Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro told members of the country’s communist party on Tuesday to make sure his legacy lives on long after his death.
The 89-year-old asked members of the nation’s one political party to maintain the socialist government he installed more than 55 years earlier.
“I’ll be 90 years old soon,” Castro said at a valedictory speech. “Soon I’ll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without a truce to obtain them.”
Castro’s remarks come several weeks after President Obama visited Cuba, the first time in 90 years that a U.S. president has traveled to the communist country. The trip was meant to re-establish diplomatic relations between the nations, but Castro on Tuesday instructed his successors not to compromise their centrally controlled economy. He told members while they are on course to normalize relations with the U.S., it cannot compromise the nation’s political affiliation.
“We must tell our brothers in Latin America and the world that the Cuban people will be victorious,” Castro said.
The government said Castro’s brother Raul, who is 84, would remain the communist party’s first secretary. He is currently president and first secretary, but he plans to step down as president in 2018.
