A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.

Castro frames revolution not as a policy dispute but as an existential confrontation between two historical forces: an emergent social order (“the future”) and entrenched structures of power, privilege, and habit (“the past”). The “struggle to the death” language emphasizes irreconcilability—suggesting that compromise would merely preserve the old regime under new slogans. In this view, revolutionary change demands total commitment, sacrifice, and a willingness to dismantle institutions that reproduce inequality. The aphorism also functions rhetorically: it moralizes the revolutionary side as history’s forward motion and casts opponents as reactionary, thereby legitimizing radical measures as necessary to ensure that the future prevails.