MARCH 23, 1996

GENERAL OF THE ARMY RAUL CASTRO RUZ To the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba:

THE Central Comittee has rarely met at such an important and transcendental moment.

This slavery law [the Helms-Burton Act] aims to deceive, confuse and disarm the elements that they consider the most vulnerable within the Cuban population, through an increase in radio propaganda and other means of ideological diversionism contained in the so-called Track Two, to promote and finance the proliferation and growth of small groups of traitors within the country, with little chieftains who in some cases have been converted, through the work of the powerful U.S. media, into figures known in a part of the world as the leaders of a supposedly large group of internal dissidents, which only exists on the level of their fevered minds.

With these ingredients, the fascist law is aimed at creating the ideal climate for "humanitarian" military action, under the banner of the UN, if possible, or as a unilateral decision of the United States.

The military action to which this unbridled policy can lead is even foreseen within the Helms-Burton Act, although, as was the case with its failed predecessor, the Torricelli Act, it is veiled in the disguise of "peaceful transition." At this moment, it could not even be said that this is the preferred option of the Pentagon, whose professionalism allows it to evaluate that our country is not a threat to the security of the United States, and also to calculate the terrible cost, in terms of U.S. lives, that a war in Cuba like the one in Viet Nam would mean.

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The economic situation which came about abruptly when, in addition to the U.S. blockade, the socialist community in Europe disappeared and the Soviet Union was dismantled, forced us to take a series of steps over the last five years, steps that have already been analyzed.

The number of workers in state enterprises related to production or services has declined as a result of the closing down, partial shutdown, or reduction of activities in most of the economy's sectors.

A large portion of the working class, the agricultural workers from all the state-run sugar plantations and most of the state farms, has gone into workers' cooperatives and those campesinos have become the collective owners of the means of production and the fruits of their labor, on land which is state property but which has been handed over to them in usufruct.

More than 200,000 citizens now engage in and make their living off of self-employment, and are registered as such. It is evident that the real figure is much higher, since there are thousands more who engage in self-employment of some kind or another without the necessary authorization. Self-employment will necessarily grow in the near future, since the inevitable struggle for economic efficiency demands the rationalization of the excess labor force.

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Currently the government has had to accept large-scale self-employment in various activities, bearing in mind that the state is no longer able to guarantee work for everyone and that access to wealth in a socialist system is through work. Self-employment allows many Cubans to earn a living, in a legal manner, and allows many other Cubans in cases where they have steady employment to supplement their incomes. Within the national economy, honest self-employed workers make a double contribution, through the payment of progressive taxes and through the provision of certain services that the state enterprises are not able to offer or provide at the necessary levels.

These self-employed workers should be the first to want to eradicate the new crop of speculators, thieves and violators of tax laws or health regulations that is, those who wish to get rich off of the people's needs and hardships arising from the special period.

But it should not be forgotten that the self-employed workers, like the private farmers, constitute a group which works in its homeland and whose fate is linked to that of the whole people.

Our ideological work with them should be aimed at stressing their status as workers. Herein lies the battle of ideas. As for their mercantilism, we have to ensure that they abide by the laws and regulations, highlighting that the latter protect their activity, and organizing their contribution to the country's economic development, which ultimately also benefits them as citizens and producers. Severe punishment of those who break the law should serve to make everyone understand that crime has no future in a socialist country, and this implies an adequate information campaign.

As for the campesinos who are not linked to cooperative production that is, the individual farmers, to whom the Revolution handed over the land, freeing them from exploitation, ignorance, disease and misery most of them earn, through their honorable work, sufficient resources for a decent life. Others have a very comfortable standard of living, much higher than the average worker. And other farmers, a minority which is the most prosperous because of the size or quality of their land, or the nature or advantages offered by what they produce, combined with a flair for business and, at times, the unscrupulous engagement in any kind of transaction, despite the fact that it may not be honest or legal are accumulating large sums of money which, according to their possibilities, they invest in new businesses or simply stash away. Such farmers, and some urban self-employed workers, to whom we can add the so-called intermediaries, constitute the strata of nouveaux riches which is emerging in our country. As a consequence, we have to struggle tenaciously to ensure that they strictly abide by the law and pay the progressive tax on their earnings.

