Its importance is beyond doubt: Fidel Castro’s speech, delivered on June 30, 1961, is considered the founding text of the Revolution’s cultural policy. "Words to the Intellectuals" turns 65 today.
In recent days of commemoration, and also decades ago, it has been pointed out that this text is more often quoted than read; and even distorted, not without malicious intent.
Reading it means encountering statements that seem tailor-made for today: "I believe that without being optimistic one cannot be a revolutionary, because the difficulties that a Revolution has to overcome are very serious. And one must be optimistic! A pessimist could never be a revolutionary"; and it also allows one to unravel firsthand the Commander-in-Chief's thinking on culture; an ideology that did not remain on the theoretical plane, but reached the practical: it evolved, grew, and founded.
Fidel's words were the culmination of three days of dialogue that year—June 16, 23, and 30—at the National Library, between writers and artists, and representatives of the Revolutionary Government. The ban on showing the documentary pm (1960), by Orlando Jiménez Leal and Sabá Cabrera Infante, in cinemas, despite its television broadcast, sparked the debate.
The context was tense: the Revolution had declared itself socialist, the Bay of Pigs invasion and subsequent victory had occurred, imperialist hostility was intensifying, and socialist realism, with its limitations, frightened many artists.
Dr. Isabel Monal, a participant in that meeting, commented on a panel held a week ago at the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, on the occasion of the anniversary: "There were doubts about how cultural functions would be managed; justified, because the Revolution was becoming more radical," and in other parts of the world, Stalinism had created profoundly misguided policies.
“Fidel listens, fosters debate for hours, and doesn’t belittle or interrupt any thought,” recalled the intellectual, who clarified that “Words to the Intellectuals” was both a starting point and a destination: the Commander-in-Chief had expressed his interest in culture in its broadest sense prior to that moment, had matured his ideas, and had also worked for it.
It was a truly transcendent act, Monal assessed, not only for Cuban culture but also a universal point of reference regarding the relationship between culture and society in the construction of socialism. In her words, Fidel endowed the Revolution "with a conception of culture, of respect for creation," and "contributed that conception to Cuba and to Marxism itself."
After that day, she said, the fears ended, but the search began: it was the intellectuals themselves, together with the people, who had to chart the course.
MORE CULTURE AND MORE ART
The poet and ethnologist Miguel Barnet was then a 21-year-old. Regarding the impression the speech made on him, he said: "That man suddenly displayed extraordinary intellectual stature, with an incredibly clear discourse, an elegance, and a use of metaphor and emphasis that deeply moved me."
From the outset, Fidel made clear his conviction that the economic and social revolution must inevitably produce a cultural revolution as well; and he delved into the "fundamental problem," the freedom for artistic creation, both in form and content.
"Let me tell you first of all that the Revolution defends freedom, that the Revolution has brought a great many freedoms to the country, that the Revolution cannot by its very nature be an enemy of freedom; that if anyone is worried that the Revolution will stifle their creative spirit, that worry is unnecessary, that worry has no basis."
Regarding how the Revolution will act with respect to the sector of artists and intellectuals who are not revolutionaries, the young statesman clarifies—in the most famous passage of his speech—the purpose of ensuring that “they find within the Revolution a field in which to work and create; and that their creative spirit, even if they are not revolutionary writers or artists, has the opportunity and the freedom to express itself. That is to say, within the Revolution. This means that within the Revolution, everything; against the Revolution, nothing. Nothing against the Revolution, because the Revolution also has its rights; and the first right of the Revolution is the right to exist.” And faced with the right of the Revolution to be and to exist, no one—since the Revolution encompasses the interests of the people, since the Revolution signifies the interests of the entire nation—no one can rightfully claim a right against it.
Roberto Fernández Retamar, poet and essayist, would say years later: "I count myself among those for whom ‘within the Revolution,’ far from being a call to obsequiousness, includes criticism, from revolutionary perspectives, of what are considered conflicts or errors we have committed."
Words… does not remain in the realm of clarifications, but rather delves into the programmatic: the process cannot seek to stifle art or culture, because it desires precisely the opposite: to develop them and make them a true patrimony of the people, so that they can satisfy their spiritual needs.
It was necessary to discover talents, to pave the way for intellects, so that they would not be lost, as had happened before, due to lack of opportunity, and "to make the people also authors and creators, because ultimately the people are the great creators."
The speech outlined what would become the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), its publications, the system of artistic education, art instructors, the amateur movement… and a fundamental call to action: "We are going to wage a battle against ignorance."
The Revolution—which "means precisely more culture and more art"—"does not demand sacrifices from creative geniuses. On the contrary, the Revolution says: put that creative spirit at the service of this work without fear that your work will be left unfinished."
For Barnet, “that speech was a poetic expression of the culture of the Revolution. It was a foundational text, among other things, because it was a battle against all kinds of dogmatism, against all kinds of sectarianism… it was a country moving toward a very comprehensive, very democratic, very global, and very revolutionary conception of culture… it helped to position us, from that moment on, on a cultural offensive against any threat from foreign values.”
AN OPEN DOOR
The critic and essayist Graziella Pogolotti would say on the subject that, as a consequence of that meeting and those words, spaces multiplied, a profound policy was designed aimed at the democratization of culture and its extension to the most remote areas of the country, and the training of creators was also conceived on new foundations: “The notion of culture included, from then on, artistic and literary creation, its projection toward an audience long marginalized, and the development of an environment that fostered its growth.”
In 1967, Juan Marinello had written to Retamar: “I have always believed that Comrade Fidel’s speech in 1961, addressed to intellectuals, is of paramount importance: it saved us from falling into the fierce authoritarianism that overshadowed creative work in other parts of the world.”
After the deviations from that path led to the period of censorship and marginalization known as the Gray Five-Year Period, that discourse was the instrument to remedy it:
“When the Ministry of Culture was created in December 1976,” stated Armando Hart, its appointed head, “I understood that I had been placed in this position to apply the principles set forth by Fidel in his ‘Words to Intellectuals’ and to radically eradicate the weaknesses and errors that had arisen in the implementation of that policy. I believed that the only way to make my work more effective was by promoting Cuban national identity, which had been articulated in our century with socialist thought. I appreciated that for this endeavor it was necessary to employ, in the subtle and delicate field of art and culture, the political styles of Martí and Fidel.”
Last Thursday, the writer and president of Casa de las Américas, Abel Prieto, stated in the Villena Hall of the UNEAC (National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba) that with this avant-garde discourse, Fidel was establishing a unique, open, and anti-dogmatic cultural policy, unlike any previous revolutionary process, and one in which the idea of prohibition was entirely absent.
That pluralistic and libertarian vision of the text remains relevant, as do other Fidel's principles that are intertwined with it: culture is the nation's shield and sword, and the first thing that must be protected. This seems to be a statement for today, as do some of the reflections on its impact, including this one by Barnet:
“…the general culture of this country is so rich that it serves as the ideological foundation of the Cuban nation, and I believe it is the main gateway through which we can all move forward, and it is a gateway that will never close.”
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Fidel
