http://www.boston.com/dailynews/106/world/Cubans_celebrate_40_years_of_s:.shtml

Cubans celebrate 40 years of socialism

By Anita Snow, Associated Press, 4/16/2001 22:04

HAVANA (AP) Hoisting an automatic rifle into the air before tens of thousands of chanting Cubans in military uniforms, President Fidel Castro declared Monday that the socialist system he brought to Cuba 40 years ago was here to stay.

''Workers and farmers, humble men and women of the fatherland: Do you swear to defend this revolution to the last drop of blood?'' Castro asked the sea of people, repeating the speech he gave on the same street corner on April 16, 1961.

''We swear!'' the crowd responded, many of them thrusting old wooden and metal Kalishnikov or FAL rifles into the air. Others furiously waved tiny paper Cuban flags of red, white and blue.

''Workers and farmers, this is the socialist and democratic revolution of the humble, with the humble and for the humble,'' Castro declared, again repeating from his earlier speech. The date also marks the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Cuba.

''The socialist of today is much superior to that of our dreams back then,'' Castro said.

During a speech of more than an hour, Castro recounted the island's advances, impossible without socialism a low infant mortality rate, a high literacy rate, electrification and clean drinking water for virtually all 11 million Cubans.

The vast majority of those in the crowd Monday were in uniform. The crowd included high officials and politicians as well as Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who successful fought to bring his boy Elian back to Cuba last June after a U.S. custody battle.

The original declaration by Castro came a little more than two years after the Jan. 1, 1959, triumph of the Cuban revolution that brought him to power. It also came just one day before 1,500 CIA-trained exiles landed on Cuba's southern coast in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion.

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2001