The special period not only implied the loss or reduction of work for hundreds of thousands of people in state-run workplaces, but also meant an increase in unemployment among young people, with growing numbers every year of tens of thousands of people reaching working age, having completed their military service or having graduated, and without a job.

This phenomenon, unheard of in the country in the previous quarter of a century, had a huge impact on young people, whose psychosocial characteristics at that early age are well known, and led several thousands of them, lacking prospects and the necessary patriotic consciousness, down the path of economic emigration, encouraged by the Miami radio stations and the welcome given by the United States for over 35 years.

The decriminalization of dollar possession, another new situation, facilitates the increase in the number of people who receive money from their relatives abroad, and given the purchasing power of hard currency in relation to the Cuban peso, allows those who receive this money to achieve a better economic position, which implies an element of inequality with respect to the rest of the population. This also favors propaganda exalting U.S. consumer society and has a direct negative influence on the beneficiaries.

There is no doubt that we are faced with a major challenge. The appearance of "jineterismo" (prostitution) is the most visible and humiliating result of this phenomenon, but it is not the only negative side effect of tourism.

In terms of ideological penetration, Cubans from the United States visiting their relatives and vice versa are undoubtedly damaging to some extent and in regard to certain people.

The numbers of these visits have increased and could continue to increase even further in the future if the "slavery law" does not make them more difficult given the facilities provided by our government in its policy of being more flexible in relations with that part of the population of Cuban origin which lives abroad. The émigré community cannot be considered as a monolithic bloc of traitors of the nation, supporters of the blockade and of the overthrow of the Revolution. Those who are part of the exile mafia with extreme right-wing views and terrorist behavior carried out by means of money, control of the media, blackmail, terror and their alliance with the extreme right in the United States manipulate, to some extent, the Cuban émigré community in that country. Another minority is growing, brave émigrés who defend Cuba. A large number simply want to have normal contact with their relatives and live in peace with their country of origin.

The growing presence of foreign capitalists establishing joint ventures in Cuba are also leaving their mark on our workers' consciousness. In most cases, the bases for association set by us naturally contain clauses favoring working conditions and remuneration. From this positive element proposed by Cuba, a simplistic reasoner could deduce that the treatment offered by capitalists to their workers is better than that offered by the socialist state's enterprises, and therefore that capitalism is better, or at least, not so bad as we have described it. Thus a pole of attraction is created and admiration is generated toward this type of company, which can weaken some of our workers, as well as their nationalist and anticapitalist sentiments.

FIVE LONG YEARS OF GREAT NEED

This description of the current social framework would not be complete without reference to the hardships that have affected and continue to affect the vast majority of our people during these years of special period. The shortages of foodstuffs; the power cuts; the transportation problems; the almost total absence of clothes and footwear distribution; the aggravation of the housing situation (a longstanding problem which, in order to achieve an overall solution, we had directed heavy investment, abruptly interrupted by the advent of the special period); a reduction in repair services for household appliances and other domestic items, an already deficient situation; the scarcity of basic products such as soap and other items of personal hygiene; the material shortages (including medicines) affecting our extensive education and health services. All this has signified for our self-sacrificing people five long years of great need and a violent drop in the living standard that we had achieved during the 1980s. In spite of the economic crisis in Cuba and thanks to the activity of the socialist state, not one single school, hospital, day-care center or senior citizens' home has been closed, and the health and education indicators admired by the world have been maintained.

These material difficulties have been augmented by feelings of depression and political confusion resulting from the disappearance of socialism in Eastern Europe and, above all, by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and a parallel increase in the psychological warfare mounted by the major superpower in a unipolar world. The United States is concentrating its propaganda media against our little island in incredible proportions. During 1995, for example, these translated into tens of thousands of radio broadcasting hours per month, via numerous enemy stations.

Since we are referring to a combined ideological offensive, we must mention in this context the significant role of diplomatic representatives, consuls and U.S. agencies based in the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, and others with transitory status, as well as some officials from other countries. In these cases, we are witnessing a diplomatic lifestyle which has little to do with diplomacy, with trips to the provinces to gain information, and penetrations into the intellectual world, into education, into the health field, and including young people, all sectors they consider the most vulnerable. In short, an entire planned set of activities encompassing our whole society and directed at creating divisions, confusion and an ideological penetration in order to destabilize us.

