GRANMA

October 8, 2007

A Beret at the Mines and Workshops

JOEL MAYOR LORAN Y JORGE LUIS GONZALEZ (photos)

Joel@granma.cip.cu

Barely a girl, 12-year-old Adalis heard something she will never forget, when her parents talked to her about Che. As she grew older she was able to understand better and now becomes emotional recalling the event in a way she didn’t in 1961.

ADALIS AND MIGUEL, WORKERS AT THE INPUD FACTORY, MET CHE IN THOSE EARLY YEARS OF THE REVOLUTION WHEN HE INAUGURATED SEVERAL FACTORIES IN THE CENTER OF CUBA.

“I saw him for the first time during a tour he made of Cuba’s mines. He was with Aleida [his daughter]. After greeting us, he asked to go down into the mine with the workers of the next shift.

- ‘With these terrible conditions,’ replied my father.

- ‘Precisely, that’s what I want to see,’ said Che.

“And he went into all the mine corridors, which annoyed him.

- ‘To risk working under such conditions would have to be to provide food for their children,’ he commented.

HIS HARD WORK ETHIC WHILE HAMMERING THE STEEL, SWEATING WITH THE WORKERS AND HIS NATURAL DISPOSITION INCREASED THE AFFECTION ARSENIO FELT FOR CHE.

“When he came up he immediately met with the miners and assured them that as the minister of Industry he had the authority to assign them an extra quota of protein to strengthen their diet. When he left there were commentaries: ‘He’ll forget,’ they repeated.

“However, three or four days later, perhaps after his tour of the country concluded, a truck showed up with what had been promised, a monthly quota for each worker.

“When my father arrived home, and while he was taking off his clothes to bathe, he told my mom, ‘I met the most human person that exists in the world!’ ‘Who is he,’ she asked. And he responded, ‘The Argentine who came to fight in the Sierra Maestra with Fidel, that guy they call Che.”

THE SECOND TIME

Even so, Adalis Perez was still not convinced about Ernesto Guevara, but history gave her a second chance. Che was to open a group of factories in the center of the country, among them INPUD (National Production Industry of Domestic Utensils) in Santa Clara.

ANTONIO AND FRANCISCO RECALL THAT CHE WENT TO EACH WORK STATION AND SPOKE WITH THE WORKERS, NOT IN AN OFFICE, BUT IN THE WORKSHOP.

Adalis was by then working as a typist. She often worked late and her office was in front of the stairs. One night around seven, the minister paid a visit to see how work was coming along.

“I heard steps on the stairway. When I went to look, I saw his beard and nothing else. Immersed in my work I didn’t see his beret. I thought it was Fidel and I screamed, ‘Fidel is here in INPUD!’ which made him break into laughter. When I went to greet him, he told me still laughing. ‘It’s not Fidel, it’s Che, but it’s all the same.’

“He was right; they are both very dear figures of the revolution. With his hand on my shoulder he asked how old I was. He said I was too young to be working and that I should go back to school, ‘Cuba is developing; and needs us to be educated.’

“HE SAW THAT THE BACKWARDNESS WAS NOT MY FAULT. BUT HOW WAS I GOING TO BE UPSET WITH CHE SO CLOSE,” SAID YIYO.

“My heart wanted to burst. For me that was something really big, it always will be. I remember his face as if it were today, with his eyes squinting when he laughed a lot, likable. I have photos saved, newspaper clippings, experiences, everything…

“The night of the inauguration I saw him again, from afar, but I think he smiled a lot and he was very happy. It was then that I realized that Che was that great man that my father had spoken of.”  

HE LIVES IN THEM

Adalis did everything she could to hold back her tears when recalling her encounters with Che. But seeing Arsenio Iglesias, a tall man of 67 moved enough to well up tears in his eyes exemplifies the affection that so many workers from Villa Clara feel for the man author Nicolas Guillen called “the commander-friend.”

There wasn’t magic between them. It wasn’t the charisma of a leader, the history he represented or his closeness with Fidel, not even the star on his beret when already a minister. It was his tenacity to bang the steel and sweat with the workers, the promises he kept, above all his naturalness and frankness.

