The following speech was given by Fidel Castro on 8 October 1987 at the main ceremony marking the twentieth anniversary of Guevara’s death. It was held at a newly completed electronics components factory in the city of Pinar del Río.

Nearly twenty years ago, on October 18, 1967, we met in the Plaza of the Revolution with a huge crown to honor Compañero Ernesto Che Guevara, Those were very bitter, very difficult days as when we received news of the developments in Vado del Yeso, in the Yuro Ravine, when news agencies reported Che had fallen in battle.

It didn’t take long to realize that those reports were absolutely correct, for they consisted of news items and photos that proved it beyond doubt. For several days, the news was coming until with all that information in hand — although many of the details we know today were not known at the time — we held the large mass rally, the solemn ceremony in which we paid our last respects to fallen compañero.

Nearly twenty years have passed since then, and now, on October 8, we are marking the date he fell in battle. According to reliable reports we have now, he was actually murdered the following day after having been captured unarmed and wounded; his weapon had been rendered useless in battle. That’s why it has become a tradition to commemorate that dramatic event on October 8. The first year passed and then five, ten, fifteen, now twenty years, and it was necessary to recall the historic dimensions of that development, and particularly the man. Thus in a natural way, rather than a very deliberate or pondered way, the entire people have been recalling the date in recent months. It was possible to commemorate the twentieth anniversary on a solemn note as we have seen here today: The playing of taps, the anthem, the magnificent poem by Nicolás Guillén, which rang out with the same voice we heard twenty years ago.

I could try to give a very solemn, grandiloquent speech, perhaps a written speech, but in these times the pressure of work barely leaves a minute free for thinking more carefully about all those events and the things I could say here, let alone for writing a speech — that’s why I’d prefer to recall Che, share my thoughts with you, because I’ve thought a lot about Che. I did an interview, part of which was made public yesterday in our country, in answer to the questions of an Italian journalist who had me in front of the television cameras nearly sixteen hours straight — actually, they were movie, not TV cameras, because in order to get a better image in everything he did, he didn’t use videocassettes, some of which last two hours, but rather movie cameras. He’d change reels every twenty or twenty-five minutes, and so it was quite an exhausting interview. We should have taken three days to do to do it, but we had to do it in one because there was no more time. We started before noon on a Sunday and finished at 5:00 a.m. the following day. There were more that 100 questions. Among the variety of subjects and themes, the journalist was very interested in talking about Che, and between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. we got to the subject. I made an effort to answer each of his questions, and I made a special effort to summarize my memories of Che.

I told him how I felt, and I think many compañeros feel the same way, regarding Che’s permanent presence. We must keep in the special relationship with Che, the affection, the fraternal bonds of comradeship, the united struggle over nearly twelve years, from the moment we met in Mexico until the end, a period rich in historic events, some of which have been made public only in the last couple of days.

It was a period filled with heroic and glorious deeds, from the time Che joined us to go on the Granma expedition, the landing, the setbacks, the most difficult days, the resumption of the struggle in the mountains, rebuilding an army virtually from scratch, the first clashes, and the last battles. Then the intense period that followed, one after another, such as the start of imperialist hostility; the blockade; the slander campaigns against the revolution as soon as we started to do justice to the criminals and thugs who had murdered thousands of our fellow citizens; the economic blockade; the Girón [Bay of Pigs] invasion; the proclamation of the socialist nature of the revolution; the struggle against the mercenaries; the October [missile] crisis; the first steps in the construction of socialism when there was nothing — neither experience nor cadres nor engineers nor economists and hardly any technicians, when we were left almost without doctors because 3,000 of the 6,000 doctors in the country left.

Then came the First and Second Declarations of Havana, the start of the isolation imposed on our country, the collective rupture of diplomatic relations by all Latin American governments except Mexico. It was a period in which, along with all these developments, we had to organize the economy of the country. It was a relatively brief but fruitful period replete with unforgettable events.

