On December 2, 1956, Fidel Castro and 81 other combatants, including Che Guevara, landed in Cuba to begin the revolutionary war against the U.S.-backed regime of Fulgencio Batista. Over the next two years, the Rebel Army conducted an ever-widening guerrilla struggle that won increasing popular support in the countryside and the cities, culminating in the revolution’s victory on January 1, 1959. Between 1959 and 1964 Guevara wrote a number of articles describing some of his experiences as a guerrilla combatant and commander. These were later published in Cuba as a book entitled Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria [Episodes of the revolutionary war]. These are several articles selected from that account.
The history of the military takeover on March 10, 1952 — the bloodless coup led by Fulgencio Batista — does not of course begin on the day of that barracks revolt. Its antecedents must be sought far back in Cuban history: much farther back than the intervention of U.S. Ambassador Sumner Welles in 1933; much farther back still than the Platt Amendment in 1901; much farther back than the landing of the hero Narciso López, direct envoy of the U.S. annexationists. We would have to go back to the times of John Quincy Adams, who at the beginning of the 19th century announced his country’s consistent policy toward Cuba: it was to be like an apple that, torn away from Spain, was destined to fall into the hands of Uncle Sam. These are all links in a long chain of continental aggression that has not been aimed solely at Cuba.1
This tide, this ebb and flow of the imperial wave, is marked by the fall of democratic governments and the rise of new ones in the face of the uncontainable pressure of the multitudes. History exhibits similar characteristics in all of Latin America: dictatorial governments represent a small minority and come to power through a coup d’état; democratic governments with a broad popular base arise laboriously, and, frequently, even before coming to power, are already compromised by a series of concessions they have had to make beforehand to survive. Although in this sense the Cuban Revolution marks an exception in all the Americas, it is necessary to point out the antecedents of this whole process. It was due to these causes that the author of these lines, tossed here and there by the waves of the social movements convulsing the Americas, had the opportunity to meet another Latin American exile: Fidel Castro.
I met him on one of those cold Mexican nights, and I remember that our first discussion was about international politics. Within a few hours — by dawn — I was one of the future expeditionaries. But I would like to clarify how and why it was in Mexico that I met Cuba’s current head of state.
It was during the ebb of the democratic governments in 1954, when the last Latin American revolutionary democracy still standing in the area — that of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán — succumbed to the cold, premeditated aggression carried out by the United States of America behind the smokescreen of its continental propaganda. The visible head of that aggression was Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who by a strange coincidence was also the lawyer for and a stockholder of the United Fruit Company, the main imperialist enterprise in Guatemala.
I was returning from there, defeated, united with all Guatemalans by the pain; hoping, searching for a way to rebuild a future for that anguished country.
And Fidel came to Mexico looking for neutral ground on which to prepare his men for the big effort. An internal split had already occurred after the assault on the Moncada military garrison in Santiago de Cuba.2 All the weak-spirited had split away, all those who for one reason or another joined the political parties or revolutionary groups that demanded less sacrifice. The new recruits were already joining the freshly formed ranks of what was called the July 26 Movement, named after the date of the 1953 attack on the Moncada garrison. An extremely difficult task was beginning for those in charge of training these people under necessarily clandestine conditions in Mexico. They were fighting against the Mexican Government, agents of the U.S. FBI and those of Batista — against these three forces that in one way or another joined together, where money and buying people off played a large role. In addition, we had to struggle against Trujillo’s spies and against the poor selection made of the human material — especially in Miami. And after overcoming all these difficulties we had to accomplish an extremely important thing: depart… and then… arrive, and all the rest, which, at the time, seemed easy to us. Today we can weigh all the costs in effort, sacrifice and lives.
Fidel Castro, helped by a small team of intimate collaborators, gave himself over entirely, with all his energies and his extraordinary spirit of work, to the task of organizing the armed fighters that would leave for Cuba. He almost never gave classes on military tactics, since for him time was in short supply. The rest of us were able to learn quite a bit from General Alberto Bayo. Listening to the first classes, my almost instantaneous impression was that victory was possible. I had thought it quite doubtful when I first enrolled with the rebel commander, to whom I was linked from the beginning by a liking for romantic adventure and the thought that it would be well worth dying on a foreign beach for such a pure ideal.
Several months passed in this way. Our marksmanship began to improve, and the best shots emerged. We found a ranch in Mexico where — under the direction of General Bayo and with myself as head of personnel — the final preparations were made, aiming to leave in March 1956. Around that time, however, two Mexican police units, both on Batista’s payroll, were hunting for Fidel Castro, and one of them had the good fortune, in financial terms, of capturing him. But they made the absurd error, also in financial terms, of not killing him after taking him prisoner. Within a few days many of his followers were captured. Our ranch on the outskirts of Mexico City also fell into the hands of the police and we all went to jail.
All of this postponed the beginning of the last part of the first stage.
Some of us were imprisoned for 57 days, which we counted off one by one; with the perennial threat of extradition hanging over our heads (as Commander Calixto García and I can attest). But at no time did we lose our personal confidence in Fidel Castro. Fidel did some things that we might almost say compromised his revolutionary attitude for the sake of friendship. I remember that I explained to him my specific case: a foreigner, illegally in Mexico, with a whole series of charges against me. I told him that by no means should the revolution be held up on my account, and that he could leave me behind; that I understood the situation and would try to go fight wherever I was ordered; and that the only effort on my behalf should be to have me sent to a nearby country and not to Argentina. I also remember Fidel’s sharp reply: “I will not abandon you.” And that’s what happened, because precious time and money had to be diverted to get us out of the Mexican jail. That personal attitude of Fidel’s toward people whom he holds in esteem is the key to the fanatical loyalty he inspires. An adherence to principles and an adherence to the individual combine to make the Rebel Army an indivisible fist.
The days passed as we worked in clandestinity, hiding ourselves where we could, shunning any public presence to the extent possible, hardly going out into the street. After several months, we found out that there was a traitor in our ranks, whose name we did not know, and that he had sold an arms shipment. We also learned that he had sold the yacht and a transmitter, although he had not yet drawn up the “legal contract” of the sale. That first installment served to show the Cuban authorities that the traitor in fact knew our internal workings. But it was also what saved us, since it showed us the same thing.
From that moment on, we had to undertake feverish preparations. The Granma was put into shape at an extraordinary speed. We piled up as many provisions as we could get — very little, in fact — along with uniforms, rifles, equipment and two antitank guns with hardly any ammunition. At any rate, on November 25, 1956, at two o’clock in the morning, we began to make a reality of Fidel’s words, scoffed at by the official press: “In 1956 we will be free or we will be martyrs.”
With our lights out we left the port of Tuxpan in the midst of an infernal heap of men and equipment of every type. We had very bad weather, and although navigation was forbidden, the river’s estuary remained calm. We crossed the entrance into the Gulf of Mexico and shortly thereafter turned on the lights. We began a frantic search for the antihistamines for seasickness and could not find them. We sang the Cuban national anthem and the July 26 Hymn for perhaps five minutes total, and then the whole boat took on a ridiculously tragic appearance: men with anguished faces holding their stomachs, some with their heads in buckets, and others lying immobile on the deck, in the strangest positions, with their clothing soiled by vomit. With the exception of two or three sailors, and four or five others, the rest of the 82 crew members were seasick. But after the fourth or fifth day the general panorama improved a bit. We discovered that what we thought was a leak in the boat was actually an open plumbing faucet. We had already thrown overboard everything unnecessary in order to lighten the ballast.
The route we had chosen involved making a wide turn south of Cuba, bordering Jamaica and the Grand Cayman Islands, with the landing to be someplace close to the village of Niquero in Oriente Province. The plan was being carried out quite slowly. On November 30 we heard over the radio the news of the uprising in Santiago de Cuba that our great Frank País had started, aiming to coincide with the expedition’s arrival. The following day, December 1, at night, we set the bow on a straight line toward Cuba, desperately seeking the Cape Cruz lighthouse, as we ran out of water, food and fuel.
At two o’clock in the morning, on a dark and stormy night, the situation was disturbing. The lookouts walked back and forth, searching for the ray of light that would not appear on the horizon. Roque, an ex-lieutenant in the navy, once again got up on the small upper bridge, to look for the light from the cape. Losing his footing, he fell into the water. Shortly after continuing on our way, we saw the light. But the labored advance of our boat made the final hours of the trip interminable. It was already daylight when we reached Cuba at a place known as Belic on the beach at Las Coloradas.
