Waters is editor of Making History and the author of its introduction. Iraida Aguirrechu of Editora Política also spoke at the meeting, as well as Cuban Brig. Gen. José Ramón Fernández, one of the four generals interviewed in the book.

Waters's remarks are copyright © 2000 by Pathfinder Press, reprinted by permission. Subheadings are by the Militant.  
 
 
BY MARY-ALICE WATERS  
On behalf of Pathfinder, a thank you to the compañeros of Editora Política for the opportunity to participate in this event here today. Even more, I would like to thank them for the collaboration that made this valuable book possible and contributed so much to the quality, not only of the edition in English, but also the impressive edition in Spanish.

On behalf of the interviewers, I want to say what an enjoyable assignment it was to work with each of the generals we had the pleasure to interview, and to thank them for the time and effort they contributed to the preparation of this book. It is they who are the real authors of this book.

It is not every day that one has the opportunity to get to know such competent revolutionary leaders of the international working class.

Other comrades here today will speak about the importance of Haciendo Historia for you in Cuba. I would like to add a few words about the importance of this book in the United States.

Less than one month ago, almost 50,000 workers, farmers, and young people from high schools and universities all over the South gathered in Columbia, South Carolina, to march and demand that the flag of the old Southern slavocracy, which flies over the capitol building of that state, come down. It is the flag of racist resistance to the advances won by Black people in the United States these last decades. The mood of that demonstration--the largest ever to take place in the South of the United States--was jubilant and determined.

Barely a few days later, a battle exploded in the port of Charleston, which is also in South Carolina. Hundreds of dock workers, Black and white, among them many who had participated in the march on Columbia, mobilized on the wharves to defend their trade union and prevent the bosses from bringing in scab labor. Faced with an attack by 600 antiriot police, they defended themselves with vigor.

I begin with this example because it so graphically represents the profound changes that are beginning to mark the struggles by working people in the United States today.

The brutal economic offensive that ravages the lives and futures of millions throughout Latin America and the rest of the Third World has had a parallel course within the United States.  
 

'Deadly intensification of labor'

The capitalist economic boom during much of the last 18 years has brought with it a deadly intensification of labor, threatening life and limb for millions of workers. Hours of work are longer, in some cases up to 10 or 12 hours a day. Average wages in many basic industries such as mining and meatpacking are a fraction of what they were two decades ago. Declining commodity prices, which the Cuban people suffer from also, are driving small family farmers off their land at an accelerated rate. Inroads toward devastating the social security system have begun during the last eight years of the Clinton administration, the fuller devastating consequences of which will begin to unfold only with the next economic downturn.

Racist, anti-immigrant, and semifascist currents are gaining ground among certain middle-class layers, fearful of their future. And Washington's bipartisan consensus on questions of foreign policy, which has marked the half century since the end of World War II, has come to an end, with debilitating and destabilizing consequences for them.  
 

'New mood of resistance'

Under these conditions, a new mood of resistance and struggle is developing among working people in the United States, and a new vanguard is beginning to emerge out of the labor battles and struggles by working farmers to keep their land. Working people, tested in struggle, are beginning to know and trust each other. They are beginning to take measure of their collective strength, to gain confidence, to extend the hand of solidarity from one struggle to the next. To come together and look for ways forward. And this is new.

As this process unfolds, a new generation of young people, drawn toward these struggles, is awakening to political consciousness and action, and fighters of all ages are increasingly open to new ideas, looking for answers to explain the world in which we live.

Just as important, they are looking for examples of how to fight back successfully against the most powerful ruling class the oppressed and exploited of the world have ever had to take on and defeat.

That is why the example of the Cuban Revolution becomes more important every day in this changing world. And that is why this book, which comes at such an opportune moment, will be a weapon in the hands of a fighting vanguard of workers, farmers, and young people who want to deepen their concrete understanding of this powerful revolution and understand how it has been able to face down Yankee imperialism for more than 40 years.

Through these interviews, one sees the capacities of ordinary men and women to grow and change as they come together in struggle, take on the greatest of challenges, confront the greatest of dangers, establish the first free territory of the Americas, and change the course of history. That is why it is such a powerful political weapon.

We see the kind of leadership strength and consistency that is necessary to accomplish what the Cuban people have achieved over these decades. Through the words of the generals, we appreciate the qualities of Fidel and Raúl even more than before. But we also see the depth and breadth and richness, in human-political terms, of the revolutionary leadership in Cuba. As a worker in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania--a center of the steel industry in the United States--told me, he was struck by two things: the political caliber of the leaders of the FAR, and also their humanity. Both are qualities that workers in the United States know from their own experiences are absent from the officer corps of the imperialist armies, but are indispensable to the fighting vanguard of the oppressed and exploited.

Through these interviews we see better how a revolutionary leadership is tested and forged in combat, not once, but over and over again. And we appreciate the place of the Rebel Army not only in military terms, but in the broadest political leadership sense.

We see the internationalism of the Cuban Revolution, without which the revolution itself would die.

Reading this book, young people, especially, gain confidence in their own capacities, in the fact that revolutions by necessity are the work of youth. But to be victorious, they must also learn to combine their energy, lack of fear of consequences, and unfettered spirit with discipline and knowledge of the hard-won lessons of revolutionary struggle by previous generations.

Most of all, there are thousands of increasingly class-conscious, combative, and confident workers, farmers, and youth in the United States who will read this book because they want to learn how to fight more effectively. Because they believe that if the Cuban Revolution and its Revolutionary Armed Forces are so hated by the rulers of the United States, it is because Washington fears their powerful example.

Those readers will not be disappointed.

It is to their future struggles and victories that this book is dedicated.  
 
 
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