It must be kept in mind that Che persisted in an old desire, an old idea: to return to South America, to his country, to make the revolution based on the experience he’d gained in our country. We should recall the clandestine way in which his departure had to be organized, the barrage of slanders against the revolution when there was talk of conflicts, of differences with Che, that Che had disappeared. It was even said the he had been murdered because of splits in the ranks of the revolution.

Meanwhile, the revolution calmly and firmly endured the ferocious attack, because over and above the irritation and the bitterness caused by those campaigns, the important thing was for Che to be able to fulfill his goals; the important thing was to ensure his safety and that of the compatriots with him on his historic missions.
In the interview I explained the origin of that idea, how when he joined us he had set only one condition: that once the revolution was made, when he wanted to return to South America he would not be prevented from doing so for reason of state or for the state’s convenience, that he would not be held back. We told him he could go ahead and that we would support him. He would remind us of this pledge every so often until the time came he decided it was time to leave.

Not only did we keep the promise of agreeing to his departure, but we gave him all the help we could. We tried to delay the departure a little. We gave him other tasks to enrich his guerrilla experience, and we tried to create a minimum of conditions so that he would not have go through the most difficult stage of the first days of organizing a guerrilla force, something we knew full well from our own experience.
We were well aware of Che’s talent, his experience and his role. He was a cadre suited to major strategic tasks and we felt it might be better if other compañeros undertook the initial organizational work and that he join at a more advanced stage in the process. This also fit in with our policy during the war of saving cadres, as they distinguished themselves, for increasingly important and strategic assignments. We did not have many experienced cadres, and as they distinguished themselves we would not send them out every day with a squad to ambush; rather, we gave them more important tasks in keeping with their ability and experience.

Read Part Two.

Thus, I remember that during the days of Batista’s final offensive in the Sierra Maestra mountains against our militant but small forces, the most experienced cadres were not in the front lines; they were assigned strategic leadership assignments and save for our devastating counterattack. It would have been pointless to put Che, Camilo [Cienfuegos], and other compañeros who had participated in many battles at the head of a squad. We held them back so that they could subsequently lead columns that would undertake risky missions of great importance, it was then that we did send them in enemy territory with full responsibility and awareness of the risks as in the case of the invasion of Las Villas led by Camilo and Che, an extraordinarily difficult assignment that required men of great experience and authority as column commanders, men capable of reaching the goal.

In line with this reasoning, and considering the objectives, perhaps it would have been better if this principle had been observed and Che had joined at a later stage. It really was no so critical for him to handle everything right from the start. But he was impatient, very impatient really. Some Argentine comrades had been killed in the initial efforts he had made years before, including Ricardo Massetti, the founder of Presna Latina. He remembered that often and was really impatient to start to participate personally in the work.

As always, we respected our commitments and his views, for our relationship was always based on absolute trust, absolute brotherhood, regardless of our ideas about what would be the right time for him to join in. And so we gave him all the help and the facilities possible to start the struggle. The news came of the first clashes, and contact was completely lost. The enemy detected the initial stage of organization of the guerrilla movement, and that marked the start of a period lasting many months in which almost the only news we received was what came via international news dispatches, and we had to know how to interpret them. But that’s something our revolution had become very experienced at: determining when a report is reliable or when it is made up, false.

I remember, for example, when a dispatch came with the news of the death of Joaquín’s grip (his real name was Vilo Acuña.* When we analyzed it, I immediately concluded that it was true, this was because of the way they described how the group had been eliminated while crossing a river. Because of our own guerrilla experience, because of what we had lived through, we knew how a small guerrilla group can be done away with. We knew the few, exceptional ways such a group can be destroyed,

When it was reported that a peasant had made contact with the army and provided detailed information on the location and plans of the group, which was looking for a way to cross the river; how the army set up an ambush on the other bank at a spot on the route the same peasant had told the guerrilla fighters to use; the way the army opened fire in midstream; there was no doubt as to the truth of the explanation. If the writers of false reports, which came in often, tried to do it again, it was impossible to admit that they, who were always so clumsy in their lies, would have had enough intelligence and experience to make up the exact and only circumstances in which the group could be eliminated. That’s why we conclude the report was true. Long years of revolutionary experience had taught us to decipher dispatches and tell the difference between the truth and the falsehood of each development; although, of course, there are other things to keep in mind when making a judgment. But that was the type of information we had about the situation until the news of Che’s death arrived.

