Fidel Castro's greatness and legacy

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey Kemal Okuyan’s speech at the First Fidel International Colloquium

Dear comrade Diaz-Canel, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the President of the Republic.

The dedicated communists in the presidium.

Comrades and friends of Cuba,

Over the course of its long history, the communist movement has produced some truly great figures. The real burden always rested on the shoulders of the unnamed heroes, the working people and the millions who rose to fight. That is beyond question. But yes, the communist movement also gave rise to great revolutionaries who inspired those millions and led them forward.

We should also speak of a very special category of historical leaders. Leaders who leave their mark on an entire era, who never lose their relevance and who continue to enrich the years that follow. There are few of them, very few. In my view, only three people in our history deserve that distinction.

Fidel Castro is one of those three and the last.

That means Fidel Castro Ruz represents something greater than simply leading the Cuban Revolution. I do not mean to diminish that achievement. Leading the Cuban Revolution is itself an extraordinary achievement in history. But Fidel Castro is far greater than his role in the Cuban Revolution alone. That, I believe, is why the Cuban people have more reason than anyone else to take pride in him.

So why is that? Is it because he was a success story in almost every aspect of revolutionary struggle? As a guerrilla fighter, as the leader of a movement, as the founding leader of a country, as a thinker, as the father of a nation, and as an internationalist, he displayed exceptional ability in every responsibility he took on. That much is beyond dispute.

But I believe Fidel Castro is unique because he placed something at the very centre of all those achievements that nobody else did. Across every sphere of struggle that I have just mentioned, you can feel the presence of a profoundly developed ethical outlook. I want to stress this point because there was a time when I believed ethics could never occupy such a central place in the struggle for socialism, and that Fidel had shifted the emphasis.

Later, when I looked back over our entire history, when I examined the retreat of the communist movement after the 1980s and took account of the profound loss of credibility suffered by the left as a whole, I came to realise that Fidel had been right. Communism is also a system of values. My conviction will never change that Fidel's insistence that we defend and develop a system of values must be treated as a fundamental principle.

We cannot regard it as natural to encounter the presence within our ranks of the very traits we have come to associate with bourgeois politics: lack of principle, laziness, selfishness, careerism, and corruption becoming the rule rather than the exception whenever the opportunity arises. Of course, revolutionaries and communists are not superhuman beings. They are flesh-and-blood people, with their own weaknesses and shortcomings, who make mistakes. What distinguishes them, however, is their ability to stand firm, to learn, to grow, and to constantly improve themselves. Above all, rather than adapting themselves to the system they seek to overthrow, they should be repelled by it.

Let me speak plainly. If Cuba can withstand this unprecedented aggression today despite the hardships it has caused and we firmly believe it will, the fundamental reason lies in the existence of that very system of values.

The fact that communists fighting in completely different conditions, in another part of the world, make it a priority to recreate that same system of values in their own countries is itself proof of Fidel Castro's greatness and legacy.

And because of these values;

We should strengthen the solidarity work for Cuba. We should find ways to send materials that the Cuban people need urgently. We should spread accurate information about Cuba. We should struggle against the lies. And above all we should fight in a more decisive way against capitalism and imperialism.

Hands off Cuba. Viva Fidel Viva Cuba.

Hasta la victoria siempre.