A coast guard boat spotted us and telegraphed the discovery to Batista’s army. No sooner had we disembarked and entered the swamp, in great haste and carrying only what was absolutely necessary, than we were attacked by enemy planes. Naturally, walking through the mangrove-covered swamps, we were not seen or harassed by the planes, but the dictatorship’s army was already on our trail. It took us several hours to get out of the swamp, where we had ended up due to the inexperience and irresponsibility of a compañero who said he knew the way. We wound up on solid ground, lost, walking in circles.
We were an army of shadows, of ghosts, who walked as if following the impulse of some dark psychic mechanism. It had been seven days of continuous hunger and seasickness during the crossing, followed by three more days, terrible ones, on land. Exactly 10 days after the departure from Mexico, in the early morning hours of December 5, after a night march interrupted by fainting, exhaustion and rest for the troops, we reached a point known — paradoxically — by the name of Alegría de Pío [joy of the pious]. It was a small grove of trees, bordering a sugarcane field on one side and open to some valleys on the other, with the dense forest starting further back. The place was ill-suited for an encampment, but we stopped there to rest for a day and resume our march the following night.
Alegría de Pío is a place in Oriente Province, Niquero municipality, near Cape Cruz, where on December 5, 1956, the dictatorship’s forces surprised us.
We were exhausted from a trek not long so much as painful. We had landed on December 2, at a place known as Las Coloradas beach. We had lost almost all our equipment, and with new boots we had trudged for endless hours through salt-water marshes. Now almost the entire troop was suffering from open blisters on their feet. But boots and fungus infections were not our only enemies. We had reached Cuba following a seven-day voyage across the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, without food, in a boat in poor condition, with almost everyone plagued by seasickness from lack of experience in sea travel. We had left the port of Tuxpan on November 25, a day when a stiff gale was blowing and all navigation was prohibited. All this had left its mark upon our troop made up of raw recruits who had never seen combat.
All that was left of our war equipment was our rifles, cartridge belts and a few wet rounds of ammunition. Our medical supplies had disappeared, and most of our knapsacks had been left behind in the swamps. The previous night we had passed through one of the cane fields of the Niquero sugar mill, owned by Julio Lobo at the time. We had managed to satisfy our hunger and thirst by eating sugarcane, but due to our lack of experience we had left a trail of cane peelings and bagasse all over the place. Not that the guards looking for us needed any trail to follow our steps, for it had been our guide — as we found out years later — who had betrayed us and brought them there. We had let him go the night before — an error we were to repeat several times during our long struggle until we learned that civilians whose backgrounds were unknown to us were not to be trusted while in dangerous areas. We should never have permitted that false guide to leave.
By daybreak on December 5 hardly anyone could go a step further. On the verge of collapse, we would walk a short distance and then beg for a long rest. Because of this, orders were given to halt at the edge of a cane field, in a thicket close to the dense woods. Most of us slept through the morning hours.
At noon we began to notice unusual signs of activity. Piper planes as well as other types of small army planes together with small private aircraft began to circle around us. Some of our group went on peacefully cutting and eating sugarcane without realizing that they were perfectly visible to those flying the enemy planes, which were now circling at slow speed and low altitude. I was the troop physician, and it was my duty to treat the blistered feet. I recall my last patient that morning: his name was Humberto Lamothe and it was to be his last day on earth. I still remember how tired and wornout he looked as he walked from my improvised first-aid station to his post, still carrying in one hand the shoes he could not wear.
Compañero [Jesús] Montané and I were leaning against a tree talking about our respective children, eating our meager rations — half a sausage and two crackers — when we heard a shot. Within seconds, a hail of bullets — at least that’s the way it seemed to us, this being our baptism of fire — descended upon our 82-man troop. My rifle was not one of the best; I had deliberately asked for it because I was in very poor physical condition due to an attack of asthma that had bothered me throughout our ocean voyage and I did not want to be held responsible for wasting a good weapon. I can hardly remember what followed the initial burst of gunfire. [Juan] Almeida, then a captain, approached us requesting orders but there was nobody there to issue them. Later I was told that Fidel had tried vainly to get everybody together into the adjoining cane field, which could be reached by simply crossing a path. The surprise had been too great and the gunfire had been too heavy. Almeida ran back to take charge of his group. A compañero dropped a box of ammunition at my feet. I pointed to it, and he answered me with an anguished expression, which I remember perfectly, that seemed to say “It’s too late for ammunition boxes,” and immediately went toward the cane field. (He was murdered by Batista’s henchmen some time later.)
Perhaps this was the first time I was faced with the dilemma of choosing between my devotion to medicine and my duty as a revolutionary soldier. There, at my feet, were a knapsack full of medicine and a box of ammunition. I couldn’t possibly carry both of them; they were too heavy. I picked up the box of ammunition, leaving the medicine, and started to cross the clearing, heading for the cane field. I remember Faustino Pérez, kneeling and firing his submachine gun. Near me, a compañero named [Emilio] Albentosa was walking toward the cane field. A burst of gunfire hit us both. I felt a sharp blow on my chest and a wound in my neck, and I thought for certain I was dead. Albentosa, vomiting blood and bleeding profusely from a deep wound made by a .45-caliber bullet, shouted, “They’ve killed me!” and began to fire his rifle at no-one in particular. Flat on the ground, I turned to Faustino, saying, “I’ve been hit!” — only I used a stronger word — and Faustino, still firing away, looked at me and told me it was nothing, but I could see by the look in his eyes that he considered me as good as dead.
Still on the ground, I fired a shot in the direction of the woods, following an impulse similar to that of the other wounded man. Immediately, I began to think about the best way to die, since all seemed lost. I recalled an old Jack London story where the hero, aware that he is bound to freeze to death in the wastes of Alaska, leans calmly against a tree and prepares to die in a dignified manner. That was the only thing that came to my mind at that moment. Someone on his knees said that we had better surrender, and I heard a voice — later I found out it was that of Camilo Cienfuegos — shouting: “Nobody surrenders here!” followed by a four-letter word. [José] Ponce approached me, agitated and breathing hard, and showed me a bullet wound, apparently through his lungs. He said “I’m wounded,” and I replied indifferently, “Me, too.” Then Ponce and other compañeros who were still unhurt, crawled toward the cane field. For a moment I was left alone, just lying there waiting to die. Almeida approached, urging me to go on, and despite the intense pain I dragged myself into the cane field. There I met compañero Raúl Suárez, whose thumb had been blown away by a bullet, being attended by Faustino Pérez, who was bandaging his hand. Then everything became a blur of airplanes flying low and strafing the field, adding to the confusion, amid Dantesque as well as grotesque scenes such as a compañero of considerable corpulence who was desperately trying to hide behind a single stalk of sugarcane, while in the midst of the din of gunfire another man kept on yelling “Silence!” for no apparent reason.
A group was organized, headed by Almeida, including Lt. Ramiro Valdés, now a commander, and compañeros [Rafael] Chao and [Reynaldo] Benítez. With Almeida leading, we crossed the last path among the rows of cane and reached the safety of the woods. The first shouts of “Fire!” were heard in the cane field and columns of flame and smoke began to rise. I cannot remember exactly what happened; I was thinking more of the bitterness of defeat and that I was sure I would die.
We walked until the darkness made it impossible to go on, and decided to lie down and go to sleep all huddled together in a heap. We were starving and thirsty, and the mosquitoes added to our misery. This was our baptism of fire on December 5, 1956, in the outskirts of Niquero. Such was the beginning of forging what would become the Rebel Army.
Our first victory was the result of an attack on a small army garrison at the mouth of the La Plata River in the Sierra Maestra. The effect of our victory was electrifying and went far beyond that craggy region. It was like a clarion call, proving that the Rebel Army really existed and was ready to fight. For us, it was the reaffirmation of our chances for the final victory.
On January 14, 1957, a little more than a month after the surprise attack at Alegría de Pío, we came to a halt by the Magdalena River, which is separated from La Plata by a piece of land originating at the Sierra Maestra and ending at the sea. Fidel gave orders for target practice as an initial attempt at some sort of training for our troop. Some of the men were using weapons for the first time in their lives. We had not washed for many days and we seized upon the opportunity to bathe. Those who were able to do so changed into clean clothes. At that time we had 23 weapons in operating condition: nine rifles equipped with telescopic sights, five semiautomatic rifles, four bolt-action rifles, two Thompson machine guns, two submachine guns and a 16-gauge shotgun.
