Cubans:

We weren't there... (Due to technical deficiencies in local audio, the people gathered in front of the Palace cannot hear).

I think that imperialism is sabotaging, somehow it is resorting to magic or something like that.

We wanted to tell them that we did not agree very much with the mobilization of the people on our return (SHOUTS OF: "Fidel, Fidel!"). We are concerned about the fact that we constantly have to be leaving, when it is not the President, it is the Minister of State or Foreign Affairs, or the Prime Minister or others? And we have to be attending events of this nature, and it is not logical that every time we go out and come back, we simply do our job, because that is also our job, because the people have to be doing us the honors of the reception (SHOUTS OF: "Yes!").

(Difficulties with the audio).

But, in any case, we must take advantage of the opportunity... (The audience protests because it can't be heard.) Let's take the opportunity to say a few words, a few words of truth (Audience protests), and express some impressions... (The audio is interrupted again.) I can't explain why you can't hear it today... Well, let's see if I can focus, after so many technical problems here.

Actually, we bring a deep impression and some experience from this trip. It's a real shame that every Cuban doesn't have the opportunity to have lived ten days like we have! We would go even further to say that it would be worth it if here, those unfortunate people who have become refugees, had first spent 10 days in New York, so that they could have an experience like the one we have had.

It's just that it's hard to get an idea. We experience for our country and for the work that the Revolution is carrying out the same emotions that you experience, the same joys, the same hopes. But, nevertheless, here, in the midst of the vortex of events, neither you nor we are capable of really realizing how much it means, not only in the international order, which I am not referring to, but what this new homeland that we are building represents for each one of us (APPLAUSE).

I would not try to explain it, because I know it is impossible, but, at least expressing the feeling of all of us who have lived 10 days in the entrails of the empire, we confess that we have really had a clear and complete idea of what it means to have a homeland (APPLAUSE). Especially now that we are no longer a colony (APPLAUSE); now that we are a truly sovereign and free people (APPLAUSE).

We bring with us an impression and a memory that we can never forget: the impression and the memory of the Cubans who live in New York (APPLAUSE).

In reality, perhaps we have not meditated enough on the situation of that part of our people that had to leave the country because here, in this colony that was of Yankee imperialism (SHOUTS OF: "Get out!"), they had no way to earn their bread and they had to carry out that fact, always so sad, of emigrating from their homeland, to go to a cold and hostile country to earn their bread.

And how sad that a part of our people had to uproot themselves from the soil of their homeland! But, how sad, above all, that that part of our people has to live abroad, and how hard the fate of those Cubans is, and how great the merit of those Cubans! (APPLAUSE).

The heroes of the Revolution, the true heroes of the Revolution are, at this moment, the Cubans who, up there in the North, are in turmoil and brutal, as Martí called them (APPLAUSE), who no longer despise us, as the apostle himself said, but respect us (APPLAUSE); those Cubans, who up there are faithful to their country; those Cubans, who up there are firm (APPLAUSE); those Cubans, who up there shout: "Taro, Yes! Chewing gum, No!" (APPLAUSE).

And why our deep sorrow, when thinking about the fate of those Cubans? Because they are living today there, in New York, what we were living until 1 January 1959! (APPLAUSE.) Dozens and dozens of Cubans, men and women, were brutally beaten by the henchmen of the New York Police (SHOUTS AND BOOING), during the days we were there. Suffice it to say that the stick, or the "nightstick", as they call that stick that the police used to use and which was abolished a long time ago here in our country, is an institution of terror in that "super free" country (BOOING), "super democratic" country (BOOING), "super humanitarian" country (SHOUTS AND BOOING), and "super civilized" country (SHOUTS AND BOOING).

Police searches, persecution, provocation, dismissal from work, are the methods they are using to harass our fellow countrymen. If you are a murderer, if you are a henchman with 100 corpses on your shoulders, if you are any of those evil people who murdered hundreds of peasants, they have no problem, they belong to the great family of their "free world"! (SHOUTS AND BOOING.) But, if they are honest Cubans, Cubans loyal to their homeland, Cubans who feel with their homeland, the worst persecutions await them.

