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meanwhile the story so far in Cigarland... still assailing the capitalist enemy...

havana

For half a century his existence has mocked the superpower that tried to kill, topple and isolate him. Fidel Castro seemed immortal, and there was nothing the US could do about it.

US presidents came and went, the Berlin Wall fell, Cuba tottered and Castro, ambushed by illness, relinquished power. But still he resisted the “biological solution” – a Washington euphemism for Castro’s death. He clung to life, to defiance, and surfaced every so often to assail the capitalist enemy.

On Tuesday the “maximum leader” emerged into the limelight again but this time there was no thunder. It was, apparently, goodbye. “I’ll be 90 years old soon,” Castro told the Communist party in a valedictory speech at the closure of its four-day congress in Havana. “Soon I’ll be like all the others.”

After decades of revolutionary fervour in marathon speeches and newspaper columns it was time, in an occasionally trembling voice, for a hint of elegy.

“The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervour and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without truce to obtain them.”

State television, in a delayed, edited broadcast, showed the former president, wearing a plaid shirt and sports top, seated at the dais in the convention palace, consulting notes as he spoke. Party members responded with shouts of “Fidel!”

Who could have guessed that the olive-uniformed rebel who overthrew Fulgencio Batista in 1959, who inspired and alienated generations of leftwingers, who flirted with nuclear armageddon during the 1962 missile crisis, who outlasted the Soviet Union and 10 US presidents, would make it to 2016, almost a nonagenarian, bowing to Father Time?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/19/fidel-castro-farewell-speech-cuba-communist-congress

 

thank you...

 

Ernesto Che Guevara

Farewell letter from Che to Fidel Castro

« Year of Agriculture »
Havana, April 1, 1965.

Fidel:

At this moment I remember many things: when I met you in Maria Antonia's house, when you proposed I come along, all the tensions involved in the preparations. One day they came by and asked who should be notified in case of death, and the real possibility of it struck us all. Later we knew it was true, that in a revolution one wins or dies (if it is a real one). Many comrades fell along the way to victory.

Today everything has a less dramatic tone, because we are more mature, but the event repeats itself. I feel that I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution in its territory, and I say farewell to you, to the comrades, to your people, who now are mine.

I formally resign my positions in the leadership of the party, my post as minister, my rank of commander, and my Cuban citizenship. Nothing legal binds me to Cuba. The only ties are of another nature — those that cannot be broken as can appointments to posts.

Reviewing my past life, I believe I have worked with sufficient integrity and dedication to consolidate the revolutionary triumph. My only serious failing was not having had more confidence in you from the first moments in the Sierra Maestra, and not having understood quickly enough your qualities as a leader and a revolutionary.

I have lived magnificent days, and at your side I felt the pride of belonging to our people in the brilliant yet sad days of the Caribbean [Missile] crisis. Seldom has a statesman been more brilliant as you were in those days. I am also proud of having followed you without hesitation, of having identified with your way of thinking and of seeing and appraising dangers and principles.

Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts of assistance. I can do that which is denied you due to your responsibility as the head of Cuba, and the time has come for us to part.

You should know that I do so with a mixture of joy and sorrow. I leave here the purest of my hopes as a builder and the dearest of those I hold dear. And I leave a people who received me as a son. That wounds a part of my spirit. I carry to new battlefronts the faith that you taught me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of fulfilling the most sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever it may be. This is a source of strength, and more than heals the deepest of wounds.

I state once more that I free Cuba from all responsibility, except that which stems from its example. If my final hour finds me under other skies, my last thought will be of this people and especially of you. I am grateful for your teaching and your example, to which I shall try to be faithful up to the final consequences of my acts.

I have always been identified with the foreign policy of our revolution, and I continue to be. Wherever I am, I will feel the responsibility of being a Cuban revolutionary, and I shall behave as such. I am not sorry that I leave nothing material to my wife and children; I am happy it is that way. I ask nothing for them, as the state will provide them with enough to live on and receive an education.

I would have many things to say to you and to our people, but I feel they are unnecessary. Words cannot express what I would like them to, and there is no point in scribbling pages.

Written: April 1, 1965 
Transcription/Markup: Brian Baggins 
Online Version: Ernesto Che Guevara Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002

 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/04/01.htm

 

1958...

1958

 

President Urrutia Names Castro As New Prime Minister of Cuba; Worry Rises Over Dulles Illness


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, February 14, 1959

HAVANA, Feb. 13--Fidel Castro, 32-year-old revolutionary chief, was named Prime Minister of Cuba tonight. It was his first move into political office and it came at a time when there was wide speculation that he was on the way to becoming president.

Up to now the bearded, 32-years-old leader has served the provisional government as commander in chief of armed forces. His appointment as Prime Minister to take office Monday followed the mass resignation of the Cuban Cabinet.

Provisional President Manuel Urrutia immediately announced his choice of Castro for the premiership. That job normally means head of government under the president, who is chief of state. Castro replaces Prime Minister Jose Miro Cardona.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1959/2/14/president-urrutia-names-castro-as-new/

 

Note the spelling mistake (Urcutia) in the SMH of the time... All the photographs of old articles from old Gus' collection of stuff, including SMH of the times.