Fidel speaks, January 1, 1989
By Enrique Villuendas Calleyro, translated from the Spanish
Among the slogans that after the triumph of January 1959 symbolize the will of the Cuban revolutionaries to continue the struggle are Homeland or Death! and Socialism or Death!
The origin of the first is well known: on March 5, 1960, at the funeral honors for the victims of the terrorist sabotage of the steamship La Coubre, which had occurred the day before, Fidel said: "Once again we would have no other dilemma than the one with which we began the revolutionary struggle: that of freedom or death. Only now freedom means something more: freedom means homeland. And our dilemma would be homeland or death."
Three months later, in June, Fidel added an essential word, which condensed his confidence in victory: "For each one of us, individually, the slogan is 'Homeland or Death!' but for the people, who in the long run will be victorious, the slogan is: We will win!"
It became customary for his speeches and those of many other comrades, at all levels, to conclude with a resounding "Homeland or Death, we will win!"
However, the moment when Fidel first pronounced the slogan Socialism or Death! was the 1st of January 1989, in Santiago de Cuba, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution.
In the face of the worrying events that had been occurring in the USSR and in the other socialist countries of Europe at the end of the 1980s, Fidel pointed out the responsibility that "in these times of confusion" the Cuban Revolution had before the peoples of the world.
He proclaimed: "Those who dream that the Revolution can ever be beaten, are deluded (...). That is why, more forcefully than ever, let us say today: Socialism or Death! Marxism-Leninism or Death!, which is what is meant today by what we have repeated so many times throughout these years: Homeland or Death! We will win!"
In a shocking speech delivered that same year in Camagüey, as the central act for the commemoration of July 26, Fidel reiterated that philosophy of struggle, in case the unimaginable happened: the disappearance of the Soviet Union.
That's how it was. Our people stoically faced the harsh impact of the "dismerengamiento" of the socialist camp, determined to save "the Homeland, the Revolution and the conquests of socialism," as Silvio would be heard describing, before the delegates to the 4th Party Congress in October 1991, at Fidel's request, that will to resist in the song El necio.
Fidel, always so attentive to symbols, did not overlook the importance of remembering when the new slogan had emerged.
On January 1, 1994 he said: "Five years ago, from this very rostrum, the courageous slogan of Socialism or Death! Three historical anniversaries, in round number, we commemorate today: the thirty-fifth of the 1st of January; the tenth of the declaration of the Hero City and the decoration, the delivery of the Order; and the fifth of the proclamation of the slogan of Socialism or Death!"
On December 20, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel DÃaz-Canel Bermúdez -- as he did in his speech in Santiago de Cuba for the 65th anniversary of the Revolution -- ended his words with a call that remains completely relevant because it expresses the determination to never to betray principles: "Socialism or Death!, Homeland or Death, We Will Overcome!"
This work was translated and shared via a License CC-BY-NC
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