Fidel is not the past, he is the present and the future

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 17 (ACN) As an expression of the need to integrate efforts and resources to fully assume the legacy of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, the 3rd Plenum of the Party's Central Committee approved on Friday morning the National Program for the study, research and diffusion of the thought, life and work of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz.

The purpose of the Program is to contribute to the supreme objective of advancing in the construction of an "independent, sovereign, socialist, democratic, prosperous and sustainable nation", as set forth in the Conceptualization of the Cuban economic and social model of socialist development.

In a session presided over by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, the document was presented, which sets among its purposes, "that Cuban revolutionaries and young generations -present and future- know and appropriate Fidel's transforming ideas and are able to apply and defend them in a creative and practical way".

One of the theses of the Program recognizes that the "historic leader of the Cuban Revolution is a paradigm, a natural inspiration and a permanent catalyst in the formation of men and women required by our society. Studying his thought, life and work should not only be a tribute, but a benefit for the Revolution and the people," he emphasized.

The general objective of the National Program is: "To direct the efforts and capacity of the agencies and organizations, academicians, intellectuals and professionals, participants in an integral system, so that the knowledge about Fidel becomes awareness, forges and transforms qualities, values, work styles and culture in people -at the level of society-, and they intend to be or be closer to him".

The document also explains that the Program has "a national security scope, since it will result in greater strength and will protect us even more against the imperial excesses and efforts -current and future- to destroy the Revolution from outside or inside, in what is and will always be a "war of thought" with the use of increasingly diverse and sophisticated means of ideological reach and penetration".

The legal framework of the Program takes into consideration the Constitution of the Republic, the guiding documents approved in the recent congresses of the PCC, Law No. 123, "On the use of the name and figure of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz", and Presidential Decree 161, by which the creation of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center is approved, with the mission to study, research and diffuse the thought, life and work of the Commander in Chief; to promote the permanent identification of the people with those values, and to preserve his knowledge and influence in current and future generations.