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From International Socialist Review, Vol.22 No.4, Fall 1961, p.120.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
“The turkey was brought grown up from the US; the pig was brought from the US; the ham was bought, the bacon was bought, lard was bought, fats were bought; about $50,000,000 were imported in fats. Then, the Revolutionary Government began, almost from the beginning, a policy of trying to produce these chickens here ...
“Then when they realize that we are importing, that we are trying to develop a national policy, a policy tending to supply us with all those products without depending on foreign countries, they take another step and place an embargo on the chickens, the hens, the cows. They even embargoed the cows ...
“They with their ever-present pharisaical policy, declared that foods will not be embargoed. Of course ‘they are so noble, so kind.’ The North American Government is ‘so generous, so respectful of our country,’ so anxious for ‘a better standard of living for our people.’
“How kind they are! They wanted to leave us without oil; they had left us without a quota, they had left us without raw materials; they left us without spare parts ... but they were ‘very kind and did not want us to be hungry,’ and that is why they declare that they are not going to embargo their food exports. Of course pork is food, cows are food, and the cow produces milk which is food; poultry produces meat which is food. But all that mattered to them was that we should not develop that production here ... It was a policy of the pharisaical type.”
— Fidel Castro’s speech on the national economy, July 4, 1961
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Last updated on 8 May 2009