Ernesto Che Guevara 

 
 
Letter from Major Ernesto "Che" Guevara to Carlos Quijano, editor of the Montevideo weekly magazine Marcha 

 
I am finishing these notes while travelling through Africa, moved by the desire 
to keep my promise, although after some delay. I should like to do so by dealing 
with the topic that appears in the title. I believe it might be of interest to 
Uruguayan readers. 
It is common to hear how capitalist spokesmen use as an argument in the 
ideological struggle against socialism the assertion that such a social system 
or the period of building socialism upon which we have embarked, is 
characterized by the extinction of the individual for the sake of the State. I 
will make no attempt to refute this assertion on a merely theoretical basis, but 
will instead establish the facts of the Cuban experience and add commentaries of 
a general nature. I shall first broadly sketch the history of our revolutionary 
struggle both before and after the taking of power. 
As we know, the exact date of the beginning of the revolutionary actions which 
were to culminate on January 1, 1959, was July 26, 1953. A group of men led by 
Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada military garrison in the province of Oriente, 
in the early hours of the morning of that day. The attack was a failure, the 
failure became a disaster and the survivors were imprisoned, only to begin the 
revolutionary struggle all over again, once they were amnestied. 
During this process, which contained only the first seeds of socialism, man was 
a basic factor. Man- individualized, specific, named- was trusted and the 
triumph or failure of the task entrusted to him depended on his capacity for 
action. 
Then came the stage of guerrilla warfare. It was carried out in two different 
environments: the people, an as yet unawakened mass that had to be mobilized, 
and its vanguard, the guerilla, the thrusting engine of mobilization, the 
generator of revolutionary awareness and militant enthusiasm. This vanguard was 
the catalyst which created the subjective condition necessary for victory. The 
individual was also the basic factor in the guerilla, in the framework of the 
gradual proletarianization of our thinking, in the revolution taking place in 
our habits and in our minds. Each and every one of the Sierra Maestra fighters 
who achieved a high rank in the revolutionary forces has to his credit a list of 
noteworthy deeds. It was on the basis of such deeds that they earned their rank. 
 
The First Heroic Stage
It was the first heroic period in which men strove to earn posts of great 
responsibility, of greater danger, with the fulfillment of their duty as the 
only satisfaction. In our revolutionary educational work, we often return to 
this instructive topic. The man of the future could be glimpsed in the attitude 
of our fighters. 
At other times of our history there have been repetitions of this utter devotion 
to the revolutionary cause. During the October Crisis and at the time of 
hurricane Flora, we witnessed deeds of exceptional valour and self-sacrifice 
carried out by an entire people. One of our fundamental tasks from the 
ideological standpoint is to find the way to perpetuate such heroic attitudes in 
everyday life. 
The Revolutionary Government was established in 1959 with the participation of 
several members of the "sell-out" bourgeoisie. The presence of the Rebel Army 
constituted the guarantee of power as the fundamental factor of strength. 
Serious contradictions arose which were solved in the first instance in 
February, 1959, when Fidel Castro assumed the leadership of the government in 
the post of Prime Minister. This process culminated in July of the same year 
with the resignation of President Urrutia in the face of mass pressure. 
With clearly defined features, there now appeared in the history of the Cuban 
Revolution a personage which will systematically repeat itself: the masses. 
 
