Fidel and Culture, the Eternal Struggle

Culture, in its broadest sense, was a constant preoccupation for Fidel Castro, who was convinced of the crucial role it played in transforming a society newly embarked on a revolutionary path. Without it, he said, "there is no possible freedom."

Aware of the spiritual foundation that culture provides, and of the strength that comes from a people being able to reach out and touch it, Fidel made it one of the top priorities of the Revolutionary Government, which was tasked with instilling the ideals demanded by the new era.

Although, as Cintio Vitier recalled, it was astonishing "(...) the fecundation erasing the countless frustrations, the unspeakable humiliations, the minute nightmares!", it was also true that "other battles then began."

Guided by its leader, the young Revolution undertook monumental efforts. Just three months after its triumph, it established the National Printing House of Cuba, which fittingly debuted with a 100,000-copy edition of The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.

In addition to publishing books, the Printing House produced the materials used in the Literacy Campaign of 1961, the greatest cultural epic of the revolutionary struggle, which ended one of the saddest chapters of neocolonial Cuba — illiteracy — when, on December 22, the country was declared free of it.

From as early as 1959, other cultural institutions that would become national symbols were founded, such as Casa de las Américas, under the brilliant leadership of Haydee Santamaría, and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC). Support also grew for other institutions, including the National Theater, the National Library, the Symphony Orchestra, and the National Ballet of Cuba. That same year, Fidel transformed military barracks into schools.

Speaking, Touching the Soul

Fidel always demonstrated his instinct for communication, aware of the effectiveness of dialogue. He spoke with teachers, doctors, scientists, ordinary citizens, and children. At the opening ceremony of the first school year at the Ciudad Escolar Libertad on September 14, 1959, he addressed students, explaining in terms they could understand why this was "the most beautiful act of this Revolution."

He told them that many young people had given their lives for this achievement, "so the greatest gratitude of the children must be for our comrades who died in the struggle; the greatest reverence of Cuban children must be for the rebels who died, the revolutionaries who died, to make this dream a reality."

To the children, who admired the rebels, he explained that many of these soldiers had never been able to attend school, and now they had to take advantage of what was being offered. With fatherly affection, he urged them to learn to do things well, better than the rebels themselves, because the adults had much to do to prepare the people.

In his speech, he asked them if they thought the Revolution had already been made. “No!” the children shouted. “And if the Revolution has not been made, who will make it?” he asked. “We will,” they replied. “And what is the first thing you must do?” he asked again. “Study!” they all answered. Fidel continued, "Ah, study. Then, the child who does not study is not a good revolutionary, because the child who does not study will not know how to do things well and will end up like us, trying to do something and it does not come out right; so the child who does not study is not a good rebel nor a good revolutionary, because if you want to help the Revolution, if you want to help the rebels, if you want to help your homeland, you must study, because the one who does not know how to do things cannot help anyone, will make mistakes, and even if they want to do things well, they cannot do them well because they do not know how."

Trench Words

On June 30, 1961, Fidel concluded three days of exchanges with writers, artists, and intellectuals, an event that went down in history as Words to the Intellectuals. While the excessive censorship of the documentary PM, which had stirred controversy among artists, served as a pretext for the meeting, Fidel had already planned to engage with this group and hear their concerns. The sessions would outline the cultural policy of the Revolution.

Even when the country was mobilized and had just repelled the mercenary invasion at Playa Girón, Fidel did not neglect matters related to culture. As a follower of José Martí, he knew that to be free one must be cultured, and that culture was one of the names for the happiness the Revolution sought for its people.

To dispel rumors and counter slanders, many points were clarified: "The Revolution cannot seek to stifle art or culture when one of the main goals and purposes of the Revolution is to develop art and culture, precisely so that art and culture become a real heritage of the people," Fidel declared. Far from excluding, he accepted a variety of viewpoints, except for those who were "incorrigibly reactionary, (...) incorrigibly counterrevolutionary."

Years later, in an interview with the Hurón Azul program of UNEAC (an organization founded at the conclusion of the First Congress of Writers and Artists of Cuba, two months after the meetings), National Literature Prize laureate Ambrosio Fornet addressed Fidel’s most cited — and often decontextualized — phrase from that speech: "within the Revolution, everything; against the Revolution, nothing."

"Cuba is a country that has always been placed in a very tough position, where being against certain things means being in favor of others. I have said at times that democracy is not practiced in the trenches. As long as the historical situation places us in a trench, we hold to the idea that for us, everything; for the enemy, nothing," Fornet explained.

Alongside Them, the Presence

In Fidel y la cultura, palabras a los escritores, artistas e instructores de arte, a compilation by Elier Ramírez Cañedo and Luis Morlote Rivas recently published by Ocean Sur, Abel Prieto writes in the prologue: "Culture was never for Fidel something ornamental. (...) He saw it as a transformative energy of enormous importance, linked to conduct, ethics, and quality of life, capable of contributing decisively to 'human improvement.' But above all, he saw it as the only path capable of leading us to emancipation."

In another book, also by Ramírez and Morlote, titled Lo primero que hay que salvar. Intervenciones de Fidel en la Uneac, the authors note that Fidel’s exchanges with artists and writers multiplied in the 1990s, beyond the congresses he mostly attended. From those discussions emerged the principles underpinning the "new and profound cultural revolution, known as the Battle of Ideas," which reached its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s through numerous educational and social programs.

At the Sixth Congress, the authors recall, one of the concerns Fidel raised was globalization and culture. He warned about "how the U.S. government was using information and culture as the new nuclear weapon for the domination of the planet," and called on intellectuals and artists to wage their own Girón in defense of culture.

Fidel could not attend the Seventh and Eighth Congresses due to his declining health, yet his presence was unmistakable in the evocation of his thought and in the programs brought to life through his intellect and foresight.

In 2019, President Miguel Díaz-Canel attended the closing of UNEAC’s Ninth Congress. In a speech greeted with a standing ovation, he urged intellectuals and artists to bring Fidel’s robust Words to the Intellectuals into the present day to evaluate new scenarios, as well as the colonizing and trivializing platforms seeking to establish themselves.

The organization’s Tenth Congress, held last year, paid tribute before Díaz-Canel to Army General Raúl Castro Ruz. A dedication accompanied the small sculpture to be presented to him: "To you dear Raúl, who have always been a comrade in the defense of national culture, the grateful commitment of the Union where we will continue defending Fidel’s will, who conceived the creative act as the shield and sword of the nation."

The "Here we are and here we will remain" proclaimed on that occasion by Marta Bonet, newly elected president of UNEAC, reflects those sacred loyalties to men who lead and illuminate, as Fidel will never cease to do.