As we have explained, we had hopes that even with only twenty men left, even in a very difficult situation, the guerrillas still had a chance. They were headed toward an area where sectors of the peasants were organized, where some good Bolivian cadres had influence, and until that moment, until almost the very end, there was chance that the movement could consolidate and could develop. But the circumstances in which my relationship with Che were so unique — the almost unreal history of the brief but intense saga of the first year of the revolution when we were used to making the impossible possible — that is, as I explained to that journalist, one had the permanent impression that Che had not died, that he was still alive. Sine his was such an exemplary personality, so unforgettable, so familiar, it was difficult to resign oneself to the idea of his death.

Sometimes I would dream — all of us dream of things related to our lives and struggles — that I saw Che, that he returned, that we was alive. How often this happened! I told the journalist that these are feelings you seldom talk about, but they give an idea of the impact of Che’s personality and also of the extraordinary degree to which he really lives on, almost as if his was a physical presence, with his ideas and deeds, with his example and all the things he created, with his continued relevance and the respect for him not only in Latin America but in Europe and all over the world. As we predicted on October 18, twenty years ago, he became a symbol for all the oppressed, for all the exploited, for all the patriotic and democratic forces, for all the revolutionaries. He became a permanent and invincible symbol.

We feel Che’s presence for all these reasons, because of the real force that he still has today which, even though twenty years have gone by, exists in the spirit of all of us, when we hear the poem, when we hear the anthem, or the bugle is sounded before a moment’s silence, when we open our newspapers and see photographs of Che during different stages of his life, his image, so well known throughout the world — because it has to be said that Che not only had the virtues and all the human moral qualities to be a symbol, he also had the appearance of a symbol, the image of a symbol: his look, the frankness and strength of his look; his face, which reflects character irrepressibly determined for action, at the same time showing great intelligence and great purity — when we look at the poems that have been written, the episodes that are recounted, and the stories that are repeated, we feel the reality of Che’s relevance, of his presence.

It’s not strange if one feels Che’s presence not only in everyday life, but even in dreams if one imagines that he is alive, that Che is in action and that he never died. In the end we must reach the conclusion that for all intents and purposes in the life of our revolution, Che never died, and the light that of what has been done, he is more alive than ever, has more influence than ever, and is a more powerful opponent of imperialism than ever. Those who disposed of his body so that he would not become a symbol; those who, under the guidance of the methods of their imperial masters, did not want any trace to remain, have discovered that although his tomb is unmarked, there are no remains, and there is no body, nevertheless a frightening opponent of imperialism, a symbol, a force, a presence that can never be destroyed, does exist.

When they hid Che’s body, they showed their weakness and their cowardice, because they also showed their fear of the example and the symbol. They did not want the exploited peasants, the workers, the students, the intellectuals, the democrats, the progressives or the patriots of this hemisphere to have a place to go to pay tribute to Che’s remains. And in the world today, in which there is no specific place to go to pay tribute to Che’s remains, tribute is paid to everywhere.

Today tribute is not paid to Che once a year, not once ever five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years; today homage is paid to Che every year every month, every day, everywhere, in a factory, in a school, in a military barracks, in a home, among children, among Pioneers. Who can count how many millions of times in these twenty years, the Pioneers have said: “Pioneers for communism, we will be like Che”!

Really, there can be no superior symbol, there can be no better image, when searching for a model revolutionary man, when searching for the model communist. I say this because I have the deepest conviction — I always have had and I still have today, just the same or more so when I spoke that October 18 and I asked how we wanted our fighters, our revolutionaries, our party members, our children to be, and I said we wanted them to be like Che. Because Che is the personification, Che is the image of that new man, the image of that human being if we want to talk about a communist society; if our real objective is to build, not just socialism but the higher stages of socialism, if humanity is not going to renounce the lofty and extraordinary idea of living in a communist society one day.