Full and Accurate Interpretation of the People's Wishes
This multifaceted being is not, as it is claimed, the sum total of elements of 
the same category (and moreover, reduced to the same category by the system 
imposed upon them) and which acts as a tame herd. It is true that the mass 
follows its leaders, especially Fidel Castro, without hesitation, but the degree 
to which he has earned such confidence is due precisely to the consummate 
interpretation of the people's desires and aspirations, and to the sincere 
struggle to keep the promises made. 
The mass participated in the Agrarian Reform and in the difficult undertaking of 
the management of the state enterprises; it underwent the heroic experience of 
Playa Girón it was tempered in the struggle against the groups of bandits armed 
by the CIA; during the October Crisis it lived one of the most important 
definitions of modern times and today it continues the work to build socialism. 
Looking at things from a superficial standpoint, it might seem that those who 
speak of the submission of the individual to the State are right; with 
incomparable enthusiasm and discipline, the mass carries out the tasks set by 
the government whatever their nature: economic, cultural, defense, sports, etc. 
The initiative generally comes from Fidel or the high command of the revolution; 
it is explained to the people, who make it their own. At times, local 
experiences are taken up by the party and the government and are thereby 
generalized, following the same procedure. 
However, the State at times makes mistakes. When this occurs, the collective 
enthusiasm diminishes palpably as a result of a quantitative diminishing that 
takes place in each of the elements that make up the collective, and work 
becomes paralyzed until it finally shrinks to insignificant proportions; this is 
the time to rectify. 
This was what happened in March, 1962, in the presence of the sectarian policy 
imposed on the Party by Anibal Escalante. 
 
Dialectical Unity Between Fidel and the Mass
This mechanism is obviously not sufficient to ensure a sequence of sensible 
measures; what is missing is a more structured relationship with the mass. We 
must improve this connection in the years to come, but for now, in the case of 
the initiatives arising on the top levels of government, we are using the almost 
intuitive method of keeping our ears open to the general reactions in the face 
of the problems that are posed. 
Fidel is a past master at this; his particular mode of integration with the 
people can only be appreciated by seeing him in action. In the big public 
meetings, one can observe something like the dialogue of two tuning forks whose 
vibrations summon forth new vibrations each in the other. Fidel and the mass 
begin to vibrate in a dialogue of growing intensity which reaches its 
culminating point in an abrupt ending crowned by our victorious battle cry. 
What is hard to understand for anyone who has not lived the revolutionary 
experience is that close dialectical unity which exists between the individual 
and the mass, in which both are interrelated, and the mass, as a whole composed 
of individuals, is in turn interrelated with the leaders. 
Under capitalism, certain phenomena of this nature can be observed with the 
appearance on the scene of politicians capable of mobilizing the public, but if 
it is not an authentic social movement, in which case it is not completely 
accurate to speak of capitalism, the movement will have the same life span as 
its promoter or until the rigors of capitalist society put an end to popular 
illusions. Under capitalism, man is guided by a cold ordinance which is usually 
beyond his comprehension. The alienated human individual is bound to society as 
a whole by an invisible umbilical cord: the law of value. It acts upon all 
facets of his life, shaping his road and his destiny. 
 
The Invisible Laws of Capitalism
The laws of capitalism, invisible and blind for most people, act upon the 
individual without his awareness. He sees only the broadness of a horizon that 
appears infinite. Capitalist propaganda presents it in just this way, and 
attempts to use the Rockefeller case (true or not) as a lesson in the prospects 
for success. The misery that must be accumulated for such an example to arise 
and the sum total of baseness contributing to the formation of a fortune of such 
magnitude do not appear in the picture, and the popular forces are not always 
able to make these concepts clear. (It would be fitting at this point to study 
how the works of the imperialist countries gradually lose their international 
class spirit under the influence of a certain complicity in the exploitation of 
the dependent countries and how this fact at the same time wears away the 
militant spirit of the masses within their own national context, but this topic 
is outside the framework of the present note). 
In any case we can see the obstacle course which may apparently be overcome by 
an individual with the necessary qualities to arrive at the finish line. The 
reward is glimpsed in the distance and the road is solitary. Furthermore, it is 
a race of wolves: he who arrives does so only at the expense of the failure of 
others. 
I shall now attempt to define the individual, the actor in this strange and 
moving drama that is the building of socialism, in his two-fold existence as a 
unique being and a member of the community. 
I believe that the simplest approach is to recognise his un-made quality: he is 
an unfinished product. The flaws of the past are translated into the present in 
the individual consciousness and constant efforts must be made to eradicate 
them. The process is two-fold: on the one hand society acts upon the individual 
by means of direct and indirect education, while on the other hand, the 
individual undergoes a conscious phase of self-education. 
 
