Speech given by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz

[Jacuma]

President of the Republic of Cuba, at the closing session
of the Young Communists League 8th Congress, held in the
Havana Convention Center, Havana, 5 December 2004

http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discurso.../f051204i.html

Dear delegates, guests and attendees to the Young
Communists League 8th Congress:

Communists:

Some of the concepts I will touch upon today have already
been discussed and published; some have been developed in
the heat of the struggle; others refer to goals we have
attained; others are just reflections.

Today, when you have invited me to address you, I shall try
to explain how and why this day is very special for all of
us.

Unfortunately, the responsibility I have shouldered
throughout this intense and difficult revolutionary process
and, in particular, my relation with the Battle of Ideas,
oblige me to make reference to my own speeches, ideas and
concepts, something which in no way pleases me, so I beg
your indulgence in advance.

I have never believed that ideas orbit around public
figures; rather, it is the latter that ought to orbit
around ideas.

The fact that I dared to make so many predictions that,
today, people are recognizing as irrefutable truths stems
exclusively from the experience I have accumulated. I could
have died young, as did many other Cuban revolutionaries
throughout our history. Yesterday's and today's enemies did
everything humanly possible to achieve this aim, but I had
the privilege of having struggled for many years, since
early 1953, when we had the idea of seizing the Santiago de
Cuba Regiment's weapons to initiate the struggle. The
credit for this privilege is not mine; the true credit
belongs to those who stood by their beliefs and were
willing to sacrifice even their lives for the aims we
espoused. Only three days ago, when some congratulated me,
reminding me of the 48th anniversary of the Granma landing,
my first reaction was one of surprise. How much time has
gone by and how much has occurred!

Engrossed in our present duties, some of us who took part
in that action have hardly a second to look back on the
beginning of that long march on which we were embarking in
the days of Moncada and Granma. I would describe it all as
a long learning process; it is amazing how ignorant we were
when we set out on that unknown road.

Allow me to give you a concise summary, often using quotes,
of the essentials of what I expressed on three different
occasions prior to the Battle of Ideas, whose spirit today
reigns over the 8th Congress of our prestigious Young
Communists League.

On October 8, 1997, in the Central Report to the Party's
5th Congress, I said:

"It is obvious that we need to work more closely and
intensely with our youth organizations, as these times and
this Party need a continuous influx of young cadres and
members.

"Now more than ever, more than at any other juncture --this
being the most difficult, the toughest of times-- I believe
we must devote special efforts to our young people and
their education, because those who come after this
generation must be better.

"We want them to be fully conscious of their role, of what
they can do for their country, of what they can do for the
Revolution, of what they can do for their future".

On October 10, 1997, in my remarks about youths in the
closing session of the Party's 5th Congress, I pointed out:

"We have the Party, we have our wonderful young people
--yes, that's what I said, wonderful young people-- whom we
will of course ask to do more and more political work,
political work which is not the same as parroting a slogan.
For a long time, the Party was also, at times, simplistic
and dogmatic, working with slogans instead of arguments.

"We must work directly with the people, on a one by one
basis; this means more than the work done through the press
and television, through conferences or political meetings.
The work of convincing and persuading human beings, one by
one, is historic. Religions were created this way and have
lasted thousands of years.

"We revolutionaries must do the same. Our cadres and young
people must work like this and never consider anyone a lost
cause.

"Based on the profoundest conviction that we are right and
that we are defending what is fairest, most beautiful, most
human, we must discuss things for as long as we need to,
explain things as many times as necessary, we must teach
and educate. Political work cannot be done in the abstract.
We must delve more deeply into knowledge, into ideas, into
what happens here and in the world. We must be frank,
courageous, and truthful.

"There are 780, 000 Party members, and then there are all
of the revolutionaries who are not Party members. It is
everyone's job to make what is in many cases an exception
the rule and our best experiences the norm. How could we
not achieve this? What are we? What is our worth, if we
cannot achieve it? Given everything we know today, and all
of the possibilities open to us, we must do it. That would
be the true victory of ideas".

On December 10, 1998, at the YCL's 7th Congress, I said:

"We must meet, in the heat of battle, with the leading
cadres to discuss, analyze, expand on and draft plans and
strategies, to take up issues and elaborate ideas, as when
an army's general staff meets.

"We must use solid arguments to talk to members and
non-members, to speak to those who may be confused or even
to discuss and debate with those holding positions contrary
to those of the Revolution or who are influenced by
imperialist ideology in this great battle of ideas we have
been waging for years now, precisely in order to carry out
the heroic deed of resisting against the most politically,
militarily, economically, technologically and culturally
powerful empire that has ever existed. Young cadres must be
well prepared for this task.

