"Ladies and gentlemen,
there is something I believe we must clarify from the very beginning: today we are not holding a political memorial. We have not gathered to nostalgically recall revolutionary glory of the past, nor to praise history as a harmless icon placed on a shelf. We are here to draw strength — and to extract conclusions — from an example that is more relevant than ever. To look at the world as it is — and as it can become, based on what history has already proven possible.
The example of Fidel — if I may say so — is not honored with silence and wreaths. It is honored when it becomes a tool of understanding and struggle, when it demonstrates in practice what human beings can achieve once they realize they are protagonists of History.
Fidel did not become a symbol of some abstract revolutionary sentiment. He became a symbol because he accomplished what seemed “impossible”: he showed a people long accustomed to believing that poverty was a natural law that they could claim and build their own power. That transformation — from resignation to collective assertion — was the real revolution.
The events of 1959 did not simply overthrow Batista. They overturned the dogma that the peoples of small countries have no right to dream and decide their future. Cuba was not liberated only from a brutal dictatorship; it was liberated from the fatalism that keeps peoples bound hand and foot. In a country that for many years was a colony of American monopolies and a stronghold of misery, the colossal potential of socialist construction was revealed: education became a universal right, healthcare a public good for all, culture an integral part of daily life, work a matter of dignity rather than half-existence. Illiteracy disappeared. Infant mortality fell to levels lower than those of many “developed” capitalist countries. Science was placed at the service of society, not the market. And Cuba — from a “dumping ground” and “brothel” of the United States — became an island of doctors, teachers and internationalist solidarity.
That is why the Revolution was fought with such ferocity: because it demonstrated what a people can achieve when the wealth they produce and the power they wield are in their own hands — and not in the hands of a minority. And this victory was the product of a dialectical unity between leadership and people. Fidel, Che, Camilo, Raúl and the entire revolutionary leadership played a decisive and irreplaceable role — and this must be stated without hesitation. But nothing would have been won without the tens of thousands of anonymous fighters — workers, peasants and young people — who from the very first moment took the cause into their own hands, giving their soul and their blood. The Revolution triumphed because a charismatic leadership and a determined people marched together, with the shared goal of liberating the homeland from imperialist chains and overthrowing the decayed capitalist establishment.
And all of this was built not in “easy times,” but under commercial blockade, continuous subversion and economic asphyxiation. There were moments when the logic of compromise and submission suggested stepping back. But Fidel knew: “A revolution is like a bicycle. If we stop pedaling, we fall.”
This is where the duty of our time begins, ladies and gentlemen: It is not enough to speak about Fidel. We must answer the question that his example poses with urgency: are we satisfied with the world as it is — or determined to change it?
In 2026, on the centenary of his birth, the essential question will not be “who Fidel was and what he did.” That is already engraved indelibly in the collective memory of the peoples of the world. The essential question will be who we are — and what we do.
And here imperialism reveals its fear. It is no coincidence that only a few days ago the President of the United States, Donald Trump, officially declared what he called “Anti-Communism Week.” If, as they claim, “communism is a finished chapter belonging to the past,” if, as they insist, “history has come to an end,”
then why spill tons of ink? Why spend billions on defamatory anti-communist campaigns? What do they fear?
The answer is simple: they fear the conclusions. They fear the comparison between the inhuman nature of capitalism and the achievements of socialist construction in Cuba, the Soviet Union and elsewhere. That is why they seek to turn Fidel, Che and Lenin into harmless icons — to strike at History while keeping their eyes on the future.
But their effort is futile. Because the necessity of socialism cannot be uprooted, as it is generated by objective reality itself: as long as wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, as long as the lives of working people are measured in terms of “cost” and “profit,” the need for a different path of development will only grow stronger. And no matter how much ink they spill, no matter how many “Anti-Communism Weeks” they proclaim, they cannot erase the peoples’ need for social justice, equality and true dignity.
That is why, as I said at the beginning, in honoring Fidel today we are not holding a political memorial. We are making a pledge. That History has not ended — and that the peoples, from Cuba to Palestine and from Greece to the furthest corner of Africa, have not yet spoken their last word.
Ladies and gentlemen, the legacy of the communist revolutionary Fidel does not belong to yesterday! It belongs to all those who refuse to accept a life of poverty, exploitation and wars. It belongs to the struggles of today — and to the victories of tomorrow. For it is good, and indeed necessary, to remember the socialist revolutions of the past.
But the task before us is to build our own — the revolutions of the 21st century."