Compete Fiercely With the Past
The new society in process of formation has to compete very hard with the past. 
This makes itself felt not only in the individual consciousness, weighted down 
by the residues of an education and an upbringing systematically oriented 
towards the isolation of the individual, but also by the very nature of this 
transition period, with the persistence of commodity relations. The commodity is 
the economic cell of capitalist society; as long as it exists, its effects will 
make themselves felt in the organization of production and therefore in man's 
consciousness. 
Marx's scheme conceived of the transition period as the result of the explosive 
transformation of the capitalist system torn apart by its inner contradictions; 
subsequent reality has shown how some countries, the weak limbs, detach 
themselves from the imperialist tree, a phenomenon foreseen by Lenin. In those 
countries, capitalism has developed sufficiently to make its effects felt upon 
the people in one way or another, but it is not its own inner contradictions 
that explode the system after exhausting all of its possibilities. The struggle 
for liberation against an external oppressor, the misery which has its origin in 
foreign causes, such as war whose consequences make the privileged classes fall 
upon the exploited, the liberation movements aimed at overthrowing neocolonial 
regimes, are the customary factors in this process. Conscious action does the 
rest. 
 
A Rapid Change Without Sacrifices is Impossible
In these countries there still has not been achieved a complete education for 
the work of society, and wealth is far from being within the reach of the masses 
through the simple process of appropriation. Under development and the customary 
flight of capital to "civilized" countries make impossible a rapid change 
without sacrifices. There still remains a long stretch to be covered in the 
building of the economic base and the temptation to follow the beaten paths of 
material interest as the lever of speedy development, is very great. 
There is a danger of not seeing the forest because of the trees. Pursuing the 
chimera of achieving socialism with the aid of the blunted weapons left to us by 
capitalism (the commodity as the economic cell, profitability and the individual 
material interest as levers, etc.), it is possible to come to a blind alley. And 
the arrival there comes about after covering a long distance where there are 
many crossroads and where it is difficult to realise just when the wrong turn 
was taken. Meanwhile, the adapted economic base has undermined the development 
of consciousness. To build communism, a new man must be created simultaneously 
with the material base. 
That is why it is so important to choose correctly the instrument of mass 
mobilization. That instrument must be fundamentally of a moral character, 
without forgetting the correct use of material incentives, especially those of a 
social nature. 
 
Society Must be a Huge School 
As I already said, in moments of extreme danger it is easy to activate moral 
incentives; to maintain their effectiveness, it is necessary to develop a 
consciousness in which values acquire new categories. Society as a whole must 
become a huge school. 
The broad characteristics of the phenomenon are similar to the process of 
formation of capitalist consciousness in the system's first stage. Capitalism 
resorts to force but it also educates people in the system. Direct propaganda is 
carried out by those who are entrusted with the task of explaining the 
inevitability of a class regime, whether it be of divine origin or due to the 
imposition of nature as a mechanical entity. This placates the masses, who see 
themselves oppressed by an evil against which it is not possible to struggle. 
This is followed by hope, which differentiates capitalism form the previous 
caste regimes that offered no way out. For some, the caste formula continues in 
force: the obedient are rewarded by the post mortem arrival in other wonderful 
worlds where the good are requited, and the old tradition is continued. For 
others, innovation: the division in classes is a matter of fate, but individuals 
can leave the class to which they belong through work, initiative, etc. This 
process, and that of self-education for success, must be deeply hypocritical; it 
is the interested demonstration that a lie is true. 
In our case, direct education acquires much greater importance. Explanations are 
convenient because they are genuine; subterfuges are not needed. It is carried 
out through the State's educational apparatus in the form of general, technical 
and ideological culture, by means of bodies such as the Ministry of Education 
and the Party's information apparatus. Education takes among the masses and the 
new attitude that is praised tends to become habit; the mass gradually takes it 
over and exerts pressure on those who have still not become educated. This is 
the indirect way of educating the masses, as powerful as the other, structured, 
one. 
 