That afternoon we climbed the last hill before reaching the environs of La Plata. We were following a not-well-traveled trail marked specially for us with a machete by a peasant named Melquiades Elías. This man had been recommended by our guide Eutimio, who at that time was indispensable to us and seemed to be the prototype of the rebel peasant. He was later apprehended by Casillas, however, who, instead of killing him, bribed him with an offer of $10,000 and a rank in the army if he managed to kill Fidel. Eutimio came close to fulfilling his bargain but he lacked the courage to do so. He was nonetheless very useful to the enemy, since he informed them of the location of several of our camps.
At the time, Eutimio was serving us loyally. He was one of the many peasants fighting for their land in the struggle against the landowners, and anyone fighting them was also fighting against the Rural Guards, who did the landowners’ bidding.
That day we captured two peasants who turned out to be our guide’s relatives. One of them was released but we kept the other one as a precautionary measure. The next day, January 15, we sighted the La Plata army barracks, under construction, with its zinc roof. A group of half-naked men were moving about but we could nevertheless make out the enemy uniform. Just before sundown, about 6 p.m., a boat came in; some guards landed and others got aboard. We did not quite make out the maneuver, so we postponed the attack to the following day.
At dawn on the 16th we began watching the barracks. The boat had disappeared during the night and no soldiers could be seen anywhere. At 3 p.m. we decided to approach the road along the river leading to the barracks and take a look. By nightfall we crossed the shallow La Plata River and took up our positions on the road. Five minutes later we took two peasants into custody; one of them had a record as an informer. When we told them who we were and reassured them that no harm would befall them, they gave us some valuable information: the barracks held about 15 soldiers. They also told us that Chicho Osorio, one of the region’s most notorious foremen, was to go by at any moment. These foremen worked for the Laviti family plantation. The Lavitis had established an enormous fiefdom, holding onto it by means of a regime of terror with the help of characters such as Chicho Osorio. Shortly afterward, Chicho showed up, astride a mule, with a little black boy riding “double.” Chicho was drunk. Universo Sánchez gave him the order to halt in the name of the Rural Guards and immediately Chicho replied: “Mosquito.” That was the password.
We must have looked like a bunch of pirates, but Chicho Osorio was so drunk we were able to fool him. Fidel stepped forward and, looking very indignant, said he was an army colonel who had come to find out why the rebels had not yet been wiped out. He bragged about going into the woods, which accounted for his beard. He added that the army was “botching things up.” In a word, he cut the army’s efficiency to pieces. Sheepishly, Chicho Osorio admitted that the guards spent all their time inside the barracks, eating and doing nothing but occasional useless rounds. He emphasized that the rebels must be wiped out. We began asking discreetly about friendly and unfriendly people living in the area and we noted his replies, naturally reversing the roles: when Chicho called somebody a bad man we knew he was one of our friends, and so on. We had about 20-odd names by now and he was still jabbering away. He told us how he had killed two men, adding: “But my General Batista set me free at once.” He spoke of having slapped two peasants who “had gotten a little out of hand,” adding that the guards would not do such a thing; on the contrary, they let the peasants talk without punishing them. Fidel asked Osorio what he would do if he ever caught Fidel Castro, and Osorio, with a very expressive gesture, replied: “We’ll have to cut his — off.” He said he would do the same thing to Crescencio [Pérez]. “Look,” he said, showing us his shoes (they were the kind of Mexican-made shoes our men wore), “these shoes belonged to one of those sons of — we killed.” Without realizing it, Chicho Osorio had signed his own death sentence. At Fidel’s suggestion, he agreed to accompany us to the barracks in order to surprise the soldiers and prove to them they were badly prepared and were neglecting their duties.
As we neared the barracks, with Chicho Osorio in the lead, I still did not feel so sure he had not become wise to our trick. But he kept going on, completely unaware, for he was so drunk he could not think straight. When he crossed the river to get near the barracks Fidel told Osorio that military rules called for the prisoner to be tied up. The man did not resist and he went on, this time unwittingly as a real prisoner. He explained to us that the only guards were set up at the entrance of the barracks under construction and at the house of a foreman named Honorio. Osorio guided us to a place near the barracks, near the road to El Macío. Compañero Luis Crespo, now a commander, went on to scout around and returned saying that the foreman’s report was correct. Crespo had seen the barracks and the pinpoints of light made by the guards’ cigarettes.
We were just about ready to approach the barracks when we had to pull back into the woods to let three guards on horseback go by. The men were driving a prisoner on foot like a mule. They passed very close to me, and I remember the peasant saying: “I’m just like one of you” and the answer by one of the men whom we later identified as Corporal Basol: “Shut up and keep going or I’ll use the whip on you!” At the time we thought that the peasant would be out of danger by not being in the barracks and would escape our bullets when we attacked. But the following day when the guards heard of the attack they murdered him at El Macío.
We had 22 weapons ready for the attack. It was a crucial moment because we were short of ammunition. The army barracks had to be taken at all costs, for a failure would have meant expending all our ammunition, leaving us practically defenseless. Lt. Julio Díaz — who later died heroically at the battle of El Uvero — Camilo Cienfuegos, [Reynaldo] Benítez, and Calixto Morales, armed with semiautomatic rifles, were to surround the palm-thatched house on the right side. Fidel, Universo Sánchez, Luis Crespo, Calixto García, [Manuel] Fajardo — today a commander with the same last name as our physician, Piti Fajardo, killed in the Escambray — and myself, would attack the center. Raúl [Castro] and his squad and Almeida with his, would attack the barracks from the left.
We approached to within 40 meters of the barracks. By the light of a full moon, Fidel opened the hostilities with two bursts of machinegun fire and all available rifles joined in. Immediately, we demanded the enemy’s surrender, but we got no results. Murderer-informer Chicho Osorio was executed as soon as the shooting broke out.
The attack had begun at 2:40 a.m., and the guards put up a much stiffer resistance than we had expected. A sergeant, armed with an M-1, opened up with a burst every time we asked them to surrender. We were given orders to use our old Brazilian-type hand grenades. Luis Crespo and I threw ours but they did not go off; Raúl Castro threw a stick of dynamite with the same negative result. It became necessary to get close to the houses and set them on fire even at the risk of our own lives. Universo Sánchez made a futile attempt and Camilo Cienfuegos also failed. Finally, Luis Crespo and I got close to one of the buildings and set it on fire. The light from the blaze allowed us to see that it was simply a place for storing coconuts, but the soldiers had been intimidated and gave up the fight. One of them, trying to escape, ran smack into Luis Crespo’s rifle; Luis shot him in the chest, took the man’s rifle, and continued firing toward the house. Camilo Cienfuegos, sheltered behind a tree, fired on the fleeing sergeant and ran out of ammunition. The soldiers, almost defenseless, were being cut to pieces by our bullets. Camilo Cienfuegos was first into the house, where shouts of surrender were being heard.
Quickly, we took stock of our booty: eight Springfields, one Thompson machine gun and about 1,000 rounds; we had fired approximately 500 rounds. In addition, we now had cartridge belts, fuel, knives, clothing and some food. Casualties: they lost two dead, five wounded. Some, along with the wretched Honorio, had fled. We took three prisoners. On our side, not a scratch.
We withdrew after setting fire to the soldiers’ quarters and after taking care of the wounded — three of them were seriously wounded and we were told after the final victory that they had died — leaving them in the care of the prisoners. One of the soldiers later joined the forces under Commander Raúl Castro, was promoted to lieutenant, and died in an airplane accident following the war.
Our attitude toward the wounded was in open contrast to that of Batista’s army. Not only did they kill our wounded men; they abandoned their own. This difference made a great impact on the enemy over time and it was a factor in our victory. Fidel gave orders that the prisoners be given all the medicines to take care of the wounded. I was pained at this decision because, as a physician, I felt the need to save all available medicine and drugs for our own men. We freed all the civilians and at 4:30 on the morning of January 17 we started for Palma Mocha, arriving there at dawn and seeking out the most inaccessible zones of the Sierra Maestra.
A most pitiful scene awaited us: the day before, an army corporal and one of the foremen had warned all the families living in the area that the air force was going to bomb the entire zone, and the exodus toward the coast had begun. No-one knew of our presence in the area, so it was evidently a maneuver on the part of the foremen and the Rural Guards to take the land and belongings away from the peasants. But their lie had coincided with our attack and now became a reality. Terror was rampant among the peasants and it was impossible for us to stop their flight.