And it is very sad to think that there are Cubans who the misery that reigned in our country, and the unemployment that reigned in our country, threw them into those strange lands, and today they have to live in the heart of the empire practically as the first Christians lived in ancient Rome. And in spite of everything, the enthusiasm of those Cubans was unsurpassable; the fervor of those Cubans was unspeakable; their feeling of love for the homeland had nothing to envy them at all to the greatest tests of enthusiasm that we are used to seeing here in our own soil (APPLAUSE).

What love for their country! What an obsession to be able to return one day! You have to see those scenes to know what we have here, to understand what is lost when the homeland is lost, because it is as if not even a minute would go by without those Cubans having the illusion of returning someday to live in their homeland, of returning someday to feel the warmth of their land (APPLAUSE). And we were making ourselves like an oath that someday those Cubans have to return (APPLAUSE), someday they have to return to work here in their country and live here in their country.

That is why we have to make an effort; that is why we have to fight; that is why it is worth making all the effort and all the necessary sacrifice. It is worth it, because those compatriots of ours deserve it! (APPLAUSE.) And we have to found a new neighborhood, or a new town, where the Cubans who return from emigration can live; the people of those who return to their homeland so that they can also have their homes there and so that we can reward them for the love of their land, for the heroism and fortitude, for the firmness that they are showing there, where everything is hostility, everything is persecution and everything is falsehood, anti-Cuban campaign, lies and yet they, like the black people of Harlem, stand firm (APPLAUSE).

We must make an effort of imagination to even have an idea of the campaign that in all the magazines, in all the newspapers, in all the radio and television stations and in all the advertising media that have been invented, is systematically carried out, incessantly, against Cuba and, nevertheless, the Cubans, the Dominicans, the Puerto Ricans, the Latinos in general and the blacks of Harlem stand firm (APPLAUSE) . They are the most exploited and most oppressed groups by imperialism on their own soil and it is such an extraordinary phenomenon that it is deeply impressive and one must see how from the moment our delegation began to drive through the Harlem neighborhood at any time of the day or night, from the moment the first black man appeared, they began to raise their arms to greet us (APPLAUSE). And there are 20 million oppressed and exploited black people in the very heart of the empire (APPLAUSE), and whose aspirations cannot be met with a handful of dollars, it is a much more serious problem, because their aspirations can only be met fairly (APPLAUSE). And we, in return for the hospitality we have received, have invited 300 representatives of black people in the United States to visit our country, to get a close look at the work of the Revolution and to see first-hand what a country where there is justice is all about (APPLAUSE).

But there are also many American citizens, especially men of free thought, distinguished writers, honest people who have had the courage to express publicly there and then their support for the Cuban Revolution (APPLAUSE) through a Committee for Fair Treatment for Cuba, that they have integrated and that groups together some of the most brilliant and valuable men in the United States, and there are also many humble and exploited workers in the United States, there are also many small farmers in the United States who are extorted by the monopolies and by the moneylenders of that country, who are moneylenders' monopolies (APPLAUSE).

You have to have lived 10 days in the entrails of the imperialist monster to know that monopoly and advertising is only one thing there and since we are enemies of the monopolies, since we have clashed with all the most powerful monopolies of the empire, unanimously, with very few and honorable exceptions, the advertising agencies fight us, but they do not fight us with reasons, because reasons, that is what they lack; they fight us with lies, with all kinds of falsehoods, with all kinds of inventions, that remind us, remind us of our naive days, our naive days of when we believed here the comic strips made by the imperialist information agencies, the monopoly magazines, the monopoly newspapers, the monopoly cartoons, the films of the monopolies, the slogans of the monopolies, the lies of the monopolies, fairy tales of the monopolies, the robberies of the monopolies, the crimes of the monopolies, the scoundrels of the monopolies, the outrages of the monopolies, the humiliations of the monopolies (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTS OF: "Fidel, for sure, hit the Yankees hard! Pim, pom, out, down with Caimanera! Fidel, Fidel, what does Fidel have that the Americans can't beat!"), because of how naive we were, we had been led to believe that the robbery was good, that the theft was noble, that the exploitation was just and that the lie was true and that the truth was a lie (APPLAUSE).

And all that false propaganda is the propaganda that pours incessantly on the American people; like us before, they try to deceive and confuse them incessantly.