The Process of Individual Self-education 
But the process is a conscious one; the individual receives the impact of the 
new social power and perceives that he is not completely adequate to it. Under 
the influence of the pressure implied in indirect education, he tries to adjust 
to a situation that he feels to be just and whose lack of development has kept 
him from doing so thus far. He is education himself. 
We can see the new man who begins to emerge in this period of the building of 
socialism. His image is as yet unfinished; in fact it will never be finished, 
since the process advances parallel to the development of new economic forms. 
Discounting those whose lack of education makes them tend toward the solitary 
road, towards the satisfaction of their ambitions, there are others who, even 
within this new picture of over-all advances, tend to march in isolation form 
the accompanying mass. What is more important is that people become more aware 
every day of the need to incorporate themselves into society and of their own 
importance as motors of that society. 
They no longer march in complete solitude along lost roads towards far-off 
longings. They follow their vanguard, composed of the Party, of the most 
advanced workers, of the advanced men who move along bound to the masses and in 
close communion with them. The vanguards have their eyes on the futures and tis 
recompenses, but the latter are not envisioned as something individual; the 
reward Is the new society where human beings will have different 
characteristics: the society of communist man. 
 
A Long and Difficult Road 
The road is long and full of difficulties. At times, the route strays off course 
and it is necessary to retreat; at times, a too rapid pace separates us from the 
masses and on occasions the pace is slow and we feel upon our necks the breath 
of those who follow upon our heels. Our ambition as revolutionaries makes us try 
to move forwards as far as possible, opening up the way before us, but we know 
that we must be reinforced by the mass, while the mass will be able to advance 
more rapidly if we encourage it by our example. 
In spite of the importance given to moral incentives, the existence of two 
principal groups (excluding, of course, the minority fraction of those who do 
not participate for one reason or another in the building of socialism) is an 
indication of the relative lack of development of social consciousness. The 
vanguard group is ideologically more advanced than the mass; the latter is 
acquainted with the new values, but insufficiently. While in the former a 
qualitative change takes place which permits them to make sacrifices as a 
function of their vanguard character, the latter see only the halves and must be 
subjected to incentives and pressure of some intensity; it is the dictatorship 
of the proletariat being exercised not only upon the defeated class but also 
individually upon the victorious class. 
To achieve total success, all of this involves the necessity of a series of 
mechanisms, the revolutionary institutions. The concept of institutionalization 
fits in with the images of the multitudes marching toward the future as that of 
a harmonic unit of canals, steps, well-oiled apparatuses that make the march 
possible that permit the natural selection of those who are destined to march in 
the vanguard and who dispense rewards and punishments to those who fulfill their 
duty or act against the society under construction. 
 
Perfect Identification Between Government and Community 
The institutionality of the Revolution has still not been achieved. We are 
seeking something new that will allow a perfect identification between the 
government and the community as a whole, adapted to the special conditions of 
the building of socialism and avoiding to the utmost the commonplaces of 
bourgeois democracy transplanted to the society in formation (such as 
legislative houses, for example). Some experiments have been carried out with 
the aim of gradually creating the institutionalization of the Revolution, but 
without too much hurry. We have been greatly restrained by the fear that any 
formal aspect might make us lose sight of the ultimate and most important 
revolutionary aspiration: to see man freed form alienation. 
Notwithstanding the lack of institutions, which must be overcome gradually, the 
masses now make history as a conscious aggregate of individuals who struggle for 
the same cause. In spit of the apparent standardization of man in socialism, he 
is more complete; his possibilities for expressing himself and making himself 
heard in the social apparatus are infinitely greater, in spite of the lack of a 
perfect mechanism to do so. 
It is still necessary to accentuate his conscious, individual and collective, 
participation in all the mechanism of direction and production and associate it 
with the idea of the need for technical and ideological education, so that the 
individual will realise that these processes are closely interdependent and 
their advances are parallel. He will thus achieve total awareness of his social 
being, which is equivalent to his full realisation as a human being, having 
broken the chains of alienation. 
This will be translated concretely into the reappropriation of his nature though 
freed work an the expression of his own human condition in culture and art. 
 
