1962], the people came together automatically.¹ Many who had never even done guard duty in the militias showed up to fight. Everyone was transformed in the face of this clear injustice. Everyone wanted to demonstrate their determination to fight for their homeland. This was also a decision by people faced with a danger from which they could not possibly escape by remaining neutral, since neither embassies nor anything else will be considered neutral by an atomic bomb; everything is annihilated.

That is how we have been advancing, by leaps, uneven leaps, the way all revolutions advance, deepening our ideology in certain areas, learning even more, developing schools of Marxism.

At the same time, we constantly worry about coming to positions that could stop the revolution's progress and introduce through the back door petty-bourgeois concepts or imperialist ideology by way of these critical attitudes about the party's tasks throughout the state apparatus. That is why the party is not yet properly organized today. That is why we have not yet achieved the necessary degree of institutionalization at the top levels of the state.

But we are also trying to address several other questions. We need to create something new, which we feel should precisely reflect the relationships that should exist between the masses and those in positions of power, both directly and through the party. We have made various trial runs along these lines: pilot projects of various types of local administration—one in El Cano, a different one in Güines, yet another in Matanzas. Through these trial runs we are constantly observing the advantages and disadvantages of all these different systems—which contain within them the germ of a higher type of organization—for the development of the revolution and above all for the development of centralized planning.

The work of the youth was conducted within the context of this vast sea of ideological struggles among distinct supporters of different ideas, even if there were no defined tendencies or currents. The youth organization began functioning first as an outgrowth of the Rebel Army; later it acquired greater ideological depth, and then it transformed itself into the Union of Young Communists, which we could call the antechamber to party membership, which necessarily implies the obligation of acquiring a higher level of political education.

Faced with these problems, there was no real discussion, although some discussions were held on the role of the youth organization, from a practical standpoint. Should the youth organization meet for three, four, or five hours to discuss profound philosophical questions? They can do so—no one is saying this is forbidden. But it is simply a question of balance and of one's attitude to the revolution, to the party, and above all to the people. The fact that the youth are taking up questions of theory shows they have already achieved a certain theoretical depth. But if all they are doing is grappling with theoretical questions, it means the youth have not been able to get beyond a mechanical approach, and are confused about their goals.

There has also been talk about how youth are by definition spontaneous, joyful. So the youth—and I'm talking in general, not about the particular group in the ministry here—have organized joyfulness. Then young leaders set about thinking, what is it youth should be doing, since, by definition, it's supposed to be merry and fun. Precisely this was turning youth into old people. Why should a young person have to sit down and think about what youth should be?

They should simply do what comes to mind, and that, in fact, will be what youth do. But this wasn't what happened, since there was a whole group of youth leaders who had truly grown old. That's when this joy, this youthful spontaneity is turned into superficiality. So we have to be careful.

We should not confuse the happiness, the freshness, the spontaneity of youth all over the world—and especially Cuban youth, because of the nature of the Cuban people—with superficiality. These are two absolutely different things. It's possible and necessary to be spontaneous and gay, but one has to be serious at the same time. So this is one of the most difficult problems to resolve when presented for theoretical discussion. Because, simply put, this is what it means to be a Young Communist. You shouldn't think about how to be one, it has to come from within.

I don't know if I'm getting into deep, semiphilosophical waters, but this is one of the problems we have discussed the most. The main way the youth must show the way forward is precisely through being the vanguard in each of the areas of work they participate in.

This is why we have often had certain little problems with the youth: that they weren't cutting all the sugarcane they should, that they weren't doing as much voluntary labor as they should. In short, it is impossible to lead with theories alone; and much less can there be an army composed only of generals. An army can have one general, maybe several generals and one commander in chief if it is very large. But if there's no one to go into the battlefield, there's no army. And if the army in the field isn't being led by those who have gone into the field themselves, who've gone to the front, then such an army is no good. One of the attributes of our Rebel Army was that the men promoted to lieutenant, captain, or commander—the only three ranks we had in the Rebel Army—were those whose personal qualities had distinguished them on the field of battle.

