You can do something like this:
x<-factor(c(1,1,2,3,1), labels=c("group1","group2","group3"))
> x
[1] group1 group1 group2 group3 group1
Levels: group1 group2 group3
Or like this:
train <- read.csv("train.csv", header=TRUE)[1:1000, ]
labels <- train[,1]