Work Must acquire a new Condition
In order for it to develop in culture, work must acquire a new condition; man as 
commodity ceases to exist and a system is established that grants a quota for 
the fulfillment of social duty. The means of production belong to society and 
the machine is only the front line where duty is performed. Man begins to free 
his thought from the bothersome fact that presupposed the need to satisfy his 
animal needs by working. He begins to see himself portrayed in his work and to 
understand its human magnitude through the created object, through the work 
carried out. This no longer involves leaving a part of his being in the form of 
labour power sold, which no longer belongs to him; rather, it signifies an 
emanation from himself, a contribution to the life of society in which he is 
reflected, the fulfillment of his social duty. 
We are doing everything possible to give work this new category of social duty 
and to join it to the development of technology, on the one hand, which will 
provide the conditions for greater freedom, and to voluntary work on the other, 
based on the Marxist concept that man truly achieves his full human condition 
when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling 
himself as a commodity. 
it is clear that work still has coercive aspects, even when it is voluntary; man 
has still not transformed all the coercion surrounding him into conditioned 
reflexes of a social nature, and in many cases, he still produces under the 
pressure of the environment (Fidel calls this moral compulsion). He is still to 
achieve complete spiritual recreation in the presence of his own work, without 
the direct pressure of the social environment but bound to it by new habits. 
That will be communism. 
the change in consciousness does not come about automatically, just as it does 
not come about automatically in the economy. The variations are slow and not 
rhythmic; there are periods of acceleration, others are measured and some 
involve a retreat. 
 
Communism's First Transition Period
We must also consider, as we have pointed out previously, that we are not before 
a pure transition period such as that envisioned by Marx in the "Critique of the 
Gotha Program", but rather a new phase not foreseen by him: the first period in 
the transition to communism or in the building of socialism. 
Elements of capitalism are present within this process, which takes place in the 
midst of violent class struggle. These elements obscure the complete 
understanding of the essence of the process. 
If to this be added the scholasticism that has held back the development of 
Marxist philosophy and impeded the systematic treatment of the period, whose 
political economy has still not been developed, we must agree that we are still 
in diapers. We must study all the primordial features of the period before 
elaborating a more far reaching economic and political theory. 
The resulting theory will necessarily give preeminence to the two pillar of 
socialist construction: the formation of the new human being and the development 
of technology. We still have a great deal to accomplish in both aspects, but the 
delay is less justifiable as far as the conception of technology as the basis is 
concerned; here, it is not a matter of advancing blindly but rather of following 
for a sizable stretch the road opened up by the most advanced countries of the 
world. This is why Fidel harps so insistently on the necessity of the 
technological and scientific formation of all our people and especially the 
vanguard. 
 
Division Between Material and Spiritual Necessity
In the field of ideas that lead to non-productive activities, it is easier to 
see the division between material and spiritual needs. For a long time man has 
been trying to free himself from alienation through culture and art. He dies 
daily in the eight and more hours during which he performs as a commodity to 
resuscitate in his spiritual creation. But this remedy itself bears the germs of 
the same disease: he is a solitary being who seeks communion with nature. He 
defends his environment-oppressed individuality and reacts to esthetic ideas as 
a unique being whose aspiration is to remain immaculate. 
It is only an attempt at flight. The law of value is no longer a mere reflection 
of production relations; the monopoly capitalists have surrounded it with a 
complicated scaffolding which makes of it a docile servant, even when the 
methods used are purely empirical. The artists must be educated in the kind of 
art imposed by the superstructure. The rebels are overcome by the apparatus and 
only the exceptional talents are able to create their own work. The others 
become shame-faced wage-workers or they are crushed. 
Artistic experimentation is invented and is taken as the definition of freedom, 
but this "experimentation" has limits which are imperceptible unit they are 
clashed with, that is, when th real problems of man and his alienated condition 
are dealt with. Senseless anguish or vulgar pastimes are comfortable safety 
valves for human uneasiness; the idea of making art a weapon of denunciation and 
accusation is combatted. 
If the rules of the game are respected, all honours are obtained- the hours that 
might be granted to a pirouette-creating monkey. The condition is not attempting 
to escape from the invisible cage. 
 