Independent newspapers, newspapers that tell the truth, no, they cannot exist there; newspapers that tell the truth run out of advertisements; newspapers that tell the truth are swept away by advertising agencies that are absolutely under the control of the monopolies and that is the system that prevails there. Never a healthy criticism; never a correct appreciation. Everything is driven by the profit motive, by material interest, by money, so you are going to be paid inch by inch for advertising, and that is why the result is explained. And one of those results is the hysteria that they have created in a part of the people, hysteria that you can't conceive of how you can live under that kind of foaming rage that some people live with in that country; and how different, how different the result when the people are well oriented, when the people know the truth, when the people fight for something and for something, when the life of the people has a meaning, when a people has an ideal, when a people has something to fight for! How different the result!

We are completely sure that despite all the grievances we have suffered, despite all the aggressions our country has endured, if here, for example, were the headquarters of the United Nations, no citizen would insult a single visitor, no act of hostility would be perpetrated against any delegation, because at that moment we Cubans would know that the opportunity had come to prove that we are a thousand times more decent than the imperialists! (APPLAUSE), that we are a thousand times more gentlemanly than the imperialists! (APPLAUSE), that we are a thousand times more hospitable than the imperialists! (APPLAUSE), that we are a million times more honest than the imperialists! (APPLAUSE.) Because when you have honor, what you show is that: honor (APPLAUSE); when you have decency, what you teach is that: decency (APPLAUSE); and when you have shame, what you show is that: shame (APPLAUSE). But, when the only thing you possess is shamelessness and indecency, what you show is that: shamelessness and indecency! (APPLAUSE).

We saw shame, we saw honor, we saw hospitality, we saw chivalry, and we saw decency in the humble blacks of Harlem. (Can you hear a firecracker explode?) A bomb? Let... (SHOUTS OF: "Send them to the firing line! We will win! We will win!") (THE NATIONAL HYMN IS SUNG AND SHOUTS OF: "Long live Cuba! Long live the Revolution!") That firecracker, everyone knows who paid for it, they are the firecrackers of imperialism. They believe... of course, tomorrow they will charge his honor and they will say, they will say: "Look carefully, look carefully, at the same moment they were talking about imperialism the firecracker sounded" (SHOUTS OF: "Send them to the firing line!").

Did they catch them? No news? No news has been verified. But how naive they are! If when they were dropping 500-pound and even 1,000-pound bombs that said "Made in USA" (BOOING), they couldn't do anything, and when they were dropping hundreds of pounds of napalm bombs, they couldn't do anything either; and despite their planes, their guns and their bombs, the soldiers had to surrender (APPLAUSE), and they couldn't take the Sierra Maestra, nor could they get rid of the fences, how are they going to advance now behind the little firecrackers? (SHOUTS OF: "Send them to the firing line!") These are the consequences of impotence and cowardice. How can they come to impress the people with firecrackers, if the people are here to resist, not the firecrackers (SHOUTS OF: "We will win! We will win!"), the people are here to resist whatever they throw or what falls, even if they are atomic bombs, gentlemen! (APPLAUSE).

How naive they are! For every little firecracker the imperialists pay, we build five hundred houses! For every firecracker they can put in a year, we make three times as many cooperations! For every firecracker the imperialists pay, we nationalize a Yankee sugar mill! (APPLAUSE) For every little firecracker the imperialists pay, we nationalize a Yankee bank! (APPLAUSE) For every little bit of money the imperialists pay, we refine hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil! (APPLAUSE.) For every firecracker the imperialists pay, we build a factory to employ our country! For every firecracker the imperialists pay, we build a hundred schools in our fields! For every firecracker the imperialists pay, we turn a barracks into a school! For every firecracker the imperialists pay, we make a revolutionary law! And for every firecracker the imperialists pay, we make at least a thousand militiamen! (APPLAUSE AND EXCLAIMS OF: "Pim, pom, out, down with Caimanera!")

Comrade Osmany gives us a good idea: Why don't we dedicate the Santa Clara Regiment to that little firecracker and turn it into another school town in a month?

Let's also tell comrade Llanusa that he should dedicate a new social circle of workers to that little firecracker (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTS OF: "Pim, pom, out, down with Caimanera!").

