Fidel: Always Close and Optimistic • Trabajadores

Red Sunday in Blas Roca contingency. November 6, 1988 Photos: Revolucion Studio

Fidel is here! It was an expression where there was a mixture of happiness, surprise and admiration, with a sudden power to gather people. During announced or unexpected visits, he used to arrive to factories, fields, dairies, places where there were construction works, health and scientific centers, anywhere in Cuba where Cuban people were working.

Everybody gathered to welcome him and they tried to be the closest possible to him to experience the unforgettable feeling to share some minutes with him, express him their worries, listen his advices, clarify doubts convinced they will always hear the truth from his mouth, to be guided by his capacity to see beyond time and dream with the future that was coming true.

Not few people were in trouble in those meetings with their insatiable curiosity, when he was interested in details the interlocutors had never thought. And what can you say about the figures? It was impossible to make mistakes because his quickly mathematics in mind reasoned the data and generated the precision.

Journalists, who had been witnesses many times of the inspiration that meant for the workers, Fidel’s visit, had the privilege to receive him in Trabajadores newspaper twice, in the same week, in difficult peculiar circumstances on September 25 and 28, 1990. The first one coincided with the announcement of front page of our newspaper; the return to the weekly frequency, a step back that was not considered a defeat, but an alternative in a situation that almost put in danger our publication.

Those who took this task were pleasantly surprised and moved that daybreak in the edition, and received, in the middle of the adversity, a huge charge of optimism when we heard him say his satisfaction because the workers could keep its means of communication and verify its sensitivity in front of the staff’s worries in his visit to the weekly newspaper. And what a great commitment was his request that in the new conditions, we should work for a better newspaper!

His second visit matched the preparations for the new weekly edition, Fidel came full of ideas after his speech in the Revolution Square for the 30^th Anniversary of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR)and some members of the staff were surprised when he talked about the immediate plans in the agriculture production, and the fact is that he, restless winner of adversity wanted to share with us that conviction we will go ahead, that trust in future that he always inspired with his constant presence, in the workplaces, to the workers.