This was the first victorious battle of the Rebel Army. This battle and the one following it were the only times that we had more weapons than men. Peasants were not yet ready to join in the struggle, and communication with the city bases was practically nonexistent.
It was a pleasure to look at our troop again.3 Close to 200 men, well disciplined, with increased morale, and with some new weapons. The qualitative change I mentioned before was now quite evident in the Sierra. There was a true liberated territory, and safety measures were not as necessary. There was a little freedom to carry on relaxed conversations at night while resting in our hammocks. We were allowed to visit the villages of the people in the Sierra, developing closer ties with them. It was also a real joy to see the welcome given us by our old compañeros.
Felipe Pazos and Raúl Chibás were the stars of those days, although they had two totally different personalities. Raúl Chibás lived solely off the reputation of his brother [Eduardo] — who had been a real symbol of an era in Cuba — but he had none of his brother’s virtues. He was neither expressive nor wise nor even intelligent. Only his absolute mediocrity allowed him to be a unique and symbolic figure in the Orthodox Party. He spoke very little and he wanted to get out of the Sierra at once.
Felipe Pazos had a personality of his own. He had the standing of a great economist and the reputation of being an honest person, won by not stealing from the public treasury while president of the National Bank under [Carlos] Prío Socarrás’s regime; a regime marked by gross larceny and embezzlement. How magnificent, one might think, to remain unpolluted throughout those years. A great merit, perhaps, for a functionary who pursued his administrative career, indifferent to the country’s grave problems. But how can anyone imagine a revolutionary who does not speak out daily against the inconceivable abuses rampant at the time? Felipe Pazos skillfully managed to keep his mouth shut, and following Batista’s coup he left the post of president of the National Bank, adorned with a great reputation for honesty, intelligence, and talent as an economist. Petulantly, he expected to come to the Sierra and take over. This pint-sized Machiavelli thought he was destined to control the country’s future. It is possible that he had already hatched the idea of betraying the movement; perhaps this came later. But his conduct was never entirely honest.
Basing himself on the joint declaration [the Sierra Manifesto] that we will analyze later on, Pazos appointed himself representative of the July 26 Movement in Miami, and he was going to be designated provisional president of the republic. In this way, Prío was assured that he had a man he could trust in the leadership of the provisional government.
We did not have much time to talk in those days, but Fidel told me about his efforts to make the document a really militant one that would lay the basis for a declaration of principles. This was a difficult task when faced by those two stone-age mentalities immune to the call of the people’s struggle.
Fundamentally, the manifesto issued “the slogan of a great civic revolutionary front comprising all opposition political parties, all civic institutions and all revolutionary forces.”
It made a series of proposals: the “formation of a civic revolutionary front in a common front of struggle”; the appointment of “an individual to head the provisional government.” It contained an explicit declaration that the front would neither call for nor accept intervention by another nation in Cuba’s internal affairs and “would not accept any sort of military junta as a provisional government of the republic.” The document expressed the determination to remove the army from politics entirely and guarantee the nonpolitical nature of the armed forces. It declared that elections would be held within one year.
The program, which was to serve as a basis for a provisional government, proclaimed freedom for all political prisoners, civilian and military; absolute guarantee of freedom of the press and radio, with all individual and political rights to be guaranteed by the constitution; appointment of provisional mayors in all municipalities, after consultation with the civic institutions of the locality; suppression of all forms of government corruption, and adoption of measures designed to enhance the efficiency of all state bodies; establishment of a civil service; democratization of trade union politics, promoting free elections in all trade unions and industry-wide union federations; immediate launching of an all-out drive against illiteracy and for civic education, stressing the rights and duties of the citizen in relation to society and the homeland; “putting in place the foundations for an agrarian reform designed to distribute unused land and transform into owners all the cane growers who rent their land and all the sharecroppers, tenant farmers and squatters who work small plots of land owned either by the state or private persons, after payment of compensation to the former owners”; adoption of a healthy fiscal policy to safeguard our currency’s stability and aimed at investing the nation’s credit in productive works; acceleration of the industrialization process and creation of new jobs.
In addition, there were two points of special emphasis: “First: The need to appoint, at this time, the person who will preside over the provisional government of the republic, to show to the entire world that the Cuban people can unite behind a call for freedom, and support the person who, for his impartiality, integrity, capabilities and decency, can personify such a call. There are more than enough able men in Cuba who can preside over the republic.” (Naturally, Felipe Pazos at least, one of the signers, knew in his heart of hearts that there were not more than enough men, there was only one and it was he.)
“Second: that this person shall be appointed by all the civic, and therefore apolitical, institutions, whose support would free the provisional president from any commitments to any party, thus ensuring absolutely clean and impartial elections.”
The document also stated: “It is not necessary to come to the Sierra for discussions. We can have representatives in Havana, Mexico, or wherever necessary.”
Fidel had pressed for more explicit statements regarding the agrarian reform, but it was very difficult to crash through the monolithic front of the two cavemen. “Putting in place the foundations for an agrarian reform designed to distribute unused land” — that was precisely the kind of policy that the Diario de la Marina might agree with. To make it worse, there was the part reading: “after payment of compensation to the former owners.”
The revolution did not carry out some of the commitments as originally stated. We must emphasize that the enemy broke the tacit pact expressed in the manifesto when they refused to acknowledge the authority of the Rebel Army and made an attempt to shackle the future revolutionary government.
We were not satisfied with the agreement, but it was necessary; at the time it was progressive. It could not last beyond the moment when it would represent a brake on the revolution’s development. But we were ready to comply with it. By their treachery, the enemy helped us to break uncomfortable bonds and show the people what these individuals’ true intentions were.
We knew that this was a minimum program, a program that limited our efforts, but we also had to recognize that it was impossible to impose our will from the Sierra Maestra. For a long period of time, we would have to depend upon a whole series of “friends” who were trying to use our military strength and the great trust that the people already felt in Fidel Castro for their own macabre maneuvers. Above all they wanted to maintain imperialist domination of Cuba, through its comprador bourgeoisie closely linked with their masters to the north.
The manifesto had its positive sides: it mentioned the Sierra Maestra and stated explicitly: “Let no one be deceived by government propaganda about the situation in the Sierra. The Sierra Maestra is already an indestructible bulwark of freedom, which has taken root in the hearts of our countrymen, and it is here that we will know how to do justice to the faith and the confidence of our people.” The words “we will know how” meant that Fidel Castro knew how. The other two proved incapable of following the development of the struggle in the Sierra Maestra, even as spectators; they came down immediately. One of them, Chibás, was surprised and roughed up by Batista’s police. Both of them afterward went to the United States.
It was a well-planned coup: a group of the most distinguished representatives of the Cuban oligarchy arrived in the Sierra Maestra “in defense of freedom,” signed a joint declaration with the guerrilla chief isolated in the wilds of the Sierra, and left with full freedom to play their trump card in Miami. What they failed to take into account was that political coups always depend on the opponent’s strength, in this case, the weapons in the hands of the people. Quick action by our leader, who had full confidence in the guerrilla army, prevented the betrayal’s success. Months later, when the results of the Miami Pact became known, Fidel’s fiery reply paralyzed the enemy. We were accused of being divisive and of trying to impose our will from the Sierra; but they had to change their tactics and prepare a new trap: the Caracas Pact.4
The Sierra Manifesto, dated July 12, 1957, was published in the newspapers at the time. To us, this declaration was simply a brief pause on the road. Our main task — to defeat the oppressor’s army on the battlefield — had to go on. A new column was being organized then, with myself in charge, and I became a captain. There were other promotions; Ramiro Valdés was promoted to captain and his platoon joined my column. Ciro Redondo, too, was promoted to captain, and was to lead a platoon. The column was made up of three platoons. The first one, the vanguard, was led by Lalo Sardiñas, who was also the detachment’s second-in-command. Ramiro Valdés and Ciro Redondo led the other two platoons. This column, which was called the “Dispossessed Peasants,” was made up of close to 75 men, heterogeneously dressed and armed; nonetheless, I was very proud of them. A few nights later, I was to feel even prouder, with greater affinity to the revolution, if that were possible, more anxious to prove that my officer’s insignia was well deserved.
We wrote a letter of congratulations and appreciation to “Carlos,” the underground name of Frank País, who was living his final days. It was signed by all the officers of the guerrilla army who knew how to write. (Many of the Sierra peasants were not very skilled in this art but were already an important component of the guerrillas.) The signatures appeared in two columns, and as we wrote down the ranks on the second one, when my turn came, Fidel simply said: “Make it commander.” Thus, in a most informal manner, almost in passing, I was promoted to commander of the second column of the guerrilla army, which would later become known as Column No. 4.