These naive people seem to really believe that the "Marines" are coming, and that the coffee is already brewed here. Let's set up a collective surveillance system, let's set up a collective revolutionary surveillance system! (APPLAUSE.) And we are going to see how the minions of imperialism can move in here, because, in short, we live in the whole city, there is not one apartment building in the city, not one block, not one neighborhood, that is not widely represented here. We're going to implement, in the face of imperialist campaigns of aggression, a system of collective revolutionary surveillance so that everyone knows who lives on the block, what the person living on the block does and what relations they had with the tyranny; and what they do; who they hang out with; what activities they are involved in. Because if they think they're going to be able to stand up to the people, they're going to be very disappointed, because we put a revolutionary watchdog committee on every block... (APPLAUSE), so that the people will watch, so that the people will observe, and so that they will see that when the mass of the people organize, there is no imperialist, no minion of the imperialists, no sold out to the imperialists, no instrument of the imperialists that can move (APPLAUSE).

They're playing with the people and they don't know yet who the people are; they're playing with the people, and they don't know yet the tremendous revolutionary force among the people. And, for now, we have to take new steps in the organization of the militias; we have to go to the formation, now, of the militia battalions, zone by zone, in all the regions of Cuba, to select each man for each weapon (APPLAUSE), and to give structure to the whole great mass of militiamen, so that as soon as possible our units of combatants are perfectly formed and trained (APPLAUSE).

There is one thing that is evident... (Someone from the audience talks to Dr. Castro.) You must not press before the time comes; you must not hurry because of that, you must not hurry, you must not hurry, and you must not hurry! Let them hurry; we: preserve our serenity and our step, which is a firm and safe step (APPLAUSE).

One of our impressions on this trip, which is important, is the amount of hatred that imperialism feels towards our revolutionary people; the degree of hysteria against the Cuban Revolution that imperialism has reached; the degree of demoralization with respect to the Cuban Revolution that imperialism has reached. And you have already seen it: in the face of Cuba's accusations, you are still thinking about it in order to respond, because in reality you have nothing with which to respond.

It is, however, important that all of us be very aware of the struggle that our Revolution is carrying out; it is necessary that we all know perfectly well that it is a long, long and hard struggle (SHOUTS OF: "We will win!, We will win!"). It is important that we realize that our Revolution has faced the most powerful empire in the world. Of all the colonialist and imperialist countries, U.S. imperialism is the most powerful, in economic resources, in diplomatic influence, and in military resources. It is, moreover, an imperialism that is not like the more mature, more experienced English; it is a superb imperialism, blinded by its power. It is a barbaric imperialism, and many of its leaders are barbaric; they are barbaric men who have absolutely nothing to envy from those troglodytes of the early days of humanity. Many of their leaders, many of their chiefs, are men with long fangs. It is, without a doubt, the most aggressive, the most warlike and the clumsiest imperialism.

And we are here on this front line: a small country, with scarce economic resources, waging, head on, that dignified, determined, firm and heroic struggle for its liberation, for its sovereignty, for its destiny (APPLAUSE).

We must be very aware that our country is facing the most ferocious empire of contemporary times, and we must also bear in mind that imperialism will not rest in its efforts to try to destroy the Revolution, to try to place obstacles in our way, to try to prevent the progress and development of our country. We must bear in mind that this imperialism hates us with the hatred of the masters against the slaves who rebel. And we are for them like slaves who have rebelled, and well rebelled! (APPLAUSE.) And there is no hatred more ferocious than the hatred of the master against the rebellion of the slave; and to this is added the fact that they see their interests in danger; not those of here, but those of the whole world.

We took our case to the United Nations, but our case was the case of the rest of the underdeveloped countries, it was the case of all Latin America, it was the case of all the countries of Africa, it was the case of all the countries of the Middle East, it was the case of the countries of Asia and Oceania; our case was a case that could be applied equally to the rest of the world. The rest of the underdeveloped world is also being exploited by the monopolies, and we have said there, to all the underdeveloped peoples: "The investments of the monopolies must be nationalized, without any compensation" (APPLAUSE) We have said to the other underdeveloped peoples: "Do what we have done, do not continue to be victims of exploitation, do what we have done!" And it is logical that imperialism wants to destroy our Revolution, so that it can say to the other peoples: "If you do what the Cubans did, we will do to you as we did to the Cubans.

Therefore, an interest that is not only ours, an interest that is universal, is being discussed in this struggle of ours. A struggle is being waged here not only for the liberation of our people, but a struggle that has to do with the liberation of all the other exploited peoples of the world. And we need to know that; we need to know well what we are doing, we need to know well the interests that we are affecting, and those interests will not easily be given up, those interests will not easily raise a white flag.

