But what makes this conceptualization so transcendent?
And to the extent that the revolutionary project was being consolidated, and that "everything that seemed impossible was possible", the maximum leader of the Revolution realized that "a Revolution greater than ourselves" had been made, much greater than the dreams of justice that led the Centenary Generation to the Moncada in 1953.
After the Bay of Pigs, the Revolution had crossed the threshold of the most basic measures of social justice, and was heading towards the construction of socialism, a project that had no precedents in Cuba or in Latin America to help understand such a social transformation; This fact was aggravated by the Cuban peculiarity of having passed, in a very short historical time, from a Spanish colony -together with its inheritance of underdevelopment, racism, etc-, to a new system of much stronger and more subtle dependencies, based on economic, political and cultural ties that aggravated the deformations inherited from the colony.
Although the main thinkers of Marxism were invaluable references, not as dogma, but as a method, the "Soviet manuals" did not fit the Caribbean reality that the Revolution intended to transform, so it had to think for itself, being aware of its own "sense of the historical moment", without following schemes or imported manuals; and it was Fidel, as a first-rate intellectual, who led that battle.
To be genuine will be one of the keys to the survival of the Cuban Revolution in the following decades, especially to face the Special Period.
A REVOLUTION FOR ALL TIMES
Fidel, a profound connoisseur of our history, knew firsthand that the term "revolution" was manipulated and stripped of its ideological essence during the first half of the 20th century. Grau, Prío and Masferrer, to cite a few examples, defined themselves as revolutionaries, and in the same way Batista tried to manipulate the barracks coup of March 1952, which had the energetic reply of the young Fidel Castro in Not a Revolution, but a swipe!
For Fidel, Martí, Maceo, Mella or Guiteras did not fit in the same concept with the lukewarm and genuflecting politicians of the Republic, even if they had had some participation in the deed of the 1930s.
This justifies, from the historical, political and theoretical point of view, its conceptualization of the year 2000, and therein lies one of the greatest values of the fidelist concept: its capacity to distance itself from the bourgeois and colonialist revolutions engendered from the entrails of capitalism. Because of its content, Fidel's concept of Revolution is incompatible with these and their individual spawns of any epoch.
"Revolution" is an advanced concept, which beyond the particular historical conjuncture in which it is expressed, transcends the frameworks of a particular epoch or socialist process. More than a look to the past, it is a projection to the future, a political reference for the leftist forces and a reflection of the humanism of the Cuban Revolution, as well as the result of the coherent union of Marti's and Marxist thought as a peculiarity of the Cuban process.
Although on multiple occasions Fidel conceptualized the Cuban political project, the definition of 2000 is the result of the definitive maturation of an idea whose author had had the rare privilege of remaining in the leadership of Cuban society for more than four decades, and of having been able to study and observe various revolutionary processes in the Third World, most of which were unable to sustain themselves over time in their struggle with imperialism and their own contradictions.
In addition to its humanist and philosophical value, "Revolution" is an instrument of ideological struggle that should not be broken down into its parts, but analyzed in its integrality, as an indivisible concept. It does not pretend to be a recipe of what to do, but a reference of what it is essential not to ignore; to assume otherwise would be to tarnish Fidel's ethical and anti-dogmatic thought and conduct.
It is an instrument to sow ideas and consciences as weapons against imperialist aggression; and this is precisely the idea defended by Fidel, as a preamble to his historic statement: "Our weapons have been the conscience and the ideas that the Revolution has sown for more than four decades". Immediately after reading his concept of Revolution, he added: "In real and concrete terms, we have faced for 41 years the most powerful power that has ever existed in the world (...)", a statement through which he made it clear that the ideas expressed above went beyond the particular context of the battle for the return of the child Elián González, one of the most grotesque aggressions of imperialism, and in which the island was involved at that time.
Twenty-five years have not been enough to take a reflective look at the concept of Revolution from every possible angle, but that time is enough to consider it a classic text of Latin American political literature.
CONCEPT OF REVOLUTION
"Revolution is a sense of the historical moment; it is to change everything that must be changed; it is full equality and freedom; it is to be treated and to treat others as human beings; it is to emancipate ourselves by ourselves and with our own efforts; it is to challenge powerful dominant forces within and outside the social and national spheres; is to defend values in which we believe at the price of any sacrifice; is modesty, selflessness, altruism, solidarity and heroism; is to fight with audacity, intelligence and realism; is to never lie or violate ethical principles; is a deep conviction that there is no force in the world capable of crushing the force of truth and ideas. Revolution is unity, it is independence, it is fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world, which is the basis of our patriotism, our socialism and our internationalism".
Abel Aguilera Vega