The first two ranks—the lieutenants and captains—were the ones who directed combat operations. So that is what we need— lieutenants and captains, or whatever you want to call them. You can take away the military titles if you want—but the person leading must do so by setting the example. To follow or to make oneself be followed can be a difficult task at times. But it's much, much easier than forcing others to do the walking, making them proceed along a trail still unexplored, a trail on which no one has taken a single step.

So the youth still need to take up the big tasks the government set forward, take them up as tasks before the masses, turn them into their own aspirations, and march along this road as the vanguard. Led and guided by the party, the youth must march in the vanguard.

The first qualitative change in our party occurred when all the bad leadership methods were abandoned, and exemplary workers, vanguard workers—those workers on the production front who could really speak with authority and who were also the ones going to the front lines—were elected to membership.² Although this was not the only change, and had to be followed up by a whole series of organizational measures, it marks the most important aspect of our transformation. There have also been a series of changes in the youth.

I want to emphasize one point—something I have emphasized continuously: stay young, don't transform yourselves into old theoreticians, or theorizers, maintain the freshness and enthusiasm of youth. You must learn to grab hold of the great watchwords of the government, internalize them, and become the motor force of the whole mass movement, marching in the vanguard. To do this, you have to learn how to discern the most important aspect of things being stressed by the government, which represents the people and is, at the same time, a party.

Similarly, one must know how to weigh things and set priorities. These are tasks the youth organization must carry out.

You have been talking about the technological revolution. This is one of the most important things, one of the most concrete tasks and one that is closest to the mentality of youth. But one cannot seek to carry out a technological revolution by oneself, because the technological revolution is happening all over the world, in every country, both socialist and nonsocialist—I am referring to the advanced countries, of course.

There is a technological revolution going on in the United States. There's a powerful technological revolution in France, in Britain, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and these are certainly not socialist countries. So the technological revolution must have a class content, a socialist content. And for this to happen, there must be a transformation of the youth so that they become a genuine motor force. In other words, all the bad habits of the old, dead society must be eliminated. One cannot think about a technological revolution without at the same time thinking about a communist attitude toward work. This is extremely important. We cannot speak of a socialist technological revolution if there is not a communist attitude toward work.

This is simply the reflection in Cuba of the technological revolution taking place as a result of the most recent scientific inventions and discoveries. These are things that cannot be separated. And a communist attitude toward work consists of changes taking place in an individual's consciousness, changes that naturally take a long time. We cannot expect that changes of this sort will be completed within a short period, during which work will continue to have the character it has now—a compulsory social obligation—before being transformed into a social necessity. In other words, this transformation—the technological revolution—presents the opportunity to get closer to what interests you most in life, your work, your research, your studies of every type. And one's attitude toward this work will be something totally new. Work will be what Sunday is now—not the Sunday when you cut cane, but the Sunday when you don't cut cane. In other words, work will be seen as a necessity, not something compelled by sanctions.

But achieving that requires a long process, a process tied to the creation of habits acquired through voluntary work. Why do we emphasize voluntary work so much? Economically it means practically nothing. Even the volunteers who cut cane—which is the most important task from an economic point of view—don't accomplish much. A volunteer cutter from this ministry cuts only a fourth or a fifth of what a cane cutter who has been doing this his whole life does. It has economic importance today because of the shortage of labor. It is also important today because these individuals are giving a part of their lives to society without expecting anything in return, without expecting any kind of payment, simply fulfilling a duty to society. This is the first step in transforming work into what it will eventually become, as a result of the advance of technology, the advance of production, and the advance of the relations of production: an activity of a higher level, a social necessity.

We will advance if at every step we bring together the ability to transform ourselves, generalizing our attitude toward study of the new technology, with the ability to perform in our workplaces as the vanguard. And if you get into the habit of turning productive labor little by little into something that, over time, becomes a necessity, then you will automatically become the youth's vanguard, and you will never have to wonder what you should be doing. You will simply do what at the time seems to make the most sense. You won't have to go searching for what youth might like.

You will automatically be youth, as well as representatives of the most advanced youth. Those who are young, young in spirit especially, don't ever have to worry about what to do in order to please others. Just do what is necessary, what seems logical at the time. That's how youth will become leaders.