A New Impulse for Artistic Experimentation
When the Revolution took power, the exodus of the totally domesticated took 
place; the others, revolutionaries or not, saw a new road. Artistic 
experimentation took on new force. However, the routes were more or less traced 
and the concept of flight was the hidden meaning behind the word freedom. This 
attitude, a reflection inn consciousness of bourgeois idealism, was frequently 
maintained in the revolutionaries themselves. 
In countries that have gone through a similar process, endeavours were made to 
combat these tendencies with an exaggerated dogmatism. General culture became 
something like a taboo and a formally exact representation of nature was 
proclaimed as the height of cultural aspiration. This later become a mechanical 
representation of social reality created by wishful thinking: the ideal society, 
almost without conflicts or contradiction, that man was seeking to create. 
Socialism is young and makes mistakes. We revolutionaries often lack the 
knowledge and the intellectual audacity to face the tasks of the development of 
the new human being by methods different from the conventional ones, and the 
conventional methods suffer from the influence of the society that created them 
(once again the topic of the relation between form and content appears). 
Disorientation is great and the problems of material construction absorb us. 
There are no artists of great authority who also have great revolutionary 
authority. 
The men of the Party must take this task upon themselves and seek the 
achievement of the principal aim: to educate the people. 
 
Socialist Realism Based on the
Art of the Last Century 
What is then sought is simplification, what everyone understand, that is, what 
the functionaries understand. True artistic experimentation is obliterated and 
the problem of general culture is reduced to the assimilation of the socialist 
present and the dead (and therefore not dangerous) past. Socialist realism is 
thus born on the foundation of the art of the last century. 
But the realistic art of the 19th century is also class art, perhaps more purely 
capitalist than the decadent art of the 20th century, where the anguish of 
alienated man shows through. In culture, capitalism has given all that it had to 
give and all that remains of it is the foretaste of a bad-smelling corpse; in 
art, its present decadence. But why endeavour to seek in the frozen forms of 
socialist realism the only valid recipe? "freedom" cannot be set against 
socialist realism because the former does not yet exists; it will not come int 
being until the complete development of the new society. But let us not attempt 
to condemn all post-mid-nineteenth century art forms from the pontifical throne 
of realism- at-all-costs; that would mean committing the Proudhonian error of 
the return of to the past, and straight jacketing the artistic expression of the 
man who is born and being formed today. 
An ideological and cultural mechanism must be developed which will permit 
experimentation and clear out the weds that shoot up so easily in the fertilized 
soil of state subsidization. 
 
Twenty-First Century Man 
The error of mechanical realism has not appeared (in Cuba), but rather the 
contrary. This is so because of the lack of understanding of the need to create 
a new human being who will represent neither 19th century ideas nor those of our 
decadent and morbid century. It is the twenty-first century man whom we must 
create, although this is still a subjective and unsystematic aspiration. This is 
precisely one of the basic points of our studies and work; to the extent that we 
make concrete achievement on a theoretical base or vice versa, that we come to 
broad theoretical conclusions on the basis of our concrete studies, we will have 
made a valuable contribution to Marxism-Leninism, to the cause of mankind. 
The reaction against 19th century man has brought a recurrence of the 20th 
century decadence. It is not a very serious error, but we must overcome it so as 
not to leave the doors open to revisionism. 
The large multitudes of people are developing themselves, the new ideas are 
acquiring an adequate impetus within society, the material possibilities of the 
integral development of each and every one of its members make the task ever 
more fruitful. The present is one of struggle; the future is ours. 
 