OUR ELECTIONS ARE GENUINELY DEMOCRATIC AND TOTALLY OPEN, AND THE PEOPLE PARTICIPATE MASSIVELY

The most general proof of popular support for our policies, and the cost for those who do not approve of them for various reasons, is expressed by our election results.

In relation to the elections, and democracy in general, there are two conflicting realities: our own and that of other countries. We do not reject other processes and concepts, but life has shown that our elections are genuinely democratic and totally open, and the people participate massively. Our Party does not intervene in them in any way, except to ensure that the people are their only protagonist.

In no other country are elections such a unique and genuine plebiscite on the social regime and its leaders, and totally reliable, since the voting is voluntary, secret and scrupulously counted. There are no electoral campaigns favoring one candidate or another, apart from their biographies being exhibited in public places for the electorate's information. There are none of the repugnant abuses so common in Cuba from 1902 to 1958, and witnessed in almost all the other countries of the world, and particularly in the United States, where money, propaganda, demagoguery, the recruitment of supporters and political backers, the buying and selling of votes, fraud and abstentionism, at times by the majority of the voters, are the most salient characteristics.

In the elections held on February 24, 1993, well into the special period, at its apogee, 99.57 percent of the electorate went to the polls. In relation to the election of deputies, only 3.04 percent cast blank ballots, and 3.99 percent spoiled their ballots. Moreover, 95 percent of those who exercised their vote in that year responded positively to the call by Fidel for a united ballot, as a means of doing justice to the lesser known candidates and a demonstration of the Revolution's unity and steadfastness.

The most recent elections, in July 1995, to elect delegates to the municipal assemblies, went ahead without incident, as in previous elections, in spite of the accumulation of economic hardships and the approximation in time to the aerial and maritime provocations plotted in Miami. On that occasion, 97.1 percent of the total electorate voted. Blank votes totaled 4.3 percent and spoiled ballots came to seven percent. These two latter figures total 11.3 percent.

These figures eloquently demonstrate beyond any doubt that over 85 percent of the voting age population support the Revolution and its democratic electoral system, in the midst of the conditions of five years of special period and under the increased barrage of enemy propaganda. Without any doubt, U.S. imperialism has failed to transform the profound economic crisis the country has been experiencing for over five years into the destabilizing situation so indispensable for its plans to destroy the Revolution.

What other government in the world has so much support? In what other country do its citizens voluntarily turn out in such numbers to exercise their right to vote, and to such a high degree in favor of the incumbent government?.

This doesn't mean that this great political success should make us forget what remains to be done, since while the indicators of blank or spoiled ballots were low or very low in the majority of the provinces, in some the results were higher, which explains the 11.3 percent reported nationally.

On August 5, 1994, public disturbances of a counterrevolutionary nature occurred in two Havana neighborhoods, with lumpen elements as the shock troops, and organized around the theft of boats and illegal attempts to leave the country, promoted by the United States. These were frustrated by the alertness and mobilization of the working people, without the use of any weapons, and with President Fidel Castro at the forefront. One year later, the massive youth and popular demonstration commemorating that battle represented another plebiscite: that of the street.

If we were bourgeois politicians, we would be content with electoral triumphs and only be concerned over public opinion if this could affect us or benefit us in the next elections.

But we are communist politicians and our Party is not an electoral one, nor a merely mobilizing one. Its concerns are the people's well-being, national defense and independence, the country's economic and social development, and the securing of our sublime ethical values.

It is worth noting that while there are relatively more ideological problems in the capital of our country, there is also a revolutionary majority of proven steadfastness, and a highly militant working class. This was developed in the opposition to the Batista dictatorship and was expressed at the Bay of Pigs, throughout the Missile Crisis, during the fight against bandits, and in the internationalist missions. In addition, it is impossible to forget, among other things, that the youth of the capital, along with having participated in all these efforts, played an outstanding role in the literacy campaign. Currently, a favorable change of spirit can be noted in the population. However, we must continue to raise the revolutionary spirit.