“Around here there are people who try to follow his example. They haven’t given up. They haven’t stepped down from their position. Che lives in them, even though he didn’t seek such a dimension.” For Arsenio, having worked alongside Che was enough to go on working with those obsolete, but everlasting, machines.

ARSENIO FROZE UP

Arsenio collaborated with the July 26^th Movement. After the triumph that great January of 1959, if the minister of industry was no less than Che, how could you not respond to his call? So, the young people prepared to further their training and education.

After his training course, Arsenio was placed at the Aguilar Noriega Mechanical Factory or Mechanical Workshop as it is called by everyone in Santa Clara. It was still months away from its official inauguration but it had already begun producing. “We were in the forge, making work tools; I was working the small hammer making small pliers.

“I didn’t see him enter. He put a hand on my shoulder, but I continued working. The others shouted at me, ‘Arsenio, Arsenio.’ I didn’t hear them because of the noise from the machines. Besides, you can’t lose your concentration because this hot iron ball will crush you. It weighs 800 kilos.

“I saw him when I picked up the piece to put it in the furnace. I was speechless. I was surprised. And that way of his, like ones parents, impressed me. Now you see him on television, you look at his gaze, and he seems alive. I freeze up.”

WORKING TOGETHER

‘What are you doing?’

‘Making pliers handles.’

‘Do you think I could make one?’

‘Yes of course commander.’

‘Will you help me?’

‘Yes.’

“Then, I took his hand and a little frightened I guided him ahead of me. He never tightened his grip nor was afraid; I was more worried than he. We made the handle in about 30 minutes.

“He banged the hot iron bar to shape it. Meanwhile, we talked about the development of the industry, the country, the importance of the forge and how much it represents in savings. Everyone in the workshop was listening.

“The temperature was 300 or 400 degrees. He said to me, ‘you’re sweating.’ Later he asked me where there was water to drink and I pointed to the water that circulated by the furnace. We didn’t have a drinking fountain, we drank that water. When I went to get him some, one of his bodyguards grabbed my hand. Then Che said, ‘Leave him. Do you think a man like him wants to poison me?’

“Afterwards, he made a tour of the other workshops. When he went to the offices, he said, ‘Now we’re going to where the bureaucracy is.’ Before leaving he assured me that when the INPUD construction was finished they were going to put a cold water fountain in all the workshops and that the first one was going to be for me. But I totally forgot about that… until the day that the administrator came looking for me.”

THE EMOTION

He continued the story, going backwards at times. Each part of the story reveals something new about the life of this man (the 12th of 19 brothers and sisters), about what he believes. He is moved not only by past anecdotes but by photos of the inauguration with the minister taking out a knife after the scissors failed to cut the ribbon…

This motivation has seen him through 25 sugar harvests and keeps him banging his iron. “I don’t want to retire because I love the factory (I’m not the only one) and because of the man that showed the way for us and our children. It’s as if I’m seeing him alive. I am not any more communist than anyone, but I feel what’s mine, inside, for me. I don’t like to talk about it, but he is someone that merits keeping the story alive… he and others.”

A VERY SERIOUS JOKE

He shouldn’t laugh but Jose Riberon Sanchez, known as Yiyo, can’t hold back as he remembers what happened. With the construction work just concluded at the Palm Oil Extracting Plant in Caibarien, Che showed up unannounced, with no one expecting him.

- “‘Congratulations,’ he told me very seriously.

- ‘Why the congratulations,’ I asked.

- ‘Everything is just the same. A year ago I came here and nothing has changed. It seems that you want Fidel to relieve me of my job at the ministry of industry.’

“I didn’t like his challenge. I told him I was just a construction worker. I had finished my part; what was left to do was to install the equipment and to make the steel sheets and tanks. I showed him the project and he toured the site. He acknowledged that the delay wasn’t my fault. How was I going to be upset if I had Che so close! It seems unreal, but I felt happy talking with him.”

WITH THE WORKERS

Che’s smile lit up many. Others were witness to his seriousness when faced with a poor product, waste or bureaucracy… In every corner of Cuba there are people with a personal memory or a powerful anecdote of Che, because Ernesto Guevara used to speak with workers, not in his office, but out in the factories and workshops.