Intellectuals Not Authentically Revolutionary 
To sum up, the fault of many of our intellectuals and artists is to be found in 
their "original sin": they are not authentically revolutionary. We can attempt 
to graft elm trees so that they bear pears, but at the same time we must plant 
pear trees. The new generations will arrive free of "original sin." The 
likelihood that exceptional artists will arise will be that much greater because 
of the enlargement of the cultural field and the possibilities for expression. 
Our job is to keep the present generation, maladjusted by its conflicts, from 
becoming perverted and perverting the new generations. We do not want to create 
salaried workers docile to official thinking nor "fellows" who live under the 
wing of the budget, exercising freedom in quotation marks. Revolutionaries will 
come to sing to song of the new man with the authentic voice of the people. It 
is a process that requires time. 
In our society the youth and the Party play a big role. The former is 
particularly important because it is the malleable clay with which the new man, 
without any of the previous defects, can be formed. 
Youth receives treatment in consonance with our aspirations. Education is 
increasingly integral and we do not neglect the incorporation of the students 
into work from the very beginning. Our scholarship students do physical work 
during vacation or together with their studies. In some cases work is a prize, 
while in others it is an educational tool; it is never a punishment. A new 
generation is born. 
 
The Party: Vanguard organisation 
The Party is a vanguard organisation. The best workers are proposed by their 
comrades for membership. The party is a minority but the quality of its cadres 
gives it great authority. Our aspiration is that the party become a mass one, 
but only when the masses reach the level of development of the vanguard, that 
is, when they are educated for communism. Our work is aimed at providing that 
education. The party is the living example; its cadres must be full professors 
of assiduity and sacrifice; with their acts they must lead the masses to the end 
of the revolutionary task, which means years of struggle against the 
difficulties of construction, the class enemies, the defects of the past, 
imperialism... 
I should now like to explain the role played by the personality, the man as the 
individual who leads the masses that make history. This is our experience, and 
not a recipe. 
Fidel gave impulse to the Revolution in its first years, he has always given it 
leadership and set the tone, but there is a good group of revolutionaries 
developing in the same direction as Fidel and a large mass that follows its 
leaders because it has faith in them. It has faith in them because these leaders 
have known how to interpret the longings of the masses. 
 
So That the Individual Feels more Fulfilled 
It is not a question of how many kilograms of meat are eaten or how many times a 
year someone may go on holiday to the sea shore or how many pretty imported 
things can be bought with present wages. It is rather that the individual feels 
greater fulfillment, that he has greater inner wealth and many more 
responsibilities. In our country the individual knows that the glorious period 
in which it has fallen to him to live is one of sacrifice; he is familiar with 
sacrifice. 
The first came to know it in the Sierra Maestra and wherever there was fighting; 
later, we have known it in all Cuba. Cuba is the vanguard of America and must 
make sacrifices because it occupies the advance position, because it points out 
to the Latin American masses the road to full freedom. 
Within the country, the leaders have to fulfil their vanguard role; and it must 
be said with complete sincerity that in a true revolution, to which you give 
yourself completely without any thought for material retribution, the task of 
the vanguard revolutionary is both magnificent and anguishing. 
Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary 
is guided by strong feelings of love. It is impossible to think of an authentic 
revolutionary without this quality. This is perhaps one of the great dramas of a 
leader; he must combine an impassioned spirit with a cold mind and make painful 
decision without flinching. Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealise their 
love for the people, for the most hallowed causes, and make it one and 
indivisible. They cannot descend, with small doses of daily affection, to the 
terrain where ordinary men put their love into practice. 
 