ACCELERATING, IMPROVING AND PRIORITIZING POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL WORK

There is a clash of two opposing ideologies. This Plenum is seeking precisely to accelerate, improve and prioritize political and ideological work. That will translate into actions on each and every front where the Revolution is waging its life or death battles.

The population's number one daily concern is food. Therefore, the decision made by our Party and government to set food production as the principal task is totally justified. Primary attention to the priority problem: that is our policy and the concrete defense of our ideology.

Our country needs to import foodstuffs and raw materials to produce them here, and spends over 700 million dollars a year on that alone. The hard currency for this is obtained, among other sources, from sugar exports.

Thus the priority given, along with food production, to sugarcane production.

Oil imports, which are vital, also call for large amounts of hard currency, as do imports of foodstuffs, medicines, raw materials for manufacturing clothes and shoes, supplies and spare parts for industry, agriculture and transportation. In short, to purchase all those things that we don't produce and that we need.

If the shortage of hard currency is the main problem for the national economy, it is of the utmost importance to increase our exports of sugar, nickel, tobacco, seafood, citrus fruit, medications, coffee and rum, to cite the main branches. And we must replace imports with all of those goods that we can competitively produce in Cuba.

The neoliberal capitalism so in vogue solves this problem mercilessly: every man for himself is its formula. Our system would fail to be socialist if we did not concern ourselves with the fate of each of the 11 million Cubans.

For the same reason, it is everyone's duty to help solve the country's problems. The market is part of the solution, but above all the national economic plan is the key. Without a plan, without the pre-eminence of the state that guarantees it, there is no socialism, nor can there be.

WE MUST CONVINCE THE PEOPLE, OR THE ENEMY WILL DO IT

The ideological action of the Party and the state cannot be as it is many times schematic, too general and dogmatic. We must be convincing, and that conviction must result in transformations in how we think and act. And now, less than ever, is there room for that kind of routine work. Because, we must convince the people, or the enemy will do it, the overt or covert enemy of the Revolution and the nation.

TRACK ONE AND TRACK TWO ARE COMPLEMENTARY

Track One of the United States' strategy against Cuba is the blockade, seeking economic asphyxiation. Track Two is the idea of internal subversion, to eat away at the country from within. Each one complements the other.

The first thing that we revolutionaries must understand is that the adoption of the Helms-Burton Act, which increases to insane proportions the scope of Track One, does not mean that the enemy will do away with Track Two. The attempts to sow confusion, a lack of faith and discord, and to fragment the Cuban people, with a view to creating discontent, peaceful resistance and eventually disorder, thus giving the most extremist U.S. circles a pretext for military action, will in fact increase rather than diminish. The enemy will seek new means of penetration and a greater use of those already established, from Europe and different points throughout our continent.

In keeping with what I have stated, the enemy does not conceal its intention to use some of the so-called nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) established in Cuba in recent times, as a Trojan horse to foment division and subversion here, and the theoretical cover they give them is to present them as members of civil society, just as they are described by personalities such as the White House adviser on Cuban affairs, Richard Nuccio.

OUR CONCEPT OF CIVIL SOCIETY IS NOT THE SAME AS THE ONE THEY REFER TO IN THE UNITED STATES

Our concept of civil society is not the same as the one they refer to in the United States. Rather, it is our own Cuban socialist civil society, encompassing our strong mass organizations, namely the CTC [Central Organization of Cuban Trade Unions], the CDRs [Committees for the Defense of the Revolution], the FMC [Federation of Cuban Women], the ANAP [National Association of Small Farmers], the FEU [Federation of University Students], the FEEM [Federation of Students in Intermediate Education] and the Pioneers; there are also social groups which, as it is known, include veterans, economists, lawyers, journalists, artists and writers; as well as other NGOs which operate within the law and do not attempt to undermine the economic, political and social system freely chosen by our people. Even though they have their own characteristics and terminology, in conjunction with the revolutionary state they pursue the common objective of building socialism.

There are also many NGOs throughout the world that are not enemies of the people; many of them encourage solidarity with Cuba, respecting its independence, its national identity and its socialist path.

An example of these is the admirable and heroic group Pastors for Peace, an NGO which represents the best of the U.S. people and with whom the people of Cuba maintain a sincere friendship.

