Fidel Castro: History Will Absolve Me

The Five Revolutionary Laws

The five revolutionary laws sought to solve Cuba's economic and social crisis. Castro wrote them before the Moncada Barracks attack. Had the attack been successful and had Castro's forces taken over the radio station, the laws would have been broadcast for the Cuban public to hear. Castro suggests that Colonel Alberto R. del Río Chaviano, the officer who arrested him and his companions, destroyed the papers that had the five revolutionary laws written on them. Some of these laws were put into effect when the revolutionary government gained power in 1959.

The first revolutionary law proposed to return power to the people and to reinstitute the 1940 Cuban Constitution that Batista had revoked in 1952. Castro claims that the revolutionary movement is the only source of legitimate power and that it would take over the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the Cuban government. For Castro, a reformation of the judicial branches was imperative, because most of the judges and magistrates had pledged their allegiance to Batista after the coup. The second revolutionary law calls for the redistribution of land to small farmers in order to solve the problem of rural poverty. Castro describes redistributing the land according to caballerías, a measurement of land that is often used in Cuba and which is equivalent to 13.43 hectares.

The third revolutionary law would grant laborers the right to a share in the profits of the industrial, mercantile, and mining companies. Castro exempts agriculture because it is covered by the agrarian reform law. The fourth revolutionary law grants all sugar planters the right to share 55 percent of the sugar production in Cuba and establishes a minimum allocation of profits for each sugarcane crop farmer. Castro describes the allotted sugar production in arrobas, a weight measurement used for cane sugar in Cuba. One arroba is equivalent to twenty-five pounds, and forty thousand arrobas is equivalent to 460 metric tons. Finally, the fifth revolutionary law lays out Castro's plan and terms for recuperating funds that were misappropriated under the Batista government. He proposes to apply these reclaimed finances to workers' retirement and the construction and betterment of social service institutions such as hospitals.

Castro also takes the opportunity to outline aspects of Cuba's foreign policy under a revolutionary government. He would unify Cuba with the rest of the Americas just as the Cuban independence leader José Martí had hoped to do after gaining Cuban independence from Spain in 1898. Castro claims that this policy, along with the aforementioned laws, would have been put immediately into place had his forces been successful. Castro also emphasizes that the five revolutionary laws are based on the articles of the 1940 Cuban Constitution. For example, Article 90 outlaws large estates, and Article 60 requires that the government provide employment for its citizens.

Castro's economic goals were to convert Cuba from a supplier of raw materials—such as sugarcane and tobacco—to a producer of industrial goods and to return Cuba's land to Cuban ownership. He explains that because of this unequal land distribution, the breadwinner in the Cuban family could work only four months a year during the sugarcane harvest season. Multinational corporations such as the United Fruit Company and the West Indian Company owned 25 percent of all Cuban land, much of which they had appropriated through fraud and force.

Castro peppers his speech with literary and biblical references. He alludes to a character in the nineteenth-century French writer Honoré de Balzac's short story “The Fatal Skin” to emphasize the assumption of Batista and his followers that wealth and power places them above constitutional law. Castro quotes the character Taillefer, who says, “Let us drink to the power of gold! Mr. Valentine, a millionaire six times over, has just ascended the throne. He is king, … is above everyone, as all the rich are.” And he goes on to say, “The country cannot continue begging on its knees for miracles from a few golden calves, like the Biblical one destroyed by the prophet’s fury.” Castro also condemns Carlos Saladrigas, a conservative politician and adviser to Batista. Castro claims that Saladrigas's capitalist economic model is nonfunctioning and asserts that none of Cuba's ruling elite who live on Fifth Avenue, the wealthiest street in Havana, have remedied any of Cuba's social and economic problems.