The collection, published by Vietnam’s La Verdad Publishing House, comprises 690 documents and nearly 16,000 pages of the Cuban revolutionary leader’s thought.
As part of the centennial celebration of Fidel Castro Ruz, the “Selected Works” collection of the Commander-in-Chief was presented. This 23-volume publishing project compiles 690 documents and nearly 16,000 pages. The work was unveiled during the First International Colloquium “Fidel: Legacy and Future,” held at the Havana Convention Center.
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The edition, published by Vietnam’s National Political Publishing House, La Verdad, represents a publishing milestone and a gesture of cooperation between the two nations, according to the event organizers.
René González Barrios, director of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, explained that the initiative was presented in June 2021 to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, Miguel Díaz-Canel, with whom monthly follow-up meetings were held.
“In an initial survey and inventory of the public documentation compiled by the center, starting from the available material, the inventory yielded 4,426 documents, of which 971 were selected as the most relevant to begin the work,” González Barrios explained.
The editorial process went through several stages: initially, 76 volumes were planned, then reduced to 33, until reaching the final number of 23 volumes plus a booklet with a table of contents. The collection includes 12,210 footnotes that provide context for the reading of each volume.
An additional volume was added at the recommendation of Dalia Soto del Valle, Fidel’s partner, containing a selection of correspondence between Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
“These selected works are the result of a collective effort by a group of specialists convinced of the need to deliver to our people and the world, as a weapon of struggle, the ideas expressed by Fidel in the different historical junctures in which he lived,” stated the director of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center.
Vietnam prints 3,000 copies of the collection
Vu Trong Lam, director and editor-in-chief of La Verdad Publishing House, confirmed that the printing of 3,000 copies was completed according to schedule.
The work is organized chronologically: the first eight volumes cover the period 1959-1968; the next eleven address socialist construction; and volumes 19 through 23 focus on the period 1999-2016, reflecting “Cuba’s efforts during the Special Period and its experiences in a context of adversity.”
“More than one hundred specialists, experts, and high-level translators participated in this project,” noted Vu Trong Lam, who emphasized that the publication constitutes “a new expression of the purpose of preserving and projecting the values of solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Cuba.”
González Barrios expressed “eternal gratitude to the Communist Party of Vietnam, to its brotherly people, for whom, as he said, we were prepared to give even our own blood.”
Elier Ramírez Cedeño, deputy head of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, described the work as “an intergenerational bridge for dialogue” and defined it as “a leadership manual that teaches organization, austerity, and adherence to principles; a treatise on revolutionary ethics where rebellion is interwoven with action; an ideological arsenal to spread our truth amidst the cultural war waged by imperialism.”
Regarding the volume dedicated to the correspondence between Fidel and Chávez, Ramírez noted that these letters “celebrate not only the statesman and strategist, but also the friend, the advisor, the older brother, who knew how to inspire and guide a new generation of Latin American leaders.”
“Fidel is his name for all time, a paradigm for several generations of Cuban and world revolutionaries, whose thought and legacy call us to reflection and transformative action,” Ramírez Cedeño concluded.
Author: HGV/JF
Source: Presidencia de Cuba
Source: teleSUR English