The letter, written in a peasant’s house, was the guerrilla fighters’ warm message to their brother in the city, who was fighting so heroically in Santiago itself to obtain supplies for us and lessen the enemy’s pressure on us.
There is a bit of vanity hiding somewhere within every one of us. It made me feel like the proudest man in the world that day. My insignia, a small star, was given to me by Celia [Sánchez]. The award was accompanied by a gift: one of the wristwatches ordered from Manzanillo. With my recently formed column, my first task was to set a trap for Sánchez Mosquera, but he was the wiliest of all the Batista henchmen and had already left the area.
We had to do something to justify the semi-independent life we were to lead in what was to be our new zone, the region of El Hombrito where we were headed, so we began to plan a series of great deeds.
We had to prepare to celebrate with dignity the glorious date of July 26 that was approaching, and Fidel gave me free rein to do whatever I could, as long as it was done prudently. At the final meeting we met a new doctor who had joined the guerrillas: Sergio del Valle, now head of the general staff of our revolutionary army. At that time he practiced his profession as the conditions of the Sierra allowed.
We needed to prove that we were still alive, since we had received a few setbacks on the plains. Weapons from the Miranda sugar mill that were to be used to open another front had been seized by the police, and several valuable leaders, among them Faustino Pérez, had been captured. Fidel had opposed dividing our forces but had given in at the insistence of the Llano compañeros. The correctness of Fidel’s view was demonstrated, and from then on we devoted ourselves to strengthening the Sierra Maestra as the first step toward the expansion of the guerrilla army.5
For all the harshness of conditions in the Sierra Maestra, the day was superb. We were hiking through Agua Revés, one of the steepest and most intricate valleys in the Turquino basin, patiently following Sánchez Mosquera’s troops. The relentless killer had left a trail of burned-out farms, sadness and despair throughout the entire region. But his trail led him, by necessity, to ascend along one of the two or three points of the Sierra where we knew Camilo would be: either the Nevada ridge, or the area we called the “Ridge of the Crippled,” now known as the “Ridge of the Dead.”
Camilo had left hurriedly with about a dozen men, part of his forward detachment, and this small number had to be divided up in three different places to stop a column of over a hundred soldiers. My mission was to attack Sánchez Mosquera from behind and surround him. Our fundamental aim was encirclement; we therefore followed him patiently, over a considerable distance, past the painful trail of burning peasant houses, set aflame by the enemy’s rear guard. The enemy troops were far away, but we could hear their shouts. We did not know how many of them there were. Our column’s march was a difficult one, along the slopes, while the enemy advanced through the center of a narrow valley.
Everything would have been perfect had it not been for our new mascot, a little hunting dog only a few weeks old. Despite repeated commands by Félix [Mendoza] for the animal to return to our center of operations — a house where the cooks were staying — the puppy continued to trail behind the column. In that part of the Sierra Maestra, crossing over the slopes is extremely difficult due to the lack of paths. We went through a difficult patch of felled trees covered over by newly grown foliage and passage became extremely arduous. We were bounding through tree trunks and bushes trying not to lose touch with our guests.
Our small column marched silently along. Not even the sound of a broken twig intruded upon the usual noises of the forest. Suddenly the silence was broken by the disconsolate, nervous barking of the little dog. It had remained behind and was barking desperately, calling on its masters to help it through the difficult patch. Someone picked up the animal, and we continued on again. However, as we rested in the middle of a creek bed with a lookout keeping watch on the enemy’s movements, the little dog once again began to howl hysterically. Comforting words no longer had any effect, the animal, afraid we would leave it behind, barked desperately.
I remember my emphatic order: “Félix, that dog must stop its howling once and for all. You’re in charge; strangle it. There will be no more barking.” Félix looked at me with eyes that said nothing. He and the little dog were in the center of all the troops. Very slowly he took out a rope, wrapped it around the animal’s neck, and began to tighten it. The cute little movements of the dog’s tail suddenly became convulsive, before gradually dying out, accompanied by a steady moan that escaped from its throat, despite the firm grip. I don’t know how long it took for the end to come, but to all of us it seemed like forever. With one last nervous twitch, the puppy stopped moving. There it lay, sprawled out, its little head spread over the twigs.
We continued the march without even a word about the incident. Sánchez Mosquera’s troops had moved ahead of us somewhat, and within moments, shots were heard. We quickly descended the slopes, amid the difficult terrain, searching for the best path to reach the rear guard. We knew that Camilo had attacked. It took us a considerable amount of time to reach the last house before the ascent; we were taking many precautions as we walked, thinking we would confront the enemy at any moment. The exchange of fire had been intense, but it did not last long. We all waited tensely. The last house was also abandoned. The soldiers had left no traces. Two scouts climbed the “Ridge of the Crippled” and soon returned with the news: “There is a grave up above. We dug it up and found an enemy soldier buried.” They also brought the identity papers of the victim, found in his shirt pocket. There had been a clash with one dead. The dead was theirs, but nothing more was known.
We returned slowly, discouraged. Two scouting parties came upon a large number of footprints along both sides of the ridge of the Maestra, but nothing else. We made the return trip slowly, this time through the valley.
We arrived during the night at a house, also vacant. It was in the settlement of Mar Verde, and there we were able to rest. Soon a pig was cooked along with some yucca, and we ate. Someone sang a tune on a guitar, since the peasant houses had been hastily abandoned with all their belongings still inside.
I don’t know whether it was the sentimental tune, or the darkness of night, or just plain exhaustion. What happened, though, is that Félix, while eating seated on the floor, dropped a bone, and a house dog came out meekly and grabbed it up. Félix patted its head, and the dog looked at him. Félix returned the glance, and then he and I exchanged a guilty look. Suddenly everyone fell silent. An imperceptible stirring came over us, as the dog’s meek yet roguish gaze seemed to contain a hint of reproach. There in our presence, although observing us through the eyes of another dog, was the murdered puppy.
In the months of April and June 1958 two poles could be seen in the insurrectional wave.
Beginning in February, after the battle at Pino del Agua, the wave gradually increased until it threatened to become an uncontainable avalanche. The people were rising in insurrection against the dictatorship throughout the country, and particularly in Oriente Province. After the failure of the [April 9] general strike called by the July 26 Movement, the wave subsided until it reached its lowest point in June, when the dictatorship’s troops more and more tightened their encirclement of Column No. 1.
In the first days of April, Camilo had left the protection of the Sierra area of El Cauto, where he would be appointed commander of the Antonio Maceo Column No. 2, and carried out a series of impressive feats in the plains of Oriente. Camilo was the first army commander who went out on the plains to fight with the morale and effectiveness of the army of the Sierra, putting the dictatorship in hard straits until several days after the April 9 failure, when he returned to the Sierra.
Taking advantage of the situation, during the days of the height of the revolutionary wave, a whole series of camps was set up, composed of some people who were yearning to fight and others who were thinking only of keeping their uniforms clean so as to enter Havana in triumph. After April 9, when the dictatorship’s counteroffensive began to step up, those groups disappeared or joined the Sierra forces.
Morale fell so much that the army considered it opportune to offer pardons and it prepared some leaflets, which it dropped by air in the rebel zones. The leaflets read:
Compatriots: If by having gotten yourself involved in insurrectional plots, you are still in the countryside or in the mountains, now you have the opportunity to make amends and return to your family.
The government has issued orders to offer respect for your life and your home if you lay down your weapons and abide by the law.
Report to the governor of the province, the mayor of your municipality, the friendly congressman, the nearest military, navy, or police post, or to any ecclesiastic authority.
If you are in a rural area, come with your weapon on one shoulder and with your hands up.
If you come forward in an urban zone, leave your weapon hidden in a safe place so that it may be collected immediately after you report it.
Do so without wasting time because the operations for total pacification will continue with greater intensity in the area where you are.
Then they would publish photos of people who had turned themselves in, some real, others not. What was clear was that the counterrevolutionary wave was growing. In the end, it would crash against the peaks of the Sierra, but at the end of April and the beginning of May, it was in full ascent.