If we need a paradigm, a model, an example to follow, then men like Che are essential, as are men and women who imitate him, who are like him, who think like, who act like him; men and women whose conduct resembles his when it comes to doing their duty, in every little thing, every detail, every activity; in his attitude toward work, his habit of teaching and educating by setting an example; his attitude of wanting to be first at everything, the first to volunteer for the most difficult tasks, the hardest ones, the most self-sacrificing ones; the individual who gives his body and soul to others, the person who displays true solidarity, the individual who never lets down a compañero; the simple man; the man without a flaw, who doesn’t live any contradiction between what he says and what he does, between what he practices and what he preaches; a man of thought and a man of action — all of which Che symbolizes.

For our country, it is a great honor and privilege to have had Che as a son of our people even though he wasn’t born in this land. He was a son because he earned the right consider himself and to be considered a son of our country, and it is an honor and a privilege for our people, for our country, for our country’s history, for our revolution to have had among its ranks a truly exceptional man such as Che.
That’s not to say that exceptional people are rare; that’s not to say that amid the masses there are not hundreds, thousands, even millions of exceptional men and women. I said it once during the bitter days after Camilo disappeared. When I recounted the history of how Camilo became the man he was, I said: “Among our people there are many Camilos.” I could say: “Among our peoples, among the peoples of Latin America and peoples of the world, there are many Ches.” But, why do we call them exceptional? Because in actual fact, in the world in which they lived, in the circumstances in which they lived, they had the chance and the opportunity to demonstrate all that man, with his generosity and solidarity, is capable of being. And, indeed, seldom do ideal circumstances exist in which man has the opportunity to express himself and to show everything he has inside as was the case with Che.
Of course, it’s clear that there are countless men and women among the masses who, partly as a result of other people’s examples and certain new values, are capable of heroism, including a kind of heroism I greatly admire: silent heroism, anonymous heroism, silent virtue, anonymous virtue, But given that its so unusual, so rare for all the necessary circumstances to exist to produce a figure like Che — who today has become a symbol for world, a symbol that will grow — it is a great honor and privilege that this figure was born during our revolution.
And as proof of what I said earlier about Che’s presence and force today, I could ask: Is there a better date, a better anniversary than this one to remember Che with all our conviction and deep feelings of appreciation and gratitude? Is there a better moment than this particular anniversary, when we are in the middle of the rectification process?

What are we rectifying? We are rectifying all those things — and there are many — that strayed from the revolutionary spirit, from revolutionary work, revolutionary virtue, revolutionary effort, revolutionary responsibility; all those things that strayed from the spirit of solidarity among people. We’re rectifying all the shoddiness and mediocrity that is precisely the negation of Che’s ideas, his revolutionary thought, his style, his spirit and his example. I really believe, and I say it with great satisfaction, that if Che were sitting in this chair, he would feel jubilant. He would be happy about what we are doing these days, just like he would have felt very unhappy during that unstable period, that disgraceful period of building socialism in which there began to prevail a series of ideas, of mechanisms, of bad habits, which would have caused Che to feel profound and terrible bitterness.

Starting out from the idea that rectification means, as I’ve said before, looking for new solutions to old problems, rectifying many negative tendencies that had been developing; that rectification implies making more accurate use of the system which, as we said at the enterprises meeting, was a horse, a lame nag with may sores that we were treating with mercurochrome and prescribing medicines for, putting splints on one leg, in short, fixing up the nag, the horse. I said that the thing to do now was to go on using that horse, knowing its bad habits, the perils of that horse, how it kicked and bucked, and try to lead it on our path and not go wherever it wishes to take us. I’ve said, let us take up the reins!