This is a long struggle, as long as the interests that the Revolution has affected are powerful. And not only do we have to defend ourselves from aggressions, not only that, because with that alone we would not do anything, but we have to advance, we have to move forward, we have to progress in all areas.

The impression and the clearest idea that we bring is that we must redouble our efforts (APPLAUSE), is that we must make ourselves aware of the great role that our country is playing in the world and the great task that we are carrying out.

Because, more than the words we can pronounce there, facts are worth. We have been able to say part of what we have done there; we did not do a complete account of it, far from it, no; but what counts are the facts. We have to move our country forward. In order to do so, we have to take care of what we are doing. Each one of you, without exception, has a great task here, a task like ours (APPLAUSE). We go there to speak on behalf of each one of you; we can speak there, because we count on the effort of all of you; we have the moral to go there to speak, because we count on the effort of all of you; we have the morale to go there to speak, because we carry the morale of each and every one of the men and women of our country, and that is why we carry so much moral there! (APPLAUSE), because we carry the morals of a people, that's why we can go there to denounce imperialism. And that is why our country is admired, not for its words, but for its deeds; not for what one Cuban says there, but for what all Cubans do or can do.

The world is getting an idea of us, a better idea than it ever had if the world ever had an idea that we existed. And what lies behind that opinion is a people; what lies behind that opinion are the facts of that people. We invite each and every one of you to get an idea of the great responsibility that you bear over yourselves and, above all, to get an idea that we are not us individually, that we belong to a people, that we belong to a great minute in the history of humanity, that we belong to a crucial hour of the human race. And that here we must think of the people, we must think of the destiny of the nation, we must not think of ourselves. We are something more than ourselves, we are a people, we are a nation! (APPLAUSE); we are an idea; we are a hope; we are an example. And when the Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government appeared at the UN (APPLAUSE), it was not a man, it was a people! (APPLAUSE.) There was every one of you, every one of you was there! (APPLAUSE)

And with that strength that gives us the will, the support and the effort of each one of you, we went there. We feel very obliged to the people, we feel that we have a great responsibility before the people, and just as each one of us feels, with all the others, so must each one of you feel! (APPLAUSE), and to carry that idea in our minds. Because the work we are doing, we are doing it together; the effort... (A SECOND EXPLOSION IS HEARD. SHOUTS OF: "Send them to the firing line! We will win! We will win!" THE AUDIENCE SINGS THE JULY 26th HYMN FOLLOWED BY THE NATIONAL HYMN.) Let them, let them sound, that with that they are training the people in all kinds of noises! (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTS OF: "Unity! We shall overcome!") As far as I can see, it is going to be expensive for His Lordship tonight! (APPLAUSE)

These facts, these facts simply confirm what we have been saying, that the Revolution has a long and hard struggle ahead of it. And, for that reason, we insisted that each one of you take very much into account your role and your responsibility.

If this were easy, it would really be worth not counting on us. The easy things are not the ones that give, in the long run, the best fruits; the things that are worthwhile, so that the life of the people, and of the men and women have meaning, are the difficult things, because those are the ones that are worthwhile to realize (APPLAUSE).

And, for us, knowing the power of the empire before us, does not discourage us; on the contrary, it gives us courage (APPLAUSE). Who should feel demoralized is the empire, because of the battle that a small people is giving it! (APPLAUSE).

No one, no one thinks that the coming years will be years of quiet and comfort. The greatest interest that the coming years have is the work that we have ahead of us, and the struggle that we have ahead of us! (APPLAUSE.) And that is the extraordinary interest that the future has for us; that is what frees us from the sadness and the shame of the past; that is what makes our people happy, above all, knowing that January 1st did not end the Revolution, but that it was beginning (APPLAUSE); that is what makes our people happy: to think that if the first stage was the fruit of the effort of a part of the people, the future, tomorrow's victory, will be the fruit of the effort of all the people! (APPLAUSE), without anyone having to feel ashamed tomorrow, neither before their children, nor before their wife, nor before their companions, because the future is full of places; in the future there is a place for each one of us (APPLAUSE); in the future there is a place for each one of us.

And we, ourselves, have the feeling that we are beginning, that we have only just begun, that we are on the first pages of the great book of history that the people of Cuba are writing (APPLAUSE).

And that victory will be obtained with two things, two things: intelligence and courage; with the head and with the heart. Never let courage override intelligence, nor let intelligence override courage. Intelligence and courage must march together on the path to victory! (APPLAUSE).