"In this ideological struggle, ideas are our fundamental
weapons; our most important ammunition are also ideas. We
have to arm our cadres with ideas so that they, in turn,
can pass these on to the young and to all of the people.
"This army knows the plan and the strategy; let the enemy
learn what these are as it goes along. I am again comparing
this struggle to a great battle waged by a vanguard army,
an elite troop of the Revolution. I put the Revolution and
the Party first; they are, after all, one and the same
thing.

"In a short meeting with the new National Committee, I was
able to talk to you more freely as fewer comrades were
present, and we could speak even more freely and take up
more discussion and opinions at a meeting with the National
Bureau.

"This 7th Congress", I said then, "has been an excellent
congress, one where discussions covered the broadest range
of topics, where nothing led us to shy away from any issue;
on the contrary, we were constantly urged to take up all of
the issues, no matter how thorny or complex, in order to
make the most of this meeting, and I feel we have
accomplished this.

"This has been possible, we must say this categorically,
thanks to the extraordinary work that has been done over
the course of a year, under the leadership of the YCL's
National Bureau. In fact at this point, where thanks are
usually given, we should sincerely and wholeheartedly
acknowledge the comrades in the Bureau and the numerous
cadres who, under Otto's leadership, have been working from
the time the congress was called up to this very minute.

"All of us have learned something; not only you, we have
learned too.

"The Congress," I added, "shows that the YCL has become
increasingly strong and that it is better organized, has
more experience, greater prestige and influence than ever
in key, truly strategic sectors of today's society and
--even more so-- in tomorrow's society, tomorrow's Cuba. It
is organized in the way these times, this historic moment,
require!

"One of the extraordinary things about our Revolution is
that, ever since it came into being --and it could be said
that our Revolution's ideas were begotten on that
university hill-- the Revolution and our young people have
been as closely bound as identical, one could even say
Siamese, twins. I invite you to try and find in any other
country in the world a bond as strong as it has existed,
exists and shall always exist in this profoundly
revolutionary process. Our Revolution is reborn each day,
because the ideas we stand for, the justice that we defend,
the cause we fight for, is today the cause, and there can
be no cause other than that of the billions of people who
live on this planet.

"I say ideas because the struggle we are speaking about
will not, in essence, be a war, but rather a battle of
ideas. The world's problems shall not be solved through the
use of nuclear weapons --this is impossible-- nor through
wars. What's more, they shall not be solved through
isolated revolutions that, within the order installed by
neo-liberal globalization, can be crushed within a matter
of days, weeks at the most.

"We cannot, however, neglect defense for even a minute,
because given the unavoidable crises, a change of
government, a fascist-like or far-right party in power is
all it will take to return the empire to its adventuristic
ways of old. We cannot overlook the risk of a military
invasion. Today, the real battle is the battle of ideas.

"The Revolution was able to hold out because it sowed
ideas.

"The world is rapidly being globalized; an unsustainable
and intolerable world economic order is rapidly being
established. Ideas are the raw material from which
consciousness is forged; they are the raw material of
ideology par excellence. I prefer to call them the raw
material of consciousness to emphasize that it is not a
question of strict and rigid ideology, but rather of an
advanced consciousness, that is to say, a conviction that
hundreds of millions and billions of people on this planet
will inevitably arrive at, and that it will constitute,
without a doubt, the best instrument to secure the victory
of those ideas throughout the world.

"Not weapons but ideas will decide this universal battle,
and not because of some intrinsic value, but because of how
closely they relate to the objective reality of today's
world. These ideas stem from the conviction that,
mathematically speaking, the world has no other way out
that imperialism is unsustainable, that the system that has
been imposed on the world leads to disaster, to an
insurmountable crisis, and, I dare say, sooner rather than
later.

"It is based on these premises and these convictions that I
evaluate what we have analyzed and what we are doing these
days. It is not the only way of doing it, far from it, but
it is valuable because it is essential.

"This battle you are waging cannot be lost. Without the
tasks you must complete, without the work you will carry
out --and you will be totally successful, I have no doubt
of that-- we could not even speak of our dreams, not only
dreams for our compatriots, but also for all of the people
in this world.

"Never before, or anywhere else, has a people done what the
people of Cuba are doing today. And what it is doing today
with ideas, sowing ideas, cultivating and developing ideas;
this cannot lead to anything but the victory of ideas, to
the firm belief that this Revolution shall not disappear
nor crumble, because it is firmly planted in deeply rooted
and ideas that are constantly evolving.

