Fidel's great work, says Brazilian theologian Frei Betto, is the Cuban Revolution, which did not begin January 1, 1959, but much earlier, and it has not concluded. But the backbone of this monumental project, underway just 90 miles from the most powerful empire in history, could not be explained without its Party.
This is confirmed by notable historians, philosophers, writers, and journalists, who highlight, among others, three keys that support this essential political instrument.
UNITY
Fidel's obsession was unity. He was timid, he seemed to almost request permission to be who he was, "despite all his genius, of all the history he embodied," Frei Betto noted. He was transformed when a challenge arose or when he explained to the multitudes “the art of building a correlation of social, political, and military forces that allows current conditions of the struggle to be changed, making possible, in the future, what at the present time appears impossible,” adds Chilean sociologist Marta Harnecker.
He understood, as few others, that unity is not achieved with sermons, but with action, and that in this effort we must be willing to do everything. “He bared his chest to the bullets when the invasion came,” Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano recalled, “faced hurricanes as an equal, one hurricane to another, survived 637 attacks. It was not the work of Mandinga's spell, or a miracle from God, that this new homeland would survive ten U.S. Presidents (currently 12), who had set the table for lunch with knives and forks.”
To confront such powerful forces as U.S. imperialism and local oligarchies, the main task of a revolutionary of these times, Fidel insisted again and again, was to build unity of the revolutionary forces. A broader effort should be considered, only after making an effort in this regard. However, he was not rigid in this objective, Harnecker clarifies. When the goal was not achieved immediately, the leader of the Cuban Revolution did not give up on progress toward broader unity. He insisted, "We should not start by setting the highest goals, but rather the minimum ones."
But of all Fidel’s accomplishments, one of his most important legacies was the creation of the Party, the main instrument for unity. He knew that every revolution is a war and to face it in better conditions, essential is “a single command capable of guiding the fight, clearly defining the strategic enemy and the immediate enemy, the form the fight must take, and the current situation, as well as the policy to continue gaining supporters against the immediate enemy,” states Harnecker, reflecting on the political legacy of the Comandante en jefe.
October 3, 1965, the first Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) was established, reflecting the consolidation of the political instrument of unity. In the formal act, Fidel read Ernesto Che Guevara’s farewell letter, which bore double symbolism: the Heroic Guerrilla had gone to continue the revolutionary project in "other lands of the world demanding the contribution of my modest efforts." It was also a message sent by an archetypal Communist, who in another letter to Fidel, that same year, had written:
"The Party and every member of the Party must be in the vanguard ... The moral standing of Communists is their most precious award, they must take care of individual morality ..." (letter from Che to Fidel, March 26, 1965, before leaving to complete his internationalist mission in Congo).
If the key to the vanguard party is unity, inclusion is its essence. "There is no revolutionary, social sector that is not represented," Fidel would explain when he announced the newly founded Central Committee, insisting that the Revolution must be above all that members had done in the past. The important thing was what all these forces would do together in the future. That is why, adds Harnecker, the Cuban leader did not “enforce his copyrights and, although the July 26 Movement was recognized by the vast majority of the people as the architect of the victory, he abandoned the flag of his movement to assume the flag of the Revolution.”
Fidel himself explained that via union and ideas, unity and doctrine, in the crucible of a revolutionary process, “this Party has been formed. And we must always be protective of these two things, because they are our fundamental pillars.”
EXAMPLE
The Communist Party of Cuba was assigned the task of assuring and defending the Revolution of the entire people, with the participation and organization of workers, peasants, technicians, professionals, students, and the rebel youth.
The logic of organizing people’s power was closely linked to the failure of all attempted coups, invasions or sieges, which would be tested over more than half a century, in the face of repeated aggression by imperialism and the economic blockade, which would have brought down any government that did not have the support of the vast majority of an organized people.
"But the Party would not have survived without a moral component, the example," says Mexican intellectual Pablo González Casanova.
Cuba was, and is, the only country that maintains its socialist project as a "moral world," or "another possible world," as is often said, or "another way of organizing work and life in the world," González explains.
Many times Fidel was heard saying: "In our society and in our Party, one principle must prevail: the example, which translates into merit, ability, modesty." Fidel's greatest concern was that the Party never lose its virtue, that affectionate respect, that fraternal respect and affection the masses feel for it. Let there be sacrifice and work, self-denial, honor, "but never privilege," Fidel would insist in 1974, speaking before a PCC accountability assembly in the province of Oriente.
Both the practice of confrontation and that of reaching consensus imply measures to organize collective morality, conscience, and will, and that is the Party organized by Fidel, Pablo González Casanova states.
The Cuban Communist Party takes the approach that agreement can be reached amidst conflict and class struggle, which continues even when consensus seems to predominate. “Cuba’s experience in this respect is immense, and not only in defense of its own Revolution and the many confrontations and agreements with the United States, but for having participated in the war in Angola against the army of the former colonialist, racist country of South Africa - the most powerful on the continent - and having helped defeat it, and sit at the negotiating table until reaching a compromise for peace,” concludes González.
SACRIFICE
"He had a chivalrous sense of honor, based on sacrifice," says Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. While Armando Hart, Cuban revolutionary thinker and former Cuban Minister of Education and Culture, interpreted the selfless vocation of the Party as a value that cannot be separated from the life of its principal leader: “The man who intelligently conceived, led, and defended, without hesitation, the gigantic work of the Cuban Revolution was called upon to be an uncommon, prime example of ethics, culture, confidence, experience, and firmness of principles: all in one.”
As early as 1962, while concluding the Seventh National Conference of Revolutionary Instruction Schools, Fidel stated: “The Party is not an extra benefit. The Party is sacrifice. The Party is not looking for anything. Above all, let us teach every revolutionary that one joins the Party to give everything…”
And on March 14, 1974, at the abovementioned assembly in Santiago de Cuba, he would add: “The Party must have authority before the masses, not because it is the Party, or because it has power, or because it has the strength or the authority to make decisions. The Party must have authority before the masses based on its work, its connection to those same masses, its relations with the masses; the Party is in the masses, the Party is with the masses, but never above…”
And he concluded: “…May the Party never lose this virtue, may the Party never lose the affectionate respect, the fraternal respect and affection the masses feel for it; may the Party be sacrifice, may the Party be work, may the Party be disinterest, may the Party be honor, but never privilege.
