Comrades,

With revolutionary joy I convey the most fraternal of greetings from the Communist Party of Cuba to the Communist Party of Greece on the occasion of its 80^th birthday.

The long history of the Greek communists can be written with the blood of their heroes and martyrs. It is impossible to speak of the Greece of the last 80 years without speaking of the outstanding firmness with which its vanguard workers raised the flag of liberty and socialism.

We are grateful on this occasion for the invariable solidarity support always given by the Greek communists to the Cuban Revolution since its triumph. This has been an expression of the sentiments of all the people of Greece towards the people of Cuba. We appreciate with satisfaction the good development of diplomatic and other relations between Greece and Cuba.

Jose Marti, the father of the Cuban nation, said that although the old Greece is dead, it still tints with color our youthful dreams and warms our literature and breast-feeds us, what an all-encompassing mother. (Complete Works 7, 174).

The Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro, has often convened the Cuban people to resist with the same valor, which immortalized the name of Sparta, in defense of our cause of independence and justice in the face of the aggressions of the most powerful force in universal history.

By happy coincidence, the Greek communists and their friends from many parts of the planet are holding, in Athens, this celebration of patriotism and proletarian internationalism on the 150^th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and we have been invited to reflect in its light on the problems of the contemporary world. Undoubtedly, this constitutes a fruitful homage to the work, which, like the Iliad and the Odyssey, will always inspire nations.

The following is a short summary of what the Communist Party of Cuba believes about the world.

First: A new international situation is arising which needs to be analyzed by everyone. It has extremely complex characteristics. There have been four global situations arising during the century which is drawing to a close.

The first situation marked the establishment of the financial imperialism analyzed by Lenin, in fulfillment of the predictions of the Communist Manifesto, that capitalism should constantly revolutionize the forces of production or perish.

The second situation emerged with the commencement of the total crisis of capitalist production relations in the face of the extraordinary development of the forces of production and the need of the imperialist powers to parcel out a world which had already been parceled out. That situation led to the First World War and consequently to the victory of the October Revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union.

The third situation is related to the Second World War from which the Soviet Union emerged as the great victor over fascism, the shock troops of the most reactionary elements of imperialism, whilst the United States remained the only imperialist superpower. The downfall of the colonial world, the popular revolutions of China, Vietnam, Korea and Cuba also mark this period which could well have led to the end of capitalism.

The fourth situation, the one in which we find ourselves, was created by the fall of the Soviet model of socialism as a consequence of the accumulation of left-wing and right-wing errors, treachery and the work of the zapping enemy giving rise to the absurd downfall of the Soviet state and its European allies.

Imperialism went on to stimulate neo-liberal globalization and the United States believed it could impose a unipolar world. Its old aspiration, thwarted by the heroic Vietnamese victory, the achievement of military parity by the Soviets and the struggles of the peoples of Africa and Latin America to which Socialist Cuba contributed revolutionary internationalism symbolized by the heroic guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara.

A new situation is now developing, its final content and therefore its most concrete prospect, still remaining to be defined.

Generally speaking, these are new displays of the total crisis of imperialism, commencing with the already evident failure of neo-liberalism and exacerbation of all its contradictions.

The financial crisis in Mexico three years ago and now Southeast Asia, striking such an important power as Japan, is a reflection of the speculative and fictitious economy peculiar to parasitical and decomposing capitalism, the essence of the matter however being the crisis of transnational property.

Second: The class struggle, the starting point of the genuinely scientific and revolutionary analysis of the Communist Manifesto, has different expressions henceforth. One of them in Western Europe is undoubtedly the struggle for the 35 hour week as a certain slowing-down of unemployment caused by the scientific and technical revolution, opposed to capitalist production relations.

Present day reality confirms the social polarization announced by the Communist Manifesto. The most insulting concentration of wealth amongst a minority of imperialists conflicts with the all-encompassing levels of poverty, unemployment, destruction of the natural environment and lack of culture and desperation, as curses afflicting peoples. During the time of Marx and Engels, that of pre-monopolistic capitalism, social emancipation was debated between the bourgeoisie – previously revolutionary for having confronted feudalism and turned reactionary – and the proletariat. Nowadays, a time of state monopolistic capitalism, whose essence is sustained under the absolute dominance of the transnational, the formula of class against class becomes a narrow one. The proletarian protest is joined by the non-proletarian protest. The campesinos can and should join the working class against the dominant sector of the upper middle-class, as taught by Lenin; the other social classes should do likewise. They should take advantage of the relentless contradictions between the imperialist blocks. All divisions between believers and non-believers have to be overcome.

The Cuban Revolution triumphed when the manual and intellectual workers and the hard working campesinos and students united with Fidel Castro.

Unequal development continues to be present under imperialism and therefore the relentless march towards victory of the world revolutionary process, conceived by Marx and Engels, continues to be more probable by countries and regions as Lenin said. That march is not automatic and imperialism shall not waver in resorting to new fascist methods to prevent it, whilst calling for the dismantling of the socialist countries, encouraged by what happened in the USSR.