"Just ideas are invincible. Of them, MartÃ* said: 'Trenches
made of ideas are stronger than those made of stones' and
'a just cause --even one buried in the depths of a cave--
is mightier than an army'.

"Ideas are not simply an instrument to build consciousness
and lead people to fight. Today, they have become the main
weapon in the struggle, not a source of inspiration, not a
guide, not a directive, but the main weapon of the
struggle.

"We are not dogmatic nor can we be dogmatic, we are to
avoid any sort of dogmas, as we believe in truly
dialectical and flexible minds, which does not mean to
admit even the slightest opportunism or pragmatism.

"We are flexible and dialectical because of our most rigid
adherence to the principles and objectives of our
revolutionary process and the new goals which we didn't ask
anybody for, which we didn't hope or plan for, but which
life and the history of these past decades have imposed on
our country and our revolutionaries. And, this being the
case, we have no other option but to fight with all our
strength, thinking not only of ourselves but also of the
well-being that the fruits of our struggle might bear for
so many people around the world".

As fate would have it, the colossal Battle of Ideas that
our people has been waging for exactly five years today
began just one year after those words were spoken.

On July 5, 2000, on bestowing the "Carlos Manuel de
Céspedes Order" on Miguel González, I looked back on how I
had met him a year before, on December 2 to be precise, and
how the battle for Elián's return had begun. That day, I
said: "I asked him a number of questions and, although he
was obviously hurting and sad, he answered them with
persuasive arguments and irrefutable proof of his
affectionate, faultless and steadfast relationship with his
son. "At every moment, I could see in his face the features
of a noble, sincere and serious man. "I told him that I was
convinced that the boy would never be returned through
legal procedures. This was a case in which the U.S. courts
had absolutely no jurisdiction, and it was the duty of the
U.S. immigration authorities to proceed with the immediate
repatriation of his son. But, I was well aware of the
arrogant, arbitrary, biased and conspiratorial behavior of
the U.S. authorities with regard to any misdeeds and crimes
committed against our people. The return of this boy could
only be accomplished through an intense national and
international political battle of public opinion". The
following day --as I said at that ceremony-- I spoke with
other Party leaders and, without wasting a minute, I got in
touch with leaders of the Young Communists League and the
University Student Federation. Young people and students
would be in the vanguard of this struggle, with the full
support of all revolutionary forces. Forty-eight hours
later, on a Sunday evening like today exactly five years
ago, one thousand young people from the Youth Technical
Brigades who were just concluding a national conference
took part in the first protest march held outside the US
Interests Section. Thus began the epic struggle for Elián's
freedom. The battle for a child quickly became a battle for
justice and the happiness of all our children and all of
our people. Guided by the profoundest conviction, already
expressed in my closing remarks to the 7th Youth Congress I
mentioned above, that ideas are the most important weapon
in humanity's fight for its own salvation, the battle we
began was not only one of thoughts, discussion, arguments
and counter-arguments, but also of concrete facts and
actions as well. As part of the Battle of Ideas' work
group, the Young Communists League has coordinated and
spurred on nearly 200 revolutionary programs that have been
created as a result of this struggle. In these past few
years, I have devoted over seven thousand hours of fruitful
and unforgettable labor to the tasks of exchanging ideas,
analyzing and giving guidance to this group, the majority
of whose members are YCL leaders and workers', students'
and women's representatives led by our Party. We have
worked all this time to develop a critical rather than
self-indulgent vision of our undertaking and our historical
objectives. We have put into practice revolutionary
concepts, which sweep away formalism and conformism and
accelerate the transformation processes needed for our
country's future. Some have been taken from the very notes
taken by YCL cadres and by others who participate in our
meetings. They include:

* No youth should be abandoned and no person should be left
alone to face his fate. The YCL must work with every youth.
Behind every category and every percentage is a man, a
woman, a child or senior citizen.

* There is a solution to every problem; it is a question of
finding alternatives.

* Any coordination work must be based on continuous
analysis and up-to-date information so that decisions take
precise account of the details; every action must be
thought through, one must act quickly and never lose a
minute.

* New coordination methods and mechanisms must be found so
that all bodies and organizations participate with the
understanding that the nation's interests are over and
above bureaucratic contradictions, cravings for power and
institutional jealousy.

* Secure high levels of involvement and commitment from
those cadres and workers who participate in each and every
one of the programs.

