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The Cuban regime celebrated on Tuesday the 65th anniversary of the speech "Words to Intellectuals," delivered by Fidel Castro on June 30, 1961, during a political-cultural event led by Miguel Díaz-Canel at the "José Martí" National Library in Havana, the same venue where Castro established more than six decades ago the principle that turned the State into the absolute arbiter of creation: “Within the Revolution, everything; against the Revolution, nothing”.
The event brought together figures from the cultural and political nomenclature of the regime, including member of the Political Bureau Roberto Morales Ojeda, the Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso Grau, and the president of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), Marta Bonet de la Cruz.
The central speech was delivered by Bonet de la Cruz, who affirmed that Castro's words are relevant and necessary: "Sixty-five years have passed since then, and Fidel's words, full of relevance, remain an essential reference when we seek answers and defend the continuity of revolutionary cultural policy."
The president of the UNEAC also recalled another line from the original speech: "The Revolution should only renounce those who are incorrigibly reactionary, who are incorrigibly counter-revolutionary," words that have historically been used to justify censorship and repression against creators who do not align with those in power.
What the government presents as a cultural celebration is, for its critics, a commemoration of the ideological tool that instituted totalitarian control over creation in Cuba. The trigger for the 1961 discourse was the censorship of the documentary short PM (Pasado Meridiano), which was banned for depicting nightlife in Havana, deemed incompatible with revolutionary values.
Six and a half decades later, the tragedy of the Cuban intellectual remains the same: submit or face the consequences. The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara remains imprisoned in a maximum-security prison and received the Václav Havel Award 2025 from behind bars. The philosopher Alina Bárbara López Hernández was expelled from the UNEAC in 2024 for criticizing the government, and in 2025 the Prosecutor's Office demanded four years of imprisonment in a process she denounced as fabricated.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights recorded at least 3,179 repressive actions against Cuban civil society in 2025, including actions against artists and intellectuals.
The event on Tuesday is also part of the preparations for the centennial of Castro's birth, scheduled for August 13, 2026. On June 26, UNEAC inaugurated the exhibition "Soldier of Ideas" with the presence of Díaz-Canel, and on June 27, the book Return to Words for Intellectuals was presented, which champions Castro's text as the foundation of current cultural policy.
Bonet de la Cruz concluded his speech with a phrase that encapsulates the regime's logic in the face of the crisis the Island is experiencing: "There will only be a future if we resist today."
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