Today we have begun a process of, let us say, politicizing this ministry. The Ministry of Industry is really cold, a very bureaucratic place, a nest of nit-picking bureaucrats and bores, from the minister on down, who are constantly tackling concrete tasks in order to search for new relationships and new attitudes.

Now, the youth organization here was complaining that even though they had organized things, this place was empty on the days when I didn't show up, and they wanted me to raise this. Well, I can raise it, but I can't tell anyone to come here. What's going on? Either there is a lack of communication or a lack of interest, and this hasn't been overcome by the people in charge of doing so. This is a concrete task of the ministry. It is the task of the youth organization to overcome the indifference within the ministry. Of course, there is always room for self-criticism; and the assessment that not enough has been done to stay in constant communication with people is always appropriate.

That's true, but it's also important that self-criticism be complete: because self-criticism is not self-flagellation but rather an analysis of a person's attitude. Moreover, the enormous amount of work on one's shoulders, one task after another all piled up, makes it more difficult to have a different type of relationship and to pursue a more human relationship, one could say, a relationship less directed through bureaucratic red tape.

This will come in due time: when work is not so urgent, when there are a whole number of cadres to lean on, when all tasks are always fulfilled, when lack of confidence in work done is no longer one of the disgraceful features of this entire stage of our revolution.

Today, it is necessary to check documents personally, double-check statistics personally, and errors are often still found. So once this stage has disappeared—and it is on the road to disappearing; it will soon disappear—when all the cadres are stronger, when each of us has advanced a little more, then of course there will be time for different types of relations. Naturally this doesn't mean a minister or a director going around asking everybody how their families are doing. Rather, we will be able to organize relations that enable us to work better both within the ministry and outside it, so we get to know each other better.

The aim of socialism today, in this current stage of building socialism and communism, is not simply to create shiny factories. These factories are being built for human beings in their totality. Man must be transformed in conjunction with advances in production. We would not be doing our job if we were solely producers of commodities, of raw material, and were not at the same time producers of men.

Here is one of the tasks of the youth: to give impetus to, and to lead through example, the production of the man of tomorrow. In this production and leadership, the production of oneself is included, because nobody is perfect, far from it. Everyone needs to be improving themselves through work, through relations with other people, through serious study, critical discussions—these are all things that contribute to the transformation of people. We know all this because five long years have passed since our revolution triumphed, and seven long years since the first of us landed and began the struggle, the final stage of the struggle. Whoever looks back and thinks about what he was like seven years ago will realize that we have traveled far, very far, but there is still a long way to go.

These are the tasks, and the most important thing is for the youth to understand their role and their fundamental task. They shouldn't inflate that role more than is merited. They should not consider themselves the center of the socialist universe. Rather, they should see themselves as an important link, a very important one that points toward the future.

We ourselves are already on the decline, even if geographically speaking we might still be situated among the youth. We have carried out many hard tasks, we have had the responsibility of leading a country through tremendously difficult times, and naturally all this ages us, it wears us out. Within a few years the task of those of us remaining will be to retire to winter quarters so that new generations can occupy our posts. In any case, I think we have played an important role, and have done so with a certain amount of dignity. But our job will not be complete unless we know the right time to step aside. And another task in front of you is to create the people who will replace us. That we can be forgotten as a thing of the past will become one of the most important gauges of the work carried out by the youth as a whole and by the entire people.  
 
 
1. A reference to the October 1962 "Missile" Crisis. In the face of escalating preparations by Washington for an invasion of Cuba in the spring and summer of 1962, the Cuban government signed a mutual defense agreement with the Soviet Union. In October 1962 U.S. president John Kennedy demanded removal of Soviet nuclear missiles installed in Cuba following the signing of the pact. Washington ordered a naval blockade of Cuba, stepped up its preparations to invade, and placed U.S. armed forces on nuclear alert. Cuban workers and farmers mobilized in the millions to defend the revolution. Following an exchange of communications between Washington and Moscow, on October 28 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, without consulting the Cuban government, announced his decision to remove the missiles.

2. As part of the reorganization of the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI) into the United Party of the Socialist Revolution (PURS) in 1962-63, a procedure was established whereby workers were nominated for party membership by their fellow workers at assemblies in their workplace. That procedure continues today in the Communist Party of Cuba.  
 
 
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