* To exercise criticism and reflection wherever needed.

* Every idea always leads to a new idea and this new idea
leads to more and more ideas. A new idea, no matter how
good it seems, must be previously tested and undergo
thorough experiments under real conditions.

* Discretion and compartmentalization are basic principles
in program coordination and orientation. Programs shall be
made public only after they have become realities; this
way, we shall avoid promises that cannot be kept or that
are kept and then ignored, forgotten or cast aside.

* Participating companies should neither make profits nor
bear losses. Works must be executed quickly, within the
budget, with quality and an optimal use of resources.

* Maintenance for equipment and facilities made available
to these programs shall be provided. Everything must always
be as good as new. To this small sample of what remained in
the cadres' minds, we could add hundreds of examples of
what the cadres came up with when faced with the need to
act swiftly and guarantee success. We had to make up for
all the time lost in routine, simplistic thinking and other
habits that hinder progress and frustrate the objectives
that only a truly socialist system can achieve. One day,
literally said: "Notwithstanding the rights and guarantees
offered to all citizens of any race and background, the
Revolution has not been as successful in its struggle to
eradicate differences in the social and economic status of
Cuba's black population, even though this sector plays an
important role in many highly significant areas, including
education and health". These were the very words I said
with no hesitation whatsoever, on February 7 last year, at
the closing session of the International Pedagogy Congress
2003, which took place in the heat of the Battle of Ideas.
This idea about the sad legacy of slavery, class society,
capitalism and imperialism was something I had been
carrying inside me and wanted to declare publicly. Nowhere
has there ever existed equality of opportunities. The
possibility of studying, obtaining higher qualifications or
a university degree was the exclusive privilege of the more
knowledgeable and economically powerful sectors. It was
only the exception among the poor who was able to beat the
system. The huge strides made by socialism had created the
foundations, but we still had to take the great leap
forward. Thanks to the Battle of Ideas, we can today say
that the lives of children, teenagers, young people and the
Cuban family is not the same as it was five years ago.
Today, a primary school teacher is responsible for only 20
pupils, something which allows him or her to provide better
quality teaching, differentiated attention to each of his
or her pupils and their families, thus, a more
comprehensive education. They have television sets, VCRs
and computer labs at their disposal. These are incredibly
efficient instruments that, used as teaching tools, greatly
expand our children's knowledge. Not one child in Cuba is
without access to these modern tools. Schools with no
electricity are equipped today with solar panels that power
computers, televisions and VCRs. Computer science has begun
to be taught at pre-school level. 12, 958 teachers of basic
computer science trained in intensive courses and assigned
to teach in our classrooms and all primary school teachers
were given specially designed courses in the subject.
Children with special educational needs have also been
taught using these new and modern educational tools. The
first School for Autistic Children, a group that has been
overlooked in nearly every country in the world, was
inaugurated two years ago. Today, children begin to study
English through audio-visual courses from the third grade
on. They learn to play chess at school and receive cultural
and artistic instruction from the first 3, 271 art
instructors who graduated this past October 20. A similar
or greater number of instructors shall graduate every year
and work not only in the educational sector but also in
cultural and social institutions in the community. We have
improved meals in schools that have a school lunch program;
these are now the immense majority of those that need this
program. Systematic attention is accorded to all children
found to have nutritional situations when the first program
designed to weigh and measure all children aged 15 and
under was conducted in 2001. Recently, a comprehensive
study of the entire infant population was completed Aspects
such as nutritional condition, schooling, family and living
environment, which were measured in the study, are now
being properly addressed. All of these transformations have
allowed us to implement an authentic full-day study program
and have made it possible for our children in primary
school to learn 2.2 times more Mathematics and 1.5 times
more Spanish than they did four years ago. These figures
should grow as our educational system continues to develop
as planned. Opportunities for learning and for physical and
intellectual development are equal for all children,
regardless of where they live, skin color or social
background. The extraordinary changes that are taking place
in primary school education have been accomplished with few
resources cleverly used, following concepts of equality and
justice and, above all, with a view to offering the same
opportunities to all children throughout the country. We
shall continue to work just as intensely toward improving
and developing the other levels of education. Radical
transformations have also been made to junior high schools
by implementing a different educational model for children
and adolescents in seventh, eighth and ninth grades -which
are facing a grave crisis in other countries. This model
breaks with previous educational concepts.

At this school level there is now a general all-round
teacher who is responsible for 15 students and who teaches
all subjects except English and Physical Education. He or
she is a tutor, an educator, a mentor for each student;
this gets rid of the excessive number of teachers for the
various subjects under which system it was impossible to
integrate the different branches of knowledge and the
educational influences needed at this decisive stage of
life.