These are very serious, complicated matters and here we can’t afford to take shots in the dark, and there’s no place for adventure of any kind. The experience of so many years that quite a few of us have had the privilege of accumulating through a revolutionary process is worth something. And that’s why we say now, we cannot continue fulfilling the plan simply in terms of monetary value! We must also fulfill it in terms of goods produced. We demand this categorically, and anyone who does otherwise must be quickly replaced, because there’s no other choice! We maintain that all projects must be started and finished quickly so that there is never a repeat of what happened to us on account of the nag’s bad habits: that business of doing the earthmoving and putting up a few foundations because that was worth a lot and then not finishing the building because that was worth little; that tendency to say, “I fulfilled my plan as to value but I didn’t finish a single building,” which made us waste hundred of millions, billions, and we never finished anything.

It took fourteen years to build a hotel. Fourteen years wasting iron bars, sand, stone, cement, rubber, fuel, manpower before the country made a single penny from the hotel being used. Eleven years to finish our hospital here in Pinar del Río! It’s true that in the end it was finished and it was finished well, but things of this sort should never happen again. The minibrigades, which were destroyed for the sake of such mechanisms, are now rising again from their ashes like a phoenix and demonstrating the significance of that mass movement the significance of that revolutionary path of solving the problems that the theoreticians, technocrats, those who do not believe in man, and who believe in two-bit capitalism had stopped and dismantled. This was how they were leading us into critical situations.In the capital, where the minibrigades emerged, it pains us to think that over fifteen years ago we had found an excellent solution to such a vital problem, and yet they were destroyed in their peak moment. And so we didn’t even have the manpower to building housing in the capital; and the problems kept piling up, tens of thousands of homes were propped up and were in danger of collapsing and killing people.

Now the minibrigades have been reborn and there are more than 20,000 minibrigades members in the capital. They’re not in the contradiction with the nag, with the Economic Management and the Planning System, simple because the factory or workplace that sends them to the construction site pays them, but the state reimburses the factory or workplace for the salary of the minibrigades member. The difference is that whereas the worker would normally work five or six hours, on the minibrigades he works ten, eleven or twelve hours doing the job of two or three men, and the enterprise saves money.

Our two-bit capitalist can’t say his enterprise is being ruined. On the contrary, he can say, “They’re helping the enterprise. I’m doing the job with thirty, forty or fifty less men and spending less on wages.” He can say, “I’m going to be profitable or at least lose less money; I’ll distribute more prizes and bonuses since wage expenditures will be cut down.” He organizes production better, he gets housing for his workers, who in turn are happier because they have new housing. He builds community projects such as special schools, polyclinics, day-care centers for the children of working women, for the family; in short, some many extremely useful things we are doing now and the state is building them without spending an additional cent in wages. That really is miraculous! We could ask the two-bit capitalists and profiteers who have blind faith in the mechanisms and categories of capitalism: Could you achieve such a miracle? Could you manage to build 20,000 housing units in the capital without spending a cent more on wages? Could you build fifty day-care centers in a year without spending a cent more on wages, when only five had been included in the five-year plan and they weren’t even built, and 19,5000 mothers were waiting to get their children a place, which never materialized.

At that rate, it would take 100 years! By then they would be dead, and fortunately so would all the technocrats, two-bit capitalists, and bureaucrats who obstruct the building of socialism. They would have died without ever seeing day-care center number 100. Workers in the capital will have their 100 day-care centers in two years, and workers all over the country will have the 300 or so they need in three years. That will bring enrollment to 70,000 or 80,000 easily, without paying out an additional cent in wages or adding workers, because at that rate with overstaffing everywhere, we would have ended up bring workers in from Jamaica, Haiti, some Caribbean island, or some other place in the world. That was where we were heading.It can be seen in the capital today that one in eight workers can be mobilized, I’m sure. This is not necessary because there would not be enough materials to give tasks to 100,000 people working Havana, each one doing the work of three. We’re seeing impressive examples of feats of work, and this achieved by mass methods, by revolutionary methods, by communist methods, combining the interests of people in need with the interests of factories and those of society as a whole.