Regional economic integration grants the revolutionary struggle new characteristics, even from the very begging. Undoubtedly, it makes it imperative that the patriotism which the bourgeoisie long ago betrayed, consubstantial to the communists as shown by Cuba and Greece, should be combined more than ever with the practical international solidarity proclaimed by the Communist Manifesto.

Matters such as the struggle against the super exploitation of the external debt and for an international economic order benefiting all peoples remain the order of the day of solidarity.

Third: Since Marti, Cuban revolutionaries are on the way to forging Our America, a common fatherland from the Rio Grande separating Mexico from the United States to the Patagonia where Argentina ends. Fidel Castro welcomes the fact that Western Europe is on the road to being united as, otherwise, the world is objectively facing the serious contradictions of a power advocated by international hegemony.

U.S. dominance and ambition suffered by Cuba more than anyone may pose for humanity the same sort of drama as the dominance and ambition of German fascism, although it has other manifestations. How can we forget the lessons of Vietnam, Granada, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Palestine, Iraq, to quote but a few?

Cuba, in the worlds of its leader, has just reaffirmed that national sovereignty still exists and whilst this is the case Cubans shall defend it at whatever price, as we knew how at the Bay of Pigs and are doing with unyielding resistance to the U.S. genocidal blockade, a blockade not just condemned by the world but rejected by growing sectors within the United States.

The Cuban Revolution shall never betray socialism which made and makes independence and social justice possible, these being the two great ideals of the forgers of our national identity of the last century. Ideals betrayed by the bourgeoisie of the neocolonial Republic dominated by dollar imperialism and upheld by the best of the working class and its communist fighters.

Those ideals triumphed on January 1 1959 with the success, after 25 months of revolutionary war, of the process initiated by the assault on the Moncada Garrison in 1953 and the establishment of power of, by and for the people.

There are now public figures that recognize the work of the Revolution in health and education although they omit that those results, which are amazing for the third world, are the result of socialism.

With the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the cessation of the just economic relations, which permitted Cuba to confront the criminal blockade by the United States, our people were cast into Special Period, the most unexpected and terrible economic crisis.

Fourth: The imperialists believed that the Cuban Revolution would be easily defeated, but their calculations turned out to be erroneous. Now no one in the world wonders for how long Cuba will be able to resist, but rather when we will emerge from Special Period.

And so there is no lack in the United States and other capitalist countries of those who recommend uniting the old and unsuccessful tactics of aggression and isolation as regards Cuba with softening tactics of ideology and penetration, maintaining the same strategy which attempts to destroy the revolutionary power of the Cuban people. We are prepared against that and any other eventuality.

We are aware that the economic changes, into which we have been forced in order to survive the Yankee harassment of certain capitalist-type measures, tend to encourage individualism, corruption and the loss of the sublime values of socialism. Every day we add to vigilance more resolute actions so as to defend our principles.

Cuba is stronger than its enemies thanks to its unity explained through our people having given themselves the one and only Party of revolutionaries, as preached by Marti before Lenin. The recent genuinely democratic elections with that vanguard organization, which neither nominates nor elects -- it gives direction and is non-electoralist -- confirmed our indestructible unity.

During the last session in Geneva of the UN Human Rights Commission, the countries of Africa and others defeated the cunning maneuvering of the United States which is attempting to put in the dock the country most respecting those rights, whilst year after year the UN General Assembly unanimously condemns the Yankee blockade against Cuba.

Fifth: The Fifth Congress of our Party, whilst advocating unity and placing emphasis on achieving economic efficiency in socialist, state and cooperative enterprises, excluded the possibility of having domestic capitalist private property. In our particular case, accepting a wealthy class would be to create a bourgeoisie which would return to serving the counter-revolution, anexionism, the imperialist strategy in whichever of its tactics.

This prudent policy in no way contradicts our complete and indefinite support for associations with foreign capital, based on respect for our sovereignty and in favor of development.

This year our dear Greek friends celebrate eight decades of a momentous event, the moment in which the grandiose ideas of the Communist Manifesto ceased moving around the Acropolis like a ghost and became reality through the organization of the Party.

In Cuba, we commemorate the centenary of the ill-fated U.S. military intervention to snatch away from Cuba its already sure victory over the colonial yoke after 30 years of independence war. This is also the 40^th anniversary of the decisive battles of our last war of liberation.

The tragedy ended four decades ago, comparable in suffering to the poignant works of literature of the Greeks of antiquity, suffering which for our people began a century ago.

Comrades,

No matter how long Cubans shall have to prolong their resistance, Cuba shall never be other than the Cuba loved and supported by the parties represented at this great Greek communist celebration.

In all battles, like modern Spartans, the Cubans shall carry written on their shields – either to return with them held on high or laid to rest on them – two slogans loyal to the spirit of the Communist Manifesto.

Socialism or death!