Thanks to this step, the school's relationship with the
family has improved qualitatively which means they can
cooperate more extensively and changes have even operated
in the way many parents behave towards and treat their
children.

Mathematics, Spanish, History, English and Physics classes
are taught using videos whose contents have been designed
by the most prestigious educational specialists in the
country. This gives considerable reinforcement to the
efforts made by the teachers and increases the quality and
depth of the classes taught.

The frequency of Mathematics, Computing, Spanish and
History classes has been raised, which means the students
receive more information and improve their knowledge of
these subjects.

The new art instructors are also working in our junior high
schools, promoting culture and bringing the best of Cuba
and the world's traditions to our adolescents.

There is a program to provide free school snacks or lunch
to junior high school students. This allows them to receive
the nourishment needed to sit through the double session of
classes and means the students of this level are safer
because they don't have to leave the school grounds until
the end of the school day.

On December 2, 2004, 307,339 students and 38,246 workers in
591 urban junior high schools were receiving free school
snacks. The students of 83 junior high schools still have
to join the program; they will be receiving the benefits
from this program in the first three months of next year.

The Behavior School also has social workers working with
the students. These are responsible for organizing the way
society can act to modify the causes and conditions from
which social disadvantage and behavioral problems arise.

These far reaching transformations have also targeted our
young people, from the age of 16 on.

We founded the social worker schools from which more than
21,485 youths have already graduated. These constitute a
veritable detachment of social support and solidarity that
is now working with almost all of Cuba's People's Councils.
Every year another 7,000 youths are trained using new
educational concepts, and not only in the schools designed
for that purpose but also in their own municipalities, in
what we call Home-Schools, using television, videos, and
computers under the guidance of experienced teachers and in
direct contact with the social conditions in their own
communities. When they graduate, all have direct access to
many university degree programs related to their
multifaceted activity.

We set up the secondary school upgrading courses for young
people aged 17 to 30 who, once they had completed ninth
grade, which is now the general level for these ages,
ceased to either study or work.

This has allowed more than 150,000 youths to study in these
secondary school upgrading programs and receive an income
appropriate to their age and needs.

The results obtained have meant that 48,406 graduates from
these courses have already enrolled in various university
programs --including that of medical science-- and achieved
very positive results.

Throughout the Battle of Ideas we have made an old dream
come true: the universalization of higher education, thus
making universities accessible to all the young people who
graduate from the Revolution's programs and to workers in
general.

This program has given unheard of opportunities to young
people and adults who were not previously able to attend
higher education institutes but who now can join in the
revolutionary aim of having all citizens, regardless of the
work they do, obtain a comprehensive education.

The result of these programs is that the country today has
the highest number of students registered in higher
education than at any other time in its history: 380,000
students, of whom 233, 011 are being educated in the 938
university chapters that already exist in the country's 169
municipalities.

The 65,427 teachers and tutors working in this
universalization program, who have given a committed,
determined response to this call of the Revolution, are
part of more than 700,000 professionals educated by the
Revolution who work in Cuba, despite the constant brain
drain which victimizes Third World countries.

Our aspiration of having higher education centers for
excellence resulted in the creation of the University of
Information Sciences, the first institution of this kind to
be created during the Battle of Ideas.

Just two years and three months after it was opened, more
than 6,000 youths from every municipality in the country
study in this already prestigious university where novel
concepts and revolutionary working methods are used; these
have obtained significant achievements in teaching and
productive activity in a very short space of time.

The spirit and concepts applied in the University of
Information Sciences are those we must also use in those
polytechnics where this subject is taught. They are
educating almost 40,000 mid-level information science
technicians throughout the country, thus securing Cuba's
future development --something that is only possible thanks
to the vast human capital created by the Revolution over
more than four decades.

This recently approved project for Information Science
Polytechnics is only the latest of the Battle of Ideas'
programs for the 2000-2004 period. We shall allocate the
necessary material resources and equipment to it. The
ministry of Education, the ministry of Information Sciences
and Communication and the Young Communist League have
already received the relevant instructions.

The Battle of Ideas has done much for the Cuban family, for
the safety and the mental and physical development of their
children, without exceptions.

