Castro and his leadership team clarified that process through the declaration of the socialist character of the revolution. On many occasions in those inspirational years, Fidel explained that toppling the old regime was the easiest part of their ongoing struggle; the hardest was yet to come – sustaining, building and defending the new workers revolutionary democratic revolution and the new government based on the empowerment and enlightenment of the toilers of the nation. This nation – the last in the Spanish empire in Nuestra Patria Grande to defeat Spanish colonial rule – finally won real sovereignty for the first time in 1959-61 though a combined process of national and class liberation. The interregnum between Cuba’s victory against Spain and the 1959 overturn of the U.S.-sponsored Batista dictatorship was, of course, the period of direct occupation and penetration of U.S. imperialism. Hence, the victory of the Cuban revolution announced a new wave of anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America and the Caribbean. It would call upon the Cuban people to play a vanguard and inspirational role. No one can credibly deny that they did that with unsurpassed courage and exemplary dedication, and remain loyal to this day to that commitment expressed with such force in the First and Second Declarations of Havana. Fidel has relinked arms with el Che, not in some celestial sphere, but here on earth – they live and struggle with us through their teaching, their example, and through our everlasting, shared battle of ideas. Ever onward to victory!

Hasta Siempre, Comandante. [*]

Sol,

Felipe Stuart,

El Doral, Mateare, Nicaragua

[*] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasta_Siempre,_Comandante
And, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK926hGidhc

An excellent antidote to the sugar-coated venom of the New York Times et al. Thank you.

One very minor proofreading note: The second “long live” at the end of the first speech excerpt seems to be missing the “live.”