Our mission, in the first phase of the period we are discussing, was to hold the front occupied by the fourth brigade, which extended to the outskirts of the town of Las Minas de Bueyecito. Sánchez Mosquera was quartered there, and our struggle consisted of fleeting clashes without either side risking a decisive battle. At night we would fire our M-26s at them, but they already knew the scant killing power of that weapon and had simply put up a large wire-mesh netting where the TNT charges exploded in their shells of condensed milk cans, causing only a lot of noise.6
Our camp was set up about two kilometers from Las Minas, in a place called La Otilia, in the house of a local landowner. From there we kept watch on Sánchez Mosquera’s movements, and there were odd skirmishes every day. The henchmen would go out at dawn, burning the peasants’ huts, looting all their belongings, and withdrawing before we intervened. At other times, they would attack some of our rifle units scattered through the area, making them flee. Any peasant suspected of an understanding with us was murdered.
I have never been able to find out why Sánchez Mosquera allowed us to be comfortably settled in a house, in a relatively flat area with no vegetation, without calling the enemy air force to attack us. Our guess was that he was not interested in fighting and that he did not want to let the air force see how close the troops were, because he would then have to explain why he did not attack. Nevertheless, there were repeated skirmishes, as I have said, between our forces.
One of those days I left with an aide to see Fidel, who was then located in El Jíbaro. It was a long walk, practically a whole day. After spending a day with Fidel, we left the following day to return to our camp in La Otilia. For some reason that I do not remember, my aide had to stay behind and I had to accept a new guide. Part of the route ran along a roadway and later through rolling pastures. In this last leg of the trip, already near the house, a strange spectacle presented itself by the light of a full moon that clearly illuminated the surroundings in one of those rolling fields, with scattered palm trees, there appeared a row of dead mules, some with their harnesses on.
When we got down from our horses to examine the first mule and saw the bullet holes, the guide’s expression as he looked at me was an image out of a cowboy movie. The hero of the film arrives with his partner and sees a horse killed by an arrow. He says something like, “The Sioux,” and makes a special face for the occasion. That’s what the man’s face was like and perhaps my own as well, but I did not bother to look at myself. A few meters further on was the second, then the third, then the fourth or fifth dead mule. It had been a convoy of supplies for us, captured by one of Sánchez Mosquera’s expeditions. I think I remember that a civilian was also murdered. The guide refused to follow me. He claimed he did not know the terrain and simply got on his mount. We separated amicably.
I had a Beretta, and with it cocked, taking the horse by the reins, I went on into the first coffee field. When I reached the abandoned house, a loud noise startled me to such an extent that I almost fired, but it was only a pig, also frightened by my presence. Slowly, and very carefully, I covered the few hundred meters left to reach our position, which I found totally abandoned. After much searching, I found a compañero who had stayed sleeping in the house.
Universo [Sánchez], who had remained in command of the troops, had ordered the house evacuated, foreseeing some nocturnal or dawn attack. As our troops were well spread out, defending the place, I lay down to sleep with my lone companion. That whole scene has no significance for me other than the satisfaction I experienced at having overcome fear during a journey that seemed eternal until at last, alone, I reached the command post. That night I felt brave.
But the toughest confrontation with Sánchez Mosquera took place in a very small village or hamlet called Santa Rosa. As always, at dawn we were warned that Sánchez Mosquera was there and we headed quickly to the place. I had a touch of asthma and therefore was riding a bay horse with which I had made good friends. The fighting spread out over certain places in a fragmented manner. I had to abandon my mount. With the group of men that was with me, we took up positions on a small hill, scattering ourselves at two or three different heights. The enemy was firing some mortars, without very good aim.
For a moment, the shooting got more intense to my right, and I set off to check the positions, but halfway there it also began on my left. I sent my aide off to I-don’t-know-where, and I remained alone, between the two extremes of fire. To my left, Sánchez Mosquera’s forces, after firing some mortar shells, climbed the hill amidst tremendous shouting. Our people, with little experience, managed to fire only one or two isolated shots, and took off running down the hill. Alone, in an open field, I saw soldiers’ helmets begin to appear. A henchman began to run down the hill in pursuit of our fighters, who were heading into the coffee fields. I fired my Beretta at him, missed, and immediately several rifles found me and opened fire. I began a zigzagging race, carrying 1,000 bullets in an awesome leather cartridge belt on my shoulders, greeted by the contemptuous shouts of some enemy soldiers. As I got close to the shelter of the trees, my pistol fell. My only insolent gesture of that sad morning was to stop, retrace my steps, pick up the pistol and take off running, greeted this time by the small dust clouds the rifle bullets kicked up like darts around me.
When I felt I was out of danger, without knowing about my compañeros or the result of the offensive, I stayed resting, barricaded behind a large rock in the middle of the woods. The asthma, mercifully, had let me run a few meters, but it was taking revenge and my heart was jumping inside my chest. I heard branches being broken by people approaching, but it was no longer possible to keep fleeing (which was what I really felt like doing). This time it was another compañero of ours, lost, a recruit who had recently joined our troop. His words of consolation were more or less: “Don’t worry, commander, I will die with you.” I had no desire to die and felt tempted to say something about his mother. I don’t think I did. That day I felt cowardly.
At night we would recount all the events. A magnificent compañero — Mariño was his last name — had been killed in one of the skirmishes. Other than that the result was very poor for the enemy. The body of a peasant shot through the mouth, murdered who-knows-why, was all that remained in the army’s abandoned positions. There, with a small box camera, the Argentine journalist Jorge Ricardo Masetti, who was visiting us in the Sierra for the first time and with whom we would later maintain a deep and lasting friendship, took a photograph of the murdered peasant.
After those battles we withdrew a bit further back from La Otilia, but I was already being replaced as commander of Column No. 4 by Ramiro Valdés, who had been promoted. I left the area, accompanied by a small group of fighters, to take charge of the school for recruits, where the men who would have to cross from Oriente to Las Villas would get their training. Moreover, we had to prepare for what was already imminent: the army’s offensive. All the following days, late April and early May, were devoted to preparing the defensive points and to trying to take the largest possible quantity of food and medicine up to the hills to be able to resist what we saw coming: a large-scale offensive.
As a parallel task, we were trying to collect a tax on the sugar plantation owners and cattle ranchers. In those days, Remigio Fernández went up to see us; he was a cattle rancher who offered us the moon and the stars, but he forgot his promises when he reached the plains.
The sugar plantation owners did not give us anything either. But later, when our strength was solid, we got even, although we spent those days of the offensive without the necessary elements for our defense.
A short time later, Camilo was called to better cover our small territory, which contained countless riches: a radio station, hospitals, munitions depots and, on top of that, an airstrip located among the hills of La Plata, where a light plane could land.
Fidel maintained the principle that what mattered was not the enemy soldiers, but the number of people we needed to make a position invulnerable and that this was what we should rely on. That was our tactic, and that’s why all our forces gathered around the command post to form a compact front. There were not many more than 200 usable rifles when the expected offensive began on May 25, in the middle of a meeting Fidel was having with some peasants, discussing the conditions under which the coffee harvest could be carried out, since the army did not allow day laborers to go up to pick the crop.
He had called together some 350 peasants, who were very interested in resolving their crop problems. Fidel had proposed creating a Sierra currency to pay the workers, to bring the straw and the bags for packing, to set up producer and consumer cooperatives and a supervisory commission. Moreover, he offered the Rebel Army’s help for the harvest. Everything was approved, but just as Fidel himself was going to end the meeting, the machine-gunning began. The enemy army had clashed with Capt. Ángel Verdecia’s men and its air force was punishing the area.
Throughout the entire day of May 3, 1958, a meeting, practically unknown until now, took place in the Sierra Maestra, in Los Altos de Mompié. This gathering, nonetheless, was of extraordinary importance in guiding our revolutionary strategy. From the early hours of the day until two o’clock the following morning the meeting analyzed the consequences of the April 9 failure and why that defeat took place. It also took the necessary measures to reorganize the July 26 Movement and to overcome the weaknesses resulting from the dictatorship’s victory.
Although I was not a member of the National Directorate, I was invited to participate in the meeting at the request of compañeros Faustino Pérez and René Ramos Latour (Daniel), whom I had strongly criticized earlier. In addition to those named, also present were Fidel, Vilma Espín (Débora in the underground), Ñico Torres, Luis Buch, Celia Sánchez, Marcelo Fernández (Zoilo at that time), Haydée Santamaría, David Salvador and Enso Infante (Bruno), who joined us at midday. The gathering was tense, since it had to judge the actions of the Llano compañeros, who in practice had run the affairs of the July 26 Movement until that moment.