But we would be extremely stupid if we pretended not to see the manipulation that is being carried out through other supposed NGOs whose only aim is to enslave our country once again and turn it into something akin to an even more dependent Puerto Rico. And they search again and again for counterparts within Cuba to meddle in our internal affairs.

We will begin by discussing the situation in the study centers affiliated with the Central Committee of the Party. These began to be set up in 1976, were justified and still are. But we did not react in time, taking one step today, another tomorrow, and with a mixture of naiveté and pedantry, abandoning the classic principles due to temptation to travel and publish articles and books, with the assistance of anyone willing to provide financing, several comrades got caught up in the spider's web spun by foreign specialists on Cuba, who were really working for the United States in its strategy to create a fifth column. That is what has happened with the Center for Studies on the Americas. Of course, we have to distinguish and we do so in this case, as in others between the Cuban researcher who may have a different viewpoint on any given subject, but within a proper framework and from a socialist perspective, and someone who has become a Cuba expert with Cuban citizenship and even a Party card, publicizing his or her positions with the indulgence of our enemies.

Nor should we confuse foreign friends, and all those abroad who respect our sovereignty, with the creators of stratagems to spy on us, to find recruitment possibilities and to announce ideological platforms favoring the transition to capitalism.

With the universities, in film, radio, television and culture in general, both types of behavior exist: behavior which is faithful to our revolutionary people; and the minority with an annexationist orientation, far removed from the patriotic conduct of the majority of our intellectuals.

To show how the enemy identified our slowness in facing up to Track Two in these aspects, we will cite passages from a long article dated February 1995, by an academic on Cuban affairs, the British intellectual now resident in the United States, Gillian Gunn: She writes that some of the think tanks previously associated with the Central Committee and now called NGOs are the Center for Studies on the Americas (CEA) and the Center for European Studies (CEE). Both organizations were set up during the 1970s as instruments for academic research for the Central Committee. Although Central Committee funds are still significant, a considerable part of its budget now comes from foreign sources.

She goes on to say that in addition to the motivation to expand the NGOs, there was a fundamental boost as a result of events in the Soviet Union. Glasnost gave rise to a proliferation of Soviet NGOs, and the Moscow press stated in 1988 that some 40,000 clubs and associations had been set up. The close ties between Havana and Moscow at that time exposed Cuban intellectuals to many of these groups, which supported such things as religious freedom, popular culture, environmental protection and socioeconomic development.

By 1990, Gunn continues, the reduction in Soviet subsidies to Cuba had begun to weaken the state's capacity to tackle a wide range of problems, including deforestation, the deterioration in housing, shortages of food and medicines, and interruptions in the electrical service. Events in the USSR showed examples of the citizens' independent efforts and gave rise to economic conditions that made their implementation necessary.

And we further cite this academic, who insists that the Cuban state has shown concern over the NGOs, which are considered useful because they bring in resources which would not otherwise enter Cuba, and which alleviate tensions by solving problems which the state cannot solve.

However, the NGOs have also raised suspicions, she says, since they represent an independent base for access to resources on the part of citizens who do not always want what the state wants.

She points out that if Cuba continues to apply market-oriented reforms, it is probable that the decentralization that accompanies them will allow more space for genuine NGOs to exist, and will increase the fortifying effect of their independence, facilitated by foreign donations. However, as long as the one-party system remains intact, Cuban NGOs will have to make some compromises with the state.

She asks whether the Cuban NGOs are puppets of the government or seeds of the new civil society, saying that the answer is ideologically and academically unsatisfactory. She states that they have both sets of characteristics, although the second is very gradually growing in strength.

These are the most illustrative aspects of the article published by academic Gillian Gunn, whom we have already mentioned and who is the head of the Cuba project at Georgetown University.

SOME U.S. ACADEMIC CENTERS ARE NOW MEDDLING OPENLY

Believing that we were condemned to impotence by our hardships and our need to make the largest possible number of foreign contacts, precisely in order to explain the truth, several U.S. academic centers have begun to meddle openly, in most cases with the brazen support of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. This is the case with Pax World Service, which portrays itself as a nongovernmental organization with 3,600 members based in Washington D.C. This entity sent out a questionnaire to we don't know how many of our institutions, alleging that the reason for the survey was to get a more detailed profile of Cuban NGOs and facilitate dialogue and cooperation with U.S. NGOs.

