Preamble
WE, CUBAN CITIZENS,
heirs and continuators of the creative work and the traditions of combativity, firmness, heroism and sacrifice fostered by our ancestors;
by the Indians who preferred extermination to submission;
by the slaves who rebelled against their masters;
by those who awoke the national consciousness and the ardent Cuban desire for an independent homeland and liberty;
by the patriots who in 1868 launched the wars of independence against Spanish colonialism and those who in the last drive of 1895 brought them to the victory of 1898, victory usurped by the military intervention and occupation of Yankee imperialism;
by the workers, peasants, students, and intellectuals who struggled for over fifty years against imperialist domination, political corruption, the absence of people’s rights and liberties, unemployment and exploitation by capitalists and landowners;
by those who promoted, joined and developed the first organization of workers and peasants, spread socialist ideas and founded the first Marxist and Marxist-Leninist movements;
by the members of the vanguard of the generation of the centenary of the birth of Martí who, imbued with his teachings, led us to the people’s revolutionary victory of January;
by those who defended the Revolution at the cost of their lives, thus contributing to its definitive consolidation;
by those who, en masse, accomplished heroic internationalist missions;
GUIDED
by the ideology of José Martí, and the sociopolitical ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin;
SUPPORTED
by proletarian internationalism, by the fraternal friendship, aid, cooperation, and solidarity of the peoples of the world, especially those of Latin America and the Caribbean;
AND HAVING DECIDED
to carry forward the triumphant Revolution of the Moncada and the Granma, of the Sierra and of Girón under the leadership of Fidel Castro, which, sustained by the closest unity of all revolutionary forces and of the people, won full national independence, established the revolutionary power, carried out democratic changes, started the construction of socialism and, under the direction of the Communist Party, continues said construction with the objective of building a communist society;
AWARE
that all the regimes of the exploitation of man by man cause the humiliation of the exploited and the degradation of the human nature of the exploiters;
that only under socialism and communism, when man has been freed from all forms of exploitation—slavery, servitude and capitalism—can full dignity of the human being be attained; and
that our Revolution uplifted the dignity of the country and of Cubans;
WE DECLARE
our will that the law of laws of the Republic be guided by the following strong desire of José Martí, at last achieved:
“I want the fundamental law of our republic to be the tribute of Cubans to the full dignity of man”;
AND ADOPT
by means of our free vote in a referendum, the following:
CONSTITUTION