I don’t want to become the judge of different theories, although I know what things I believe in and what things I don’t and can’t believe in. These questions are discussed frequently in the world today. And I only ask modestly, during the problem of rectification, during this process of this struggle — in which we’re going to continue as we already explained: with the old nag, while it can still walk, if it walks, and until we can cast it aside and replace it with a better horse as I think that nothing is good if it’s done in a hurry, without analysis and deep thought — What I ask for modestly at this twentieth anniversary is that Che’s economic thought be made known; that it be known here, in Latin America, in the world; in the developed capitalist world, in the Third World, and in the socialist world. Let it be known there too! In the same way that we may read many texts, of all varieties, and many manuals, Che’s economic thought should be known in the socialist camp. Let it be known! I don’t say they have to adopt it; we don’t have to get involved in that. Everyone must adopt the thought, the theory the thesis they consider most appropriate, that which best suits them, as judged by each country. I absolutely respect the right of every country to apply the method or systems it considers appropriate; I respect it completely!

I simply ask that in a cultured country, in a cultured world, in a world where ideas are discussed, Che’s economic theories should be made known  I especially ask that our students of economics, of whom we have many and who read all kinds of pamphlets, manuals, theories abut capitalist categories and capitalist laws, also begin to study Che’s economic thought, so as to enrich their knowledge. It would be a sign of ignorance to believe there is only way of doing things arising from the concrete experience of a specific time and specific historical circumstances. What I ask for, what I limit myself to asking for, is a little more knowledge, consisting of knowing about other points-of-view, points-of-view as respected, as deserving and as coherent as Che’s points-of-view.

I can’t conceive that our future economists, that our future generations will act, live and develop like another species of little animal, in the case like the mule, who has those blinders only so that he can’t see to either side; mules, furthermore, with grass and carrot dangling in front as their only motivation. No, I would like them to read, not only to intoxicate themselves with certain ideas, but also to look at other ones, analyze them, and think about them. Because if we are talking with Che and we said to him, “Look, all this has happened to us,” all those things I was talking about before, what happened to us in construction, in agriculture, in industry, what happened in the terms of goods actually produced, work quality, and all that, Che would have said, “It’s as I warned, what’s happening is exactly what I thought would happen,” because that’s simply the way it is. I want our people to be a people of ideas, of concepts. I want them to analyze those ideas, think about them, and if they want, discuss them. I consider these things to be essential.

It might be that some of Che’s ideas are closely linked to the initial stages of revolution, for example his belief that when a quota was surpassed, the wages received should not go above that received by those on the scale immediately above. What Che wanted was for the worker to study, and he associated his concept with the idea that our people who in those days had very poor education and little technical expertise should study. Today our people are much better educated, more cultured. We could discuss whether now they should earn as much as the next level or more. We could discuss questions associated with our reality of a far more educated people, a people far better prepared technically, although we must never give up the idea of constantly improving ourselves technically. But many of Che’s ideas are absolutely relevant today, ideas without which I am convinced communism cannot be built, like the idea that man should not be corrupted; that man should never be alienated; the idea that without consciousness, simply producing wealth, socialism as a superior society could not be built, and communism could never be built.

I think that many of Che’s ideas — many of his ideas! — have great relevance today. Had we known, had we learned about Che’s economic thought we’d be a hundred times more alert, including in riding the horse, and whenever the horse wanted to turn left of right, wherever it wanted to turn — although, mind you, here this was without a doubt a right-wing horse — we should have pulled it up hard and got it back on track, and whenever it refused to move, used the spurs hard. I think a rider, that is to say, an economist, that is to say, a party cadre, armed with Che’s ideas would be better equipped to lead the horse along the right track. Just being familiar with Che’s thought, just knowing his ideas would enable him to say, “I’m doing badly here, I’m doing badly there, that’s a consequence of this, that, or the other,” provided that the system and mechanisms for building socialism and communism are really being developed and improved on.

Read Part Five.