Antonio Marquez and Francisco Echemendia remember opening day at the Heriberto Mederos bicycle factory in Caibarien. “[Che] came up to each of the work posts. We had heard that he was really serious about his work, but he was not that way with the workers.”

Miguel Montero tells the story about how one day he and some others were waiting where Che was going to pass by after giving an address at the Abel Santamaria Institute of Technology. Che said, “In the future, you guys are going to be good, qualified workers and good revolutionaries.”

Miguel never forgets that moment, the way Che placed his hand on everybody’s shoulders, including his, his beloved beret and shirt with rolled up sleeves… the ties that forever united him with the people of Cuba that even death could not break.

Joel Mayor Lorán y Jorge Luis González (fotos)
Joel@granma.cip.cu

Esos serían los motivos de quienes le recuerdan de entonces. Los jóvenes de hoy tienen otros. La Plaza de la Revolución lleva su nombre. De pequeños se han detenido frente al tren blindado, la escultura realizada por Delarra, los restos mortales o la escultura del Guerrillero Heroico con un niño en brazos.

Ya la provincia le cuenta entre sus habitantes, le ve a cada instante animándoles. Cuentan que ha influido en convertirla en la de resultados más estables en la emulación por la sede del 26 de Julio. Lo cierto es que el empeño ha dado frutos y hasta les inspiró a izar la bandera cubana en lo alto de una palma, no un día sino cada mañana frente a la sede del Partido, e igual en otros municipios.

Por eso cuando llegaron los restos del Che, en 1997, la concentración de pueblo que acudió a verle dejó los libros sin números ante el colosal desfile¼ y el lugar sin sonidos: un silencio invadió el aire.

Ahora los huesos del luchador incansable están celosamente guardados en el Conjunto Escultórico. Plaza, Museo y Memorial internacionalizan su figura, como dice Veneranda Fe García, la directora. Numerosas fotos, objetos personales, ideas y hechos.

Tampoco nadie más que su legado convoca a quienes lo visitan, más de dos millones en estos 10 años, y una cifra superior a los 800 cada día. Vienen tras esa fe inmensa en el hombre, del joven asmático que intentó vencer cuatro veces la altura del Popocatépetl y la respiración le impidió llegar arriba¼ pero cada vez superaba la marca anterior, y al final se elevó hasta la cumbre más alta de la dimensión humana.

Maricel Fleites nos revela anécdotas de los visitantes al Monumento: la mamá que cruza los mares con el niño para que pueda besar al Che, el comunista español de 97 años que no quiso morir sin hablarle en presente, otro que los llamó Universidad Guevariana del Mundo. Vienen de todas partes, a aprender, a confirmar, a hinchar las velas.

El catalán José Companya ha tenido que contenerse. Ha leído mucho del Che, pero ahora la historia le queda a unos pasos. Como a él, a la pareja inglesa de Dale Brook y Clare Jennings les ha maravillado el museo. Al alemán Jorge Schreiber y a la argentina Natalia Verón les sucedió otro tanto. El memorial dejó tristes a ambos.

En cambio, para Lisleidy Pereira y Yoandry Rodríguez no es la primera ocasión. Viven en Villa Clara y les gusta volver una y otra vez. Acuden a reencontrarse con el Che y la historia. Otra explicación no atravesaría tan fácil la garganta.

Igualmente, al Comandante le fueron difíciles las despedidas. En 1959, al marchar de Santa Clara a cumplir otras tareas, dejó una carta en la cual llamó a este "un lugar querido", e invitó a "mantener el mismo espíritu revolucionario para que en la gigantesca tarea de la reconstrucción también sea Las Villas vanguardia y puntal de la Revolución".

Sobran motivos para apropiarse de este soldado de América, tanto a los especialistas del monumento que divulgan su pensamiento y obra, propician intercambios y acogen círculos de interés, como al pueblo que sigue haciendo suyo al héroe, a Villa Clara¼ y a quienes ahora más que nunca creen en las utopías de antaño.