And so it has been, until today, the essential conditions of the successes achieved. Do not underestimate the imperialist enemy; it would be a mistake to underestimate the imperialist enemy. The imperialist enemy made the mistake of underestimating us! (APPLAUSE), and in our people there was much more revolutionary force than they had ever imagined; and in our people there are moral conditions like they had never imagined (APPLAUSE).

We must not make the mistake of underestimating the imperialist enemy, but know him in his real strength, appreciate him in his real strength, and do, for our part, what is necessary to be victorious in this battle for the liberation of the country (APPLAUSE). And we are interested in the path that leads to victory with effort, with work, with courage, with intelligence; knowing at every moment what they are planning and knowing how to react at every moment to their plans as we have done right now, denouncing the hysteria that they are sowing around the Guantánamo Base? (APPLAUSE) and the campaign that they are waging around the base and the talk about attacks on the base by us that they are publishing, and we made it clear there and asked the President of the Assembly to take into account our concern about the campaigns that they are waging, preparing the ground, creating hysteria and creating favorable public conditions to promote a pretext there, to manufacture there, through self-aggression, any pretext of aggression against our country, and we do not want them to invade our country; we do not want them to invade our country, that is what they would like; that we would allow ourselves to be taken away by fervor or patriotic ardor, by impulse, and do what they would like us to do, but we must do what we want and what is convenient for us and not what they want or what is convenient for them (APPLAUSE)

Martí said that we should never do what the enemy wanted us to do; that is why we have been ready to explain at every opportunity and we did it there and we made it clear that we were going to claim our sovereignty over that piece of the base, by means of international law, that is, by legal means (APPLAUSE) and not by means of weapons. We do not have our weapons to do with them what the enemy wants, but what the enemy does not want; our weapons must always be ready to do what the enemy does not want us to do: that is, ready to defend ourselves, ready to resist (APPLAUSE), ready to destroy him when he launches himself against us (APPLAUSE); that is why we have them, to defend ourselves. And the people who have heard our words in the United Nations need to know that one of the most sensitive problems and one of the problems where we have to act more intelligently, one of the problems where we have to overcome the imperialist enemy, is in the problem of the Caimanera Base, because that base is the one they are going to try to take as a pretext, That basis is what they are going to try to take as a pretext and it must be very clear to the people and to the whole world, what our position is, that when we go to claim it, we will go to claim it in accordance with the canons of international law, as an unquestionable and undeniable right of ours that they will have to recognize us (APPLAUSE).

In the face of the imperialist enemy, the imperialist enemy that resorts to the most devious and lowest weapons, the imperialist enemy that has been characterized throughout history by the pretexts it has fabricated when it has been interested in its ends, the imperialist enemy that we know well, the intelligent thing is to close the way to it when it comes in pursuit of the pretext, when it is looking for the pretext, when it is fabricating the pretext, to close the way to it and tell it: Find another pretext, because that one won't work for you, that one won't work for you, that one you won't be able to get (APPLAUSE).

The imperialist enemy is devious, mean, and cunning, the imperialist enemy is capable of the most unimaginable, the imperialist enemy will resort to any weapon, from the assassination of leaders to military invasions, always looking for the murderous hand, always looking for the gangster, always looking for the pretext, and we must be not only brave, but also intelligent; we have to win the game against the imperialist enemy, we have to be victorious in the battle against the imperialist enemy (APPLAUSE); we have to win all the battles against the imperialist enemy as we have won the battle against the UN (APPLAUSE) And the imperialist enemy is beaten there in the UN; the warriors, the arms dealers, the enemies of peace are receiving a harsh blow there before the public opinion of the world and these battles of public opinion in the world must be won; the imperialist enemy must be unmasked before the world public opinion, the imperialist enemy must be demoralized before the world; the arms dealers, the warriors, those who play with the destiny of humanity, must be defeated in all fields (APPLAUSE). And since we have passed from ABC in revolutionary and political questions, since we have passed the first grade, the second grade, the third grade, we are already in high school in revolutionary and political questions (APPLAUSE), we have to go on orienting ourselves and preparing ourselves mentally and educating ourselves on these questions; every day we learn something else and it is good that our interest in the international problem does not diminish.