At that meeting decisions were taken that confirmed Fidel’s moral authority, his indisputable stature, and the conviction among the majority of revolutionaries present that errors of judgment had been committed. The Llano leadership had underestimated the enemy’s strength and subjectively overestimated their own, without taking into account the methods necessary to unleash their forces. But most importantly, the meeting discussed and judged two conceptions that had been at odds throughout the whole previous stage of the leadership of the war. The guerrilla conception would emerge triumphant from that meeting. Fidel’s standing and authority were consolidated, and he was named commander in chief of all forces, including the militias — which until then had been under Llano leadership. Fidel was also named general secretary of the July 26 Movement.
There were many heated discussions when the meeting analyzed each person’s participation in the events under discussion. But perhaps the most violent discussion was the one with the workers’ representatives, who were opposed to any participation by the Popular Socialist Party in the organization of the struggle. The analysis of the strike demonstrated that subjectivism and putschist conceptions permeated its preparation and execution. The formidable apparatus that the July 26 Movement seemed to have in its hands, in the form of organized workers’ cells, fell apart the moment the action took place. The adventurist policy of the workers’ leaders had failed in the face of an inexorable reality. But they were not the only ones responsible for the defeat. Our opinion was that the largest share of the blame fell on the workers’ delegate David Salvador; on Faustino Pérez, who was responsible for Havana; and on the leader of the militias for the Llano, René Ramos Latour.
Salvador’s fault was having held and put into practice his conception of a sectarian strike, in which the other revolutionary movements would be forced to follow our lead. Faustino’s was his lack of perspective in thinking that it would be possible to seize the capital with his militias, without closely examining the forces of reaction inside their principal bastion. Daniel was criticized for the same lack of vision but in reference to the Llano militias, which were organized as parallel troops to ours, but without the training or the combat morale, and without having gone through the rigorous process of selection in the war.
The division between the Sierra and the Llano was a real one. There were certain objective bases for it, due to the higher level of maturity achieved over the course of the guerrilla struggle by the Sierra representatives and the lower level of maturity of the fighters from the Llano. But there was also an extraordinarily important element, something that might be called an occupational hazard. The compañeros of the Llano had to work in their environment, and little by little they became accustomed to viewing the work methods required under those conditions as the ideal ones and as the only ones possible for the Movement. Moreover, logically enough from a human standpoint, they began to consider the Llano as having a greater relative importance than the Sierra.
After the failures in confronting the dictatorship’s forces, there now arose only one authoritative leadership, the Sierra, and concretely one sole leader, one commander in chief, Fidel Castro. At the end of an exhaustive and often violent discussion, the meeting resolved to relieve Faustino Pérez of his duties, replacing him with [Delio Gómez] Ochoa, and to relieve David Salvador of his duties, replacing him with Ñico Torres. (This last change did not amount to a substantive step forward as far as the conception of the struggle was concerned. For when the meeting raised the need for unity of all working-class forces to prepare the next revolutionary general strike, which would be called from the Sierra, Ñico expressed his readiness to work in a disciplined manner with the “Stalinists,” but said that he did not think this would lead to anything. He referred in those terms to the compañeros of the Popular Socialist Party.) The third change, regarding Daniel, did not lead to a replacement, since Fidel directly became commander in chief of the Llano’s militias.
The meeting also decided to send Haydée Santamaría to Miami as a special representative of the July 26 Movement, putting her in charge of finances in the exile community. In the political sphere, the National Directorate was to be moved to the Sierra Maestra, where Fidel would occupy the post of general secretary. A secretariat of five members was constituted with one person each in charge of finances, political affairs and workers’ affairs. I don’t remember now who the compañeros assigned to these positions were. But everything related to arms shipments — or decisions about the arms — and foreign relations would from then on be the responsibility of the general secretary. The three compañeros relieved of their duties were to go to the Sierra, where David Salvador would hold a post as workers’ delegate and Faustino and Daniel would be commanders. The latter was given command of a column that participated actively in the fighting against the army’s final offensive, which was about to be unleashed. He died at the head of his troops while attacking a retreating enemy column. His revolutionary career earned him a place in the select list of our martyrs.
Faustino asked for and obtained authorization to return to Havana and take care of a number of the Movement’s affairs, to hand over the leadership, and later reintegrate himself into the struggle in the Sierra. This he did, finishing the war in the José Martí Column No. 1 commanded by Fidel Castro. Although history must relate the events just as they occurred, it is necessary to make clear the high opinion we always have had of this compañero who at a given moment was our adversary within the Movement. Faustino was always considered an irreproachably honest compañero, and he was daring to the extreme. I was an eyewitness of his fearlessness, the time he burned a plane that had brought us weapons from Miami but had been discovered by enemy aircraft and was damaged. Under machine-gun fire Faustino carried out the necessary operation to prevent it from falling into the army’s hands, setting it on fire with the gasoline pouring out through the bullet holes. His whole history shows his revolutionary mettle.
At that meeting other decisions of lesser importance were made, and a whole series of obscure aspects of our reciprocal relations were clarified. We heard a report, by Marcelo Fernández on the organization of the Movement in the cities, and he was assigned to prepare another report for the Movement’s cells, detailing the results and decisions of the National Directorate’s meeting. We also heard a report on the organization of the civic resistance, its formation, its methods of work, its components, and how to broaden and strengthen them.
Compañero Buch reported on the committee in exile, on Mario Llerena’s half-hearted position and his incompatibility with Urrutia. It was decided to ratify Urrutia as our Movement’s candidate for president and transfer to him a stipend that until then Llerena had been receiving as the Movement’s only professional cadre in the exile community. In addition, the meeting decided that if Llerena continued his interference he would be relieved of his position as chairman of the committee in exile. There were many problems abroad; in New York, for example, the groups of [Arnaldo] Barrón, [Angel] Pérez Vidal, and Pablo Díaz worked separately, and at times clashed or interfered with each other. It was resolved that Fidel would send a letter to the emigrant and exile groups recognizing the committee in exile of the July 26 Movement as the sole official body.
The meeting analyzed all the possibilities for support by the Venezuelan Government headed at that time by Wolfgang Larrazábal. He had promised to support the Movement, which in fact he did. The only complaint we might have with Larrazábal was that along with a planeload of weapons he sent us the “worthy” Manuel Urrutia Lleó. But actually we ourselves were the ones who had made such a deplorable choice.
Other agreements were reached during the meeting. In addition to Haydée Santamaría, who would go to Miami, Luis Buch was to travel to Caracas with precise instructions regarding Urrutia. Carlos Franqui was ordered to the Sierra to take charge of the leadership of Radio Rebelde. The contacts would be made by radio via Venezuela, through codes made up by Luis Buch that worked until the end of the war.
As can be appreciated from the decisions emanating from this meeting, it was of capital importance. Various concrete problems of the Movement were finally clarified. In the first place, the war would be led militarily and politically by Fidel in his dual role as commander in chief of all forces and as general secretary of the organization. The line of the Sierra would be followed, that of direct armed struggle, extending it to other regions and in that way taking control of the country. We did away with various naive illusions of attempted revolutionary general strikes when the situation had not matured sufficiently to bring about an explosion of that type, and without having laid the groundwork of adequate preparations for an event of that magnitude.
In addition the leadership lay in the Sierra, which objectively eliminated some practical decision-making problems that had prevented Fidel from actually exercising the authority he had earned. In fact this did nothing more than register a reality: the political predominance of the Sierra people, a consequence of their correct position and interpretation of events. The meeting corroborated the correctness of our earlier doubts, when we considered the possibility of a failure of the Movement’s forces in attempting a revolutionary general strike, if carried out in the manner outlined at a meeting prior to April 9.
Certain very important tasks still remained: above all resisting the approaching offensive, since the army’s forces were taking up positions in a ring around the revolution’s principal bastion, the command post of Column No. 1, led by Fidel. Afterward, the tasks would be the invasion of the plains, the seizure of the central provinces, and finally, the destruction of the regime’s entire political-military apparatus. It would take us seven months to complete those tasks in full.
What was most urgent at the time was to strengthen the Sierra front, and to assure that a small bastion could continue speaking to Cuba and sowing the revolutionary seed among our people. It was also important to maintain communications with abroad. A few days earlier I had witnessed a radio conversation between Fidel and Justo Carrillo, who represented the Montecristi Group, that is, a group of aspiring thugs including representatives of imperialism such as Carrillo himself and [Ramón] Barquín. Justico offered the moon and the stars, but asked that Fidel make a declaration supporting the “pure” military men. Fidel answered that while this was not impossible, it would be difficult for our Movement to understand a call of this nature when our people were falling victim to soldiers of whom it was difficult to distinguish the good from the bad, since they were all lumped together. In short, the declaration was not made. Llerena was also spoken with, I seem to recall, as well as Urrutia. An attempt was made to issue a call for unity to try to prevent the breakup of the flimsy grouping of disparate personalities. From Caracas, they were trying to capitalize on the armed movement for their own gain, but they represented our aspirations for international recognition, and we therefore had to be careful.
