U.S. worker reports back from Fidel Castro centennial in Cuba

President of the Republic of Cuba and First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party Miguel Díaz-Canel, at the opening of the First International Colloquium of Fidel: Legacy and Future, described Comandante Fidel Castro as a “relentless worker and permanent student.” 

There is no more apt description of Fidel. And there is no better example of revolutionary leadership. 

So many stories told during the Colloquium describe not only a leader who guided the building of a revolutionary nation, but of one who was deeply involved in every aspect — a relentless worker.

So many stories were of Fidel listening and learning, to profound effect, from the many cadres and workers involved in carrying out that construction of a revolutionary nation — a permanent student.

Fidel did not only embody these qualities himself — his exemplary action taught everyone around him to do the same. 

One medical worker from the Henry Reeve brigade told of her time supporting births in an Indigenous Kichwa community in Ecuador. She recounted: “I thought I knew everything about giving birth. But the Kichwa community showed me what a physiological birth really was.” She, too, is a permanent student.

Fidel’s qualities were not only based on his merits as an individual. They flowed from his understanding of the scientifically determined interests of Cuba’s working class and oppressed. He understood them so thoroughly because he genuinely integrated with the masses not only to learn their conditions, but to formulate solutions alongside them.

Revolutionaries in the United States — the center of world imperialism — should aspire to be like Fidel. We should aspire to be relentless workers and permanent students. 

¡Viva Fidel! ¡Viva Cuba Socialista y soberana! 

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