With regards to such an important field as healthcare,
these families benefit from the large amounts of money
invested in our 444 polyclinics, 107 of which have been
completely remodeled and 34 of which are in the process of
being remodeled. On top of this, reconstruction and
modernization work is going on in 27 hospitals, as part of
a program that will affect all of them equally and 217
physiotherapy wards are being opened in the polyclinics,
all of which will offer this service by the end of next
year. 24 new facilities offering hemodialysis have been
opened, as have 88 offering optician services and 118
intensive therapy centers in those municipalities which,
because they have no surgical hospitals, did not have this
extremely valuable medical resource which has already saved
thousands of lives to date.

The program of technical refurbishment now in full swing
will bring benefits to all of the primary and secondary
services we have and will have the added benefit of
bringing the most important and highest quality medical
services closer to the population's homes and places of
residence.

In the same token, 1905 television rooms have been opened
in isolated rural settlements having no electricity, thus
providing access to information, recreation and to
educational television programs to more than half a million
Cubans who live in those areas and who were the only ones
who still did not have these services.

Extending the Youth Clubs (Joven Club) to 300 facilities
has allowed 436,753 Cubans to learn about computing, that
is, since the beginning of April 2001, when the new Youth
Clubs were opened thus raising the number of computers
allocated to 3,000. This excellent program is being
expanded with another 100 additional clubs already
completed, the aim being to double the existing 300
facilities.

The Book Fairs have turned into a huge festivity for the
Cuban family. In 2002, they spread from their traditional
home in Havana to 19 other Cuban cities and this year they
will extend to 34. Nine and a half million people visited
the last three Fairs, with more than 15 million books on
sale.

The Family Library made the best of Cuban and world
literature available to our people at reasonable prices.
100,000 copies of 25 titles were produced, and a second
collection is ready to go to print.

Two new, modern, high capacity printers have been bought,
one of which is working to full capacity and the other is
being installed. Resources have been allocated to repair
and modernize all the equipment in the National Print
Works.

The University for All, broadcast on television, which went
on air on October 2, 2000 has become the biggest university
in the country, the one offering the widest variety of
subjects. 43 courses with 1,721 content hours have been
taught using this resource. Six courses are being broadcast
now. 775 professors, of whom 265 are PhDs and 134 have
Master's degrees, have taught courses.

The programs developed to turn prisons into schools have
had a marked impact on the inmates' families by helping to
strengthen the bonds between the young offenders and their
relatives.

Studies made of people with disabilities have made it
possible to resolve some of the crises in the care offered
to them and their families. They have allowed us to warn
the families about hereditary diseases and have made it
possible for 6,052 mothers to devote themselves full-time
to looking after their children with serious disabilities
since they receive a salary for doing so.

A total of 366,864 people with physical and motor, sensory,
organic and other disabilities, including mental
disabilities were studied. More than 30, 000 science
professionals and management and support staff took part in
the nation-wide study.

On August 5, 2003 the New National Center for Genetic
Medicine was established.

As a result of this huge effort to attain the highest
possible level of justice for our people and to provide
full equality of opportunities for all, more than 380,000
jobs have been created, the outcome of the Revolution's
Programs, most of which basically benefit the youths.

According to information received from the ministry of
Labor, by the end of this year unemployment had fallen to
less than 2%, something that is absolutely impossible in
any industrialized capitalist country.

In only three years, more than 44,979 new primary and
junior high school teachers have been trained. This is
equal to eleven years output from the teacher training
institutes' regular day courses between 1988 and 2000.

As I already said, we have 21,485 social workers. In 2000,
when the Battle of Ideas began, Social Security had only
795 social workers in all of Cuba.

As of November 20, 5,810 building, rebuilding or expansion
public works had been completed; 1,732 of these were for
education, 1, 537 for health, 32 for major cultural
institutions, including major rebuilding and expansion work
on the Higher Institute of Art, and 2,508 for other of the
Revolution's programs. 913 schools have sustained capital
repairs while 32 new schools have been built. Our country
has today 5,270 new classrooms.

Over 25 million cassettes have been produced in about a
year and a half and another new cassette factory is under
construction.

The agreements we have just signed with China mean we will
be able to acquire 100,000 computers annually; these will
be used mainly for the education of children, young people
and adults and for retraining our country's growing number
of university graduate technicians and professionals.

The day will also come when computers will be widely used
to dialogue with the world. When one takes into account
this country's political education, the growing efforts to
give Cubans a good command of English and other languages,
there is no other people which has more things to give
information about nor more training to be able to do so in
a better way.

