Three months after planting the slogan "Homeland or Death!" in the hearts of Cuba's revolutionary people, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, at the funeral of the victims of the criminal sabotage of the French steamship La Coubre on June 8, 1960, completed it with "We shall win!"
On March 9 of that year, the people, inflamed before the coffins of the victims of the sabotage orchestrated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), swore, along with their supreme leader, to defend the Revolution, even at the risk of their own lives.
That afternoon, before a crowd of people with rifles gathered at the corner of 23rd and 12th Streets in Havana's Vedado neighborhood, Fidel declared: “And not only will we know how to resist any aggression, but we will know how to defeat any aggression, and once again we will have no other choice than the one with which we began the revolutionary struggle: freedom or death. Only now freedom means something even more: freedom means Homeland. And our choice would be Homeland or Death!”
But that slogan, which has been inseparable throughout all the years of the Revolution, was incomplete, and the profound conviction that “We shall win!” was, from June 1960 itself, its inseparable complement.
And to be even more symbolic, it was at a congress held in the theater of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC) in Havana, before the union leaders of the National Federation of Barbers and Hairdressers, that Fidel Castro first proclaimed the slogan "We shall win!"
“This trench will remain firm and invincible!” Fidel said then, “because those of us who are in it, those of us who have the privilege of being in that trench, will not lose it; those of us who have the privilege of playing this role that Cuba is playing in the history of this continent will rise to the occasion, with the certainty that we will win, our people will win. Whatever the cost, our people will win! Because its children are determined to defend it, because its children have the courage, the patriotism, and the unity that are needed in a time like this, because its children have said: Homeland or Death! And they have said Homeland or Death! because that is the motto of every Cuban. For each of us, individually, the motto is: Homeland or Death! But for the people, who in the long run will emerge victorious, the motto is: We shall win!”
Since then, in these 66 years of revolutionary struggles, always against the same enemy and its internal and external allies, the conviction that we will overcome has accompanied Cuban combatants in their battles and guided our people. Ever onward to victory!, as our unforgettable Commander Ernesto Che Guevara foretold.
We shall win!has always been our motto. With it, we went to Girón in April 1961 and defeated the mercenary invasion supported by the United States; with that conviction, the unforgettable Literacy Campaign was carried out, and we faced the October Crisis of 1962, without anyone flinching, even knowing that the world was on the brink of a Third World War. Knowing we would prevail, we defeated banditry in the Escambray Mountains and other parts of our island. Our people became internationalist soldiers to liberate African nations, doctors, nurses, and health technicians to join the Henry Reeve Contingent and provide free care to millions of people around the world, and teachers and art instructors to help impoverished communities in other countries.
With this conviction, we overcame the harsh Special Period of the 1990s, brought on by the collapse of the socialist bloc, with which we had concentrated our foreign trade, and the intensification of hostility and the genocidal blockade imposed by U.S. imperialism.
Convinced they would triumph, as Fidel assured them, our Five Heroes remained imprisoned in the United States for decades, unyielding, until their victorious return to the Homeland.
And as Cubans of "Homeland or Death!" We shall win! We have guaranteed the continuity of the Revolution led by Fidel and Raúl Castro in the firm hands of the next generation under Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has faced the challenges by appealing to the unity of our people and mobilizing all their moral and creative reserves to overcome the effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented intensification of the blockade.
For all of this, for the heroes of our history, for all the blood and sweat shed to reach this day, we are convinced that the historic slogan "Homeland or Death" will always be linked to the conviction that "We shall win!" no matter how much imperialism tries to subdue us.