The questionnaire asks for information on membership; budgeting (if possible in dollars); the areas covered by the NGO's projects and programs; if the relationship between the given Cuba-based NGO and the government is a cooperative, conflictive or neutral one; if it has changed over the last ten years; its achievements and objectives; its relationship with foreign NGOs; how it acquired its legal status, etc. It also asks for a synopsis of the present state of NGOs in Cuba and civil society in general.

In other words, tell me your life story and I may send you some dollars. Just like that.

We have already covered our just, balanced, respectful criteria with regard to those NGOs, which outside or inside Cuba work legally, constructively, on some occasions nobly and even heroically, as symbolized today by Lucius Walker and his comrades in their fight against the criminal U.S. blockade, just as we have discussed our Party's understanding of civil society, and there is no need to repeat it all. On the other hand, those who want to use the NGOs as a disguise for their subversive and counterrevolutionary organizations, which were created, are subordinate to or are promoted by the imperialists to destroy the Revolution and Cuba's independence, haven't the slightest possibility of success in our country.

In light of our bitter experience with the Center for Studies on the Americas, we have to examine the work of the Center for European Studies and all the others. The Party needs to carry out an in-depth analysis of what has been approved in this regard, and we have just created a unique, consistent and resolute policy in order to act within today's international context, but also within the reasonable limits of our present circumstances, so that those centers do not become the instruments our opponents would like them to be.

It is now time that the study centers affiliated with whatever agency establish themselves as institutions dedicated to research and analysis of what the country needs, within the established framework. The parent agencies themselves must play their part in this.

INSTITUTIONS HAVE TO SERVE THE INTERESTS OF OUR PEOPLE, ABOVE ALL

Institutions have to serve the interests of our people, above all, without losing their basic characteristics or language. And their researchers and directors cannot overlook this when it comes to discussing or establishing their positions in workshops, seminars, etc. within and outside Cuba.

Adopting a neutral or confused position, in order to avoid a confrontation or elude a thorny topic, is a show of unacceptable weakness before one's adversary; it is tantamount to admitting that the adversary's position is the correct one. We have more than enough recent examples of this.

And this lesson should also serve to ensure that our mass media do not become tools or mouthpieces of ideas and concepts inconsistent with those advocated and defended by the Revolution. Every staff in the written press, radio and television, all of which are causes for pride and prestige for our people, must henceforth examine everything in the light of the historical moment and these orientations. This is the responsibility above all of those who lead these institutions, in addition to the Party organizations and the Young Communist League (UJC) and its members.

It is time for an immediate analysis, in these institutions and in the whole academic sphere, by Party members and UJC members, into the role they play in the context of negative tendencies which have been building up for some time, on occasion disguised by language apparently of free thinkers.

In truth those who turn themselves into copycats without ideology, under pressure from our enemies, are not thinking for themselves, nor are they acting like revolutionaries.

Nobody can give lessons in flexibility and broadmindedness to Cuban revolutionaries, who have been educating the people to reason and decide for themselves since the time of Moncada, and who in everything they do consult at the grass-roots level and with the prestigious figures emerging from the heart of the working class. Our social project is based on consensus and unity, which like Martí we do not confuse with artificial unanimity, nor with the disunity which causes the nation to crumble and makes it easy prey to foreign domination.

WE MAINTAIN AND WILL CONTINUE TO MAINTAIN THAT THE GENUINELY FREE PRESS IS THAT WHICH SERVERS THE FREEDOM OF THE PEOPLE

Another matter meriting the most urgent attention of the Central Committee and all the Party is a variant of glasnost which has lately had some subtle expressions in Cuba. The glasnost which undermined the USSR and other socialist countries consisted of handing over the mass media, one by one, to the enemies of socialism. At the beginning, they presented themselves as innovators and champions who had come to set a whole people in motion, and then they began to erase every revolutionary from the history books, having consequences with which we are all familiar, including the disintegration of the largest country in the world.

Alerted by that experience, and armed with Martí's concept that in war, trenches of ideas are worth more than those of stone, we Cubans maintain and will continue to maintain that the genuinely free press is that which serves the freedom of the people, not the exploiters lying in wait in Miami.