The first million television sets we bought from the
People's Republic of China has meant that 827,322 families
in Cuba have a top quality 21-inch color television which
uses 20 watts less electricity than a LG color television
and 120 watts less than a Soviet black and white
television. This has had a profound and widespread impact
on our people's level of culture and information and on its
recreational opportunities. The rest of the television sets
were given to education, health and other of the country's
social programs; 80,000 of them were used for international
cooperation, and we will be getting another 300,000 21-inch
television sets from China. Several thousand 29-inch
televisions, which are now being used in education, are not
from China.

Our educational system has 109,117 television sets and
40,858 VCRs in the classrooms; these have become excellent
teaching aids.

Two new educational channels have been established, which
combined with Cubavision and Tele Rebelde broadcast 394
hours of educational programming weekly. This is 62.7% of
the total hours broadcast by Cuban television. 247 of these
hours are devoted to courses on the curricula.

If at the last YCL Congress we expressed our concern about
the low output of books and other publications for our
children and youths, we can today announce that 457,
840,862 copies of books, newsprint editions, pamphlets and
other printed material have been produced for our various
programs and projects.

These include:

41, 025, 778 books, newsprint editions, and pamphlets for
educational programs.

15, 979, 198 books for the Book Fairs.

35,371,157 newsprint transcripts of Round Tables and Open
Forums.

15,905,758 newsprint study materials for University for
All.

In 1999, there were only eight visual art schools in the
country. Today this type of education has spread to all the
provinces, with visual art schools in 17 cities.

The registration in the new National Ballet School that can
take 300 students has been extended to students from all
provinces.

Today, 4,021 students from all of the capital's
municipalities attend vocational workshops given in the
National Ballet School twice a week. Other dance schools
offer similar courses.

6,789 public and school libraries have received
encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases and other books with
which they have renovated their bibliographic stock.

2,365,234 children and youths have been given a book as a
prize in their graduation ceremonies.

About 10,900,000 Cubans have taken part in the 161 Open
Forums that have taken place.

11, 800,000 people have joined in the 18 marches we have
had.

1,030 Round Tables have been aired to date. These have
become a kind of political university offering
up-to-the-minute relevant information and profound and
truthful analyses of the empire's crude lies and perfidious
aggression against our people, while also discussing
important aspects of international politics, economics,
culture, sciences, sports and other issues of interest.

Since the Battle of Ideas is --as I once said-- "the battle
of humanism against dehumanization, the battle of
brotherhood and sisterhood against the most blatant form of
selfishness […] the battle of justice against the most
brutal form of injustice, the battle for our people and the
battle for other peoples" we at this time have 23,413
doctors and health technicians working on humane missions
of solidarity in 66 countries. A very large number of them
are working in the poorest neighborhoods in Simón BolÃ*var's
great homeland, which is at this moment in the midst of
revolutionary changes under the leadership of an amazing
new political leader, a follower of Bolivar and Marti, a
beloved friend of Cuba, Hugo Chávez FrÃ*as.

The impact of the Battle of Ideas, its principles and work
methods have not only transformed our educational system,
and the lives of our people, but have also strengthened and
increased the prestige of the Young Communist League,
which, at the moment this Congress is taking place, has the
highest number of YCL members in the last decade: 557,298,
which is 104,692 more than at the 7th Congress.

Today our youth organization has 49,054 local chapters,
8,756 more than in 1998.

If we criticized the YCL at the last Party Congress for its
weaknesses in grooming members for our vanguard party, we
are today happy to see that the attention they gave to this
crucial matter and the growing strength of the organization
itself have resulted in the YCL supplying the Party with 63
of every 100 members who have come to their 30th birthday.
So, in total, if we count those young members who are under
30 who were allowed to join under a special plan, the YCL
has strengthened the Party with 133,283 new members. This
is their concrete response to the fair criticisms they
received.

Those chiefly responsible for these results have been the
young cadre. This battle has demanded that they increase
their capacity for action and their readiness and has
obliged them to make a qualitative change in their working
methods so that they may devote their attention to the
internal functioning and daily work of the YCL and may also
take up the new tasks that stem from the Revolution's
programs.

The organization's experience, perseverance and its
achievements have meant that it has been able to provide
the Party with more cadres. In the last two years, 215 YCL
cadres have become professional Party workers.

What we have achieved to date is the result of our people's
and our wonderful youths' heroic efforts. We still have a
lot left to do. You know where the old and new problems
are.