A Large Dose of Humanity 
The leaders of the revolution have children who do not learn to call their 
father with their first faltering words; they have wives who must be part of the 
general sacrifice of their lives to carry the revolution to its destination; 
their friends are strictly limited to their comrades in revolution. There is no 
life outside the revolution. 
In these conditions, the revolutionary leaders must have a large dose of 
humanity, a large dose of a sense of justice and truth to avoid falling into 
dogmatic extremes, into cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses. They 
must struggle every day so that their love of living humanity is transformed 
into concrete deeds, into act that will serve as an example, as a mobilizing 
factor. 
The revolutionary, ideological motor of the revolution within his party, is 
consumed by this uninterrupted activity that ends only with death, unless 
construction be achieved on a worldwide scale. If his revolutionary eagerness 
becomes dulled when the most urgent tasks are carried on a local scale and if he 
forgets about proletarian internationalism, the revolution that he leads cease 
to be a driving force and it sinks into a comfortable drowsiness which is taken 
advantage of by imperialism, our irreconciliable enemy, to gain ground. 
Proletarian internationalism is a duty, but it is also a revolutionary need. 
This is how we educate our people. 
 
Dangers of Dogmatism and Weaknesses 
it is evident that there are dangers in the present circumstances. Not only that 
of dogmatism, not only that of the freezing up of relations with the masses in 
the midst of the great task; there also exists the danger of weaknesses in which 
it is possible to incur. If a man thinks that in order t devote his entire life 
to the revolution, he cannot be distracted by the worry that one of his children 
lacks a certain article, that the children's shoes are in poor condition, that 
his family lacks some necessary item, with this reasoning, the seeds of future 
corruption are allowed to filter through. 
In our case, we have maintained that our children must have, or lack, what the 
children of the ordinary citizen have or lack; our family must understand this 
and struggle for it. The revolution is made by man, but man must forge his 
revolutionary spirit from day to day. 
Thus we go forward. Fidel is at the head of the immense column- we are neither 
ashamed nor afraid to say so- followed by the best Party cadres and right after 
them, so close that their great strength is felt, come the people as a whole, a 
solid bulk of individualities moving towards a common aim; individuals who have 
achieved the awareness of what must be done; men who struggle to leave the 
domain of necessity and enter that of freedom. 
That immense multitude is ordering itself; its order responds to an awareness of 
the need for order; it is no longer a dispersed force, divisible in thousands of 
fractions shot into space like the fragments of a grenade, trying by any and all 
means, in a fierce struggle with their equals, to achieve a position that would 
give them support in the face of an uncertain future. 
We know that we have sacrifices ahead of us and that we must pay a price for the 
heroic fact of constituting a vanguard as a nation. We the leaders know that we 
must pay a price for having the right to say that we are at the head of the 
people that is at the head of America. 
Each and every one of us punctually pays his share of sacrifice, aware of being 
rewarded by the satisfaction of fulfilling our duty, aware of advancing with 
everyone towards the new human being who is to be glimpsed on the horizon. 
 
We are More Free Because We are More Fulfilled 
Allow me to attempt to come to some conclusions: 
We socialists are more free because we are more fulfilled; we are more fulfilled 
because we are more free. 
The skeleton of our complete freedom is formed, but it lacks the protein 
substance and the draperies, we will create them. 
Our freedom and its daily sustenance are the colour of blood and swollen with 
sacrifice. 
Our sacrifice is a conscious one; it is in payment for the freedom we are 
building. 
The road is long and in part unknown; we are aware of our limitations. We will 
make the 21st century man; we ourselves. 
We will be tempered in daily actions, creating a new human being with a new 
technology. 
The personality plays the role of mobilisation and leadership in so far as it 
incarnates the highest virtues and aspirations of the people and does not become 
detoured. 
The road is opened up by the vanguard group, the best among the good, the Party. 
the basic raw material of our work is the youth: in it we place our hopes and we 
are preparing it to take the banner from our hands. 
If this faltering letter has made some things clear, it will have fulfilled my 
purpose in sending it. 
Accept our ritual greetings, as a handshake or an "Ave María Purísima." 
 
PATRIA O MUERTE
[Fatherland or Death] 
 

Written: March, 1965 
Source: Guairas, Book Institute, Havana, 1967 
Translated: Margarita Zimmermann