We were virtually not concerned with international problems and that was logical; we were no more than a Yankee "little colony", why would we be concerned with international problems; we did nothing but what the Yankee delegate said there; we never gave an opinion; we never said anything; we never said a word, in the UN or the OAS, or anywhere else in the world; we were silent and obedient beings. That's why nobody here cared about international problems and we said, well, that's a Yankee problem, it's up to the Americans. That they were declaring a little war, and behind it we were coming and declaring another little war; that they were making a declaration, and behind it we were coming and making another one; that they were going to another little war and behind it we were going to that little war: that they were making peace and we were making peace. What were we? That's why nobody was worried, but now that we have an opinion in the world, now that we are part of the world, it's good that we learn about all the international problems and we know what's going on in Latin America, what's going on in Africa, what's going on in Asia, what peoples live there, what are their riches, what are their aspirations, what are their problems, what position their governments have, and let's go to the high school of politics and revolution, learning international political geography (APPLAUSE).

And that is why it is good that many books continue to be printed and that we continue studying all of them, because each and every one of you has the obligation to know; each and every one of you has the obligation to know and to educate yourselves and those who did not have the opportunity before, well, they have to take advantage of this opportunity now to know, to know the problems, to know what is happening in the world, what it is all about, to know about political, social and economic problems, in Cuba and outside of Cuba: because if we don't pass the high school and we have to one day become doctors in revolution and in politics (APPLAUSE). And that is what the National Press is for, and that is what the paper used to be spent here by the reactionary and pro-imperialist newspapers, to print books! And if anybody likes to go to the movies sometime, they might as well like to read a book sometime; and that at work, in the workers' social circle, or in the neighborhood or in the battalion or the militia company, in the trade union, wherever we are, we know what we need to know and that we don't have to play the sad role of not knowing anything in front of others who do know, or that we have to be giving opinions without knowing what it is about, in front of others who do know what it is about. And what Cubans do not learn, nobody learns, everybody can be sure of that! (APPLAUSE).

We consider that from the impressions of our trip, these are the most important conclusions, the idea of the role that Cuba is playing, the idea of the struggle that we have ahead of us, the need to lead it with courage and intelligence and the need to work very hard, to redouble the effort.

It is very beautiful to go there and be able to tell the other peoples that we have created ten thousand new classrooms (APPLAUSE), that we have made twenty-five thousand new houses! (APPLAUSE), and so it will always be a source of pride to be able to say to the peoples: "We are making so many universities, so many school towns, so many technicians are emerging, we have raised so much our production, we have raised the per capita of national production, we have raised the number of our factories, we have raised our agricultural production, we have raised the performance of our work, we are making a great country.

And it will always be a pride for us, and that depends on us what we do here, what we progress here, because that is an incomparable pride and an incomparable spiritual satisfaction. But we will not do it for vanity! We will do it because we know that with it we are producing a great good for many other peoples, that we must try to make our Revolution a finished work and a work as perfect as possible, so that with it we can defend ourselves from the slanderers, from the detractors of our homeland, so that we can say as we said there: "Let them come, our doors are open! Let them come so that they see how many new towns emerge, how many cooperatives, how many houses, how many schools, how many universities! (APPLAUSE).

Let them come, we will always have something to show, we will show the militias, we will show the revolutionary youth brigades! (APPLAUSE). We will show the great tasks of reforestation, we will show the school cities that we are doing! We will show what our country is! Because those who come here and see the effort that our people are making in the midst of the harassment of imperialism, are amazed and admired that a small people in the face of so many obstacles can do what they are doing! And that will always be a reason for us to be proud, that is the pride that sustains the spirit of our compatriots in New York in the face of persecution and slander! (APPLAUSE). That's the pride that sustains our delegates anywhere in the world, and that's the fundamental idea we wanted to put forth here tonight. And thank you for the two little firecrackers, because they have helped us a great deal with regard to what we were explaining! (APPLAUSE). And thank you because it has served to test the mettle of our people, to test the courage of our people (PROLONGED APPLAUSE); because not a single woman has moved from her position! (APPLAUSE); no man has moved from his position, nor will he move from his position in the face of any danger, in the face of any attack! (APPLAUSE). Each of us is a soldier of the homeland, we do not belong to ourselves, and we belong to the homeland! (APPLAUSE). It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that any of us fall, what matters is that that flag is held high, that the idea goes on, let the homeland live!

(OVATION).