We must ensure that the teachers working in our classrooms
today stay working there, we must add to their reserves,
jealously guard the young human resources we have trained
over the last few years, paying special attention to their
professionalism and up-grading. We must continue to analyze
the inescapable changes that our technical professional and
senior high school education must undergo; we must improve
the way higher education is made accessible to all and we
must make sure that all of the country's universities move
forward from this idea towards the academic and
revolutionary excellence that the country demands from its
university students and professors.

We must do further more intensive political work with all
of our health workers, so that the quality of the services
offered to the public are in step with the investments in
buildings and technology made in this sector and with the
prestige that Cuban medicine has obtained by sending its
doctors and technicians to other parts of the world in
solidarity.

We have to continue with the task of promoting healthy,
enlightened and useful recreational opportunities for our
young people, which make use of all the opportunities and
resources we have today thanks to the Revolution's
programs.

We will have to continue to wage our hard-fought battle
against corruption, social indiscipline, and any surge in
drug use.

The highest possible integration of all the institutions
involved in public broadcasting must take place. These are
the institutions, which can and must be completely at the
service of knowledge, culture, recreation, and the most
dearly held values and interests of our people.

There is still a lot to repair, build and improve in our
social institutions. We have proof that this is possible.

As I once said, "perhaps the most useful of our modest
efforts in the struggle for a better world will be to
demonstrate how much can be done with so little when all of
society's human and material resources are placed at the
service of the people".

The hard currency cost of the Battle of Ideas, including,
the buildings, materials of all kinds, the thousands of
pieces of top quality, standardized medical, dental and
optician's equipment, the computers and videos, including
payments made for the credit to buy televisions for the
population and for institutions and other similar payments
is less that 2% of the country's total hard currency
expenditure in the last five years.

To this we must add, as an example of the best use of
scarce resources, that the

cost of the million Chinese television sets is almost
completely offset by the saving in electricity that will be
achieved in the 8 years needed to repay the credit
obtained.

When we look back on these heroic years of intense labor
and not a few challenges, we cannot help but feel proud of
our youth, of its values, of its caliber, of its mettle.

Men like Juan Miguel, who has discharged his duties as a
father and a patriot in such an exemplary manner, was a
member of the YCL.

Our five heroes imprisoned by the empire were members of
the YCL, they who are the victims of vengeance and hate,
who are suffering through cruel and unjust prison terms in
American jails without letting anyone stain their honor,
break their integrity and loyalty to the Revolution and to
our people.

They are symbols and serve as inspiration to those who will
change the world. We shall not rest for a second until
justice be done and they are returned to our country.
Sooner or later, with support from the rest of the world,
we shall win that battle, too!

The information I have given in these remarks which are my
reply to your invitation may astound many people, some
might not even believe them, others will totally ignore
them.

The empire will be furious and announce with incredible
cynicism that Cuba must be liberated and democracy brought
to this enslaved people and what is more, teach it to read
and write, as they announce in their `program for the
transition to capitalism'. The masses, still partially
deceived by the hail of lies and invectives coming from the
powerful imperialist media, will believe us more and more,
as they begin to awaken to what is in store for them and to
understand the huge difference between our system and the
one advocated by the empire.

Capitalism has lost any humanist essence; it lives from
waste and to waste; it cannot escape from that congenital,
incurable disease. Suffice it to say that Cuba has 450
doctors in Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere;
the industrialized countries cannot send even 50, for they
have finance capital but lack human capital.

Neither aggression nor blockade, terrorist acts or the
disintegration of the socialist block, unipolar dominion
over the world or the extreme right's rise to power in the
United States which we, in 1998, warned was possible and in
fact likely, have been able to break our heroic people's
spirit of struggle.

We have known true independence and real freedom. We shall
never resign ourselves to living without them! We are
willing to pay the necessary price of which MartÃ* spoke.

We shall continue to create and to struggle. No one now
will ever be strong enough to push back into the bottle the
genie of a people which has escaped for ever from plunder,
humiliation and ignominy.

As Camilo Cienfuegos, that extraordinary fighter who is
there with Mella and Che on the Cuban YCL badge and who was
only 27 when he died, said in his last speech on October
26, 1959: "We shall kneel down once and we shall bow our
heads once, and that will be on the day when we reach the
land that watches over 20,000 Cubans and say to them,
`Brothers and sisters, the Revolution is complete, your
blood was not shed in vain'".

Long ago, the Cuban people said Homeland or Death! And it
will carry on its Battle of Ideas to its logical
conclusion.

Long live the people that have faced up honorably to the
most powerful empire ever to exist!

Eternal life to the example the Cuban youths are setting
for the world today!

Long live socialism forever!

[OsunkoyaIfayomi]

asante Jacuma