All of that is clear, and the national and provincial press is loyal to Cuba, and has made headway in constructive criticism and reliable information. Together with them, a group of cultural publications contributes to spreading the ideas of the best of the revolutionary intellectuals. But we let our guard drop, we failed to ensure the observance of our own rules, and publications appeared which openly auction off many of their pages. Of course, they make out that they will receive donations from abroad without renouncing their ideas in the slightest, and they also use funds given to them by some of the country's cultural institutions.

In those publications, along with interesting and politically correct articles, others frequently appear that scarcely differ from those written by U.S. academics who are enemies of the Revolution, using supposedly revolutionary language apparently aimed at creating a smoke screen for their true intentions.

There has even been talk of using Pensamiento Crítico, the magazine which played a diversionist role in the '60s, as a model for some of these specialized publications. Pensamiento Crítico, in its time, like some works which have circulated among us in recent times, was linked, consciously or not, to those who wish to encourage the emergence of fifth columnists in Cuba.

In this and other equally strategic spheres, the Party cannot tolerate officials acting irresponsibly, even meddling in the work of other agencies without setting up cooperation links and without being given due authorization from the heads of those agencies.

There are those who get involved in foreign affairs activities without the authority to do so, or worse still, those who establish contact with foreign spy services, on their own account and at their own risk. Although it may be with the best intentions in the world, we are not prepared to allow this kind of behavior, which obstructs the responsible and delicate work of those who are authorized by law to carry it out, while at the same time sending out false signals in such complicated and sensitive issues. We hope that through these last statements, those people linked to the aforementioned activities grasp the seriousness of the matter and reach the conclusion that we are simply not going to continue allowing these activities.

As a result of the detailed analysis carried out, now more than ever, the main objective of all of us has to be working so that, in the midst of the changes and the old and new problems we are facing, the leading role played by the Party is preserved. Everything the enemy does on the ideological front is aimed at weakening just such a guarantee of the scientific and at the same time revolutionary and heroic leadership of our people. We must not forget that President Castro and the Party are the preferred targets of the enemies of the Revolution and the main attacks from all fronts are concentrated precisely on them.

THE PARTY IS NOT SITTING BACK IDLY

The Party is not just sitting back idly. It is taking and will continue to take all the necessary measures in the face of present and future situations and challenges on all fronts, particularly the ideological front.

Remember the bombing of a number of airports throughout the country on April 15, 1961; remember the funeral of those first victims; remember the proclamation of the socialist nature of the Revolution backed by the working people who had congregated on 12th and 23rd Streets, close to the Colón Cemetery, with their rifles raised; remember April 17, the following day, when that same working class went to fight for socialism at the Bay of Pigs. We can learn from that as well that proletarian ideology was our main piece of artillery at the Bay of Pigs, 35 years ago, and from Maceo, in the centennial year of his heroic death, we can learn from his example and his message can be summed up in one word: Baraguá.

With the same vision as always, some two decades ago President Castro warned those present in the 1st Party Congress: "As long as imperialism exists, the Party, the state and the people will pay maximum attention to defense. Our revolutionary guard will never be dropped." History has shown us far too eloquently that those who forget this principle do not survive the error. Now is the time to recall those ideas and to add that in the last six years, the existing unipolar world and recent events in our country have increasingly demonstrated the truth and permanent validity of that concept voiced by Comrade Fidel.

It has also been shown, and we have seen it recently, how the international political atmosphere can change drastically in the space of a week, and pose very delicate situations for us. But the preparation of a country's defense, even more so in our case with the enemy we have, requires decades of systematic work.

Never before has there been such a need to raise the Party's ideological work to the levels of the country's combat missions.

We believe that by stating the problems plainly, by clearly identifying them, our Central Committee and the other Party leadership bodies have a greater capacity to confront them, with the depth and the systematic treatment they demand. An essential condition in order to fulfill this mission is, in the first place, that of having a strong Party, which increasingly and constantly works toward improving its work and building its prestige at the grass-roots level, in precisely the historical context which is most needed. This plenum is contributing to promoting those objectives, and we have the profound responsibility of guaranteeing them.