Cuba is updating its economic and social model, but it maintains the socialist nature of its Revolution, proclaimed on April 16, 1961.
In order to achieve that goal, measures have been taken, including new forms of production such as self-employment and cooperatives, among other actions aimed at building a prosperous and sustainable socialism.
The historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, noted that “this is the socialist and democratic Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble”.
“And for this Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble, we are willing to give life,” he stressed on April 16, 1961, before a crowd of passionate Cubans who accompanied the victims of mercenary bombings perpetrated the day before.
On Saturday, April 15, enemy planes camouflaged with the insignias of the Revolutionary Armed Forces bombed the airport at Ciudad Libertad (in the capital), the air base in San Antonio de los Baños (southeast of Havana) and the airport in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba.
According to history, the people gathered at the corner of 23rd Avenue and 12th Street, near Colon Cemetery. Cuban flags were hanging from the balconies and flowers were falling.
The funeral procession and the march of thousands of people stopped at the since then historic corner of 23rd and 12th, where Fidel Castro gave a speech.
In allusion to Washington, the Cuban leader said, “This is what they cannot forgive us, that we are here, under their noses, and that we have made a socialist Revolution under the own noses of the United States.”
That way, the Cuban Revolution was announcing to the world, and Washington, its socialist nature.
Fidel Castro then accused the U.S. administration of hindering the peaceful march of the Cuban nation, destroying its people’s economic resources and their citizens’ lives, and demanded that the United States took responsibility for the aggression.
These events will teach us, these painful events will illustrate us and will show us, perhaps more clearly than any others that have occurred until today, what imperialism is like, he stressed.
The image of rifles raised by men and women immortalized the total support for the turn that the revolutionary process would take from then on and that it still continues in Cuba.
In that speech, Fidel Castro also foresaw the aggression that was being organized and that was perpetrated two days later in Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs).
In less than 72 hours, the recently-created National Revolutionary Militias, along with forces from the Rebel Army and the Cuban Police, defeated the invaders and that victory is considered the first defeat of the United States in Latin America. (Taken from Prensa Latina).