Immediately after the meeting, the participants scattered. It was my task to inspect a whole series of zones, trying to create defensive lines with our small forces to resist the army’s push. The really strong resistance would begin in the most mountainous zones, from the Sierra de Caracas, where the small and poorly armed groups of Crescencio Pérez would be located, to the zones of La Botella or La Mesa, where Ramiro Valdés’s forces were distributed.
This small territory had to be defended, with not much more than 200 functioning rifles, when a few days later Batista’s army began its “encirclement and annihilation” offensive.
April 9 was a resounding defeat that never endangered the regime’s stability. Not only that: after that tragic date, the government was able to transfer troops and gradually place them in Oriente Province, spreading its destruction to the Sierra Maestra. Our defense more and more had to be from within the Sierra Maestra, and the government kept increasing the number of regiments it placed in front of our positions, until there were 10,000 men. With these forces it began the offensive May 25 in the town of Las Mercedes, which was our forward position.
There, Batista’s army gave proof of its poor combat effectiveness, and we showed our lack of resources; 200 usable rifles to fight against 10,000 weapons of all sorts. It was an enormous disadvantage. Our boys fought bravely for two days, with odds of one against 10 or 15; fighting moreover, against mortars, tanks, and the air force, until the small group was forced to abandon the town. It was commanded by Capt. Ángel Verdecia, who one month later would courageously die in action.
By that time, Fidel Castro had received a letter from the traitor Eulogio Cantillo, who, true to his charlatan’s politicking attitude, wrote to the Rebel leader as the enemy’s chief of operations, saying that the offensive would be launched in any case, but that “The Man” (Fidel) should take care to await the final result. The offensive, in fact, ran its course, and in two and a half months of hard fighting, the enemy lost over 1,000 men, counting dead, wounded, prisoners, and deserters. They also left 600 weapons in our hands, including a tank, 12 mortars, 12 tripod machine guns, over 200 submachine guns and countless automatic weapons; also, an enormous amount of ammunition and equipment of all sorts, and 450 prisoners, who were handed over to the Red Cross when the campaign ended.
Batista’s army came out of that last offensive in the Sierra Maestra with its spine broken, but it had not yet been defeated. The struggle would go on. It was then that the final strategy was established, attacking through three points: Santiago de Cuba, which had been under a flexible siege; Las Villas, where I was to go; and Pinar del Río, at the other end of the island, where Camilo Cienfuegos, who was now commander of the Antonio Maceo Column No. 2, was to march in remembrance of the historic invasion by the great leader of 1895, when Maceo crossed the length of Cuban territory with epic acts, culminating in Mantua. Camilo Cienfuegos was not able to fulfill the second part of his program, as the exigencies of the war forced him to remain in Las Villas.
Once the regiments that assaulted the Sierra Maestra had been wiped out, once the front had returned to its normal level, and once our troops had increased their strength and morale, it was decided to begin the march on the central province of Las Villas. My orders were that the main strategic task was to systematically cut off communications between the two ends of the island. I was also ordered to establish relations with all the political groups that might be in the mountains of that region, and I was given broad powers to militarily govern my assigned area.
With those instructions and thinking that we would make the trip in four days, we were to begin our march, by truck, on August 30, 1958, when an unexpected accident upset our plans. A pickup truck carrying uniforms and gasoline necessary for the vehicles that were ready was arriving that night, when a cargo of arms also arrived, by air, at an airstrip near the road. The plane was sighted just as it landed, even though it was at night, and the airstrip was systematically bombed from 8:00 p.m. until 5:00 in the morning, when we burned the plane to prevent it from falling into the enemy’s hands and to prevent the enemy from continuing the bombardment during the day, which would have been even worse for us. The enemy troops advanced on the airstrip. They intercepted the pickup truck carrying the gasoline, and we were left on foot.
So it was that we began the march on August 31, without trucks or horses, hoping to find them after crossing the highway from Manzanillo to Bayamo. In fact, having crossed it we found the trucks, but also — on September 1 — we encountered a fierce hurricane that made all roads impassable except for the central highway, the only paved one in this region of Cuba, forcing us to give up on using vehicles for transportation. From that moment on, we had to use horses, or walk. We were loaded down with quite a bit of ammunition, a bazooka with 40 shells and everything necessary for a long march and for rapidly establishing a camp.
One day after another went by, and they already were becoming difficult even though we were in the friendly territory of Oriente: crossing rivers that were overflowing, canals and streams that had become rivers, struggling with difficulty to prevent our ammunition, arms, and shells from getting wet; looking for horses and leaving the tired ones behind; avoiding inhabited zones as we moved away from the eastern province.
We walked through difficult flooded terrain, suffering attacks by swarms of mosquitoes that made the rest periods unbearable, eating little and poorly, drinking water from swampy rivers or simply from swamps. Each day of travel became longer and truly horrible. A week after we had left camp, by the time we crossed the Jobabo River, which marks the border between Oriente and Camagüey Provinces, our forces were greatly weakened. This river, like all the previous ones and like those we would cross later, was flooded. We were also feeling the effects of lack of footwear among our troops, many of whom were walking barefoot through the swamps of southern Camagüey.
On the night of September 9, as we were approaching a place known as La Federal, our advance guard fell into an enemy ambush, and two valuable compañeros were killed. But the most regrettable result was being sighted by the enemy forces, who from then on gave us no respite. After a brief clash, the small garrison there surrendered and we took four prisoners. Now we had to march very carefully, since the air force knew our approximate route. Thus, one or two days later, we reached a place known as Laguna Grande, along with Camilo’s force, which was much better equipped than ours. This zone is remarkable for its extraordinary number of mosquitoes, which made it absolutely impossible for us to rest outside without a mosquito net, which some of us did not have.
These were days of tiring marches through desolate expanses where there was only water and mud. We were hungry, thirsty, and could hardly advance because our legs were as heavy as lead and the weapons were enormously heavy. We continued advancing with better horses that Camilo left for us when his column got on trucks, but we had to give them up near the Macareño sugar mill. The guides they were supposed to send us did not arrive and we set out as we were, on to the adventure.
Our vanguard clashed with an enemy outpost in a place called Cuatro Compañeros and the exhausting battle began. It was daybreak, and with great effort we managed to gather a large part of our troop in the largest woods in the area. But the army was advancing along its sides and we had to fight hard to make it possible for some of our men, who had fallen behind, to cross a railroad line, toward the woods. The air force sighted us then and the B-26s, the C-47s, the big C-3 reconnaissance planes, and the light planes began bombing an area no more than 200 meters wide. Finally, we withdrew, leaving one of our men killed by a bomb and carrying several wounded, including Captain Silva, who went through the rest of the invasion with a broken shoulder.
The following day the picture was less discouraging, since many of those who had fallen behind showed up, and we managed to gather the whole troop, except for 10 men who would go on to join Camilo’s column and with him get as far as the northern front of Las Villas Province, in Yaguajay.
Despite the difficulties, we were never without the encouragement of the peasants. We always found someone who would serve as a guide, or who would give us the food without which we could not go on. Naturally, it was not the unanimous support of the whole people we had enjoyed in Oriente, but there was always someone who helped us. At times we were reported to the enemy as soon as we crossed a farm, but that was not because of a direct action by the peasants against us. Rather it was because their living conditions made these people slaves of the landowner and, fearful of losing their daily subsistence, they would report to their master that we had passed through that region. The latter in turn would take charge of graciously informing the military authorities.
One afternoon we were listening on our field radio to a report by Gen. Francisco Tabernilla Dolz. With all his thuggish bombast, he was announcing that the hordes led by Che Guevara had been destroyed and giving extensive details on the dead, the wounded, names, and all sorts of things, which were the product of the booty they took from our knapsacks after that disastrous encounter with the enemy a few days earlier. All of this was mixed in with false information cooked up by the army high command. This news of our demise produced great merriment among our troop. But pessimism was getting hold of them little by little. Hunger and thirst, weariness, the feeling of impotence against the enemy forces that were increasingly closing in on us, and above all, the terrible foot disease that the peasants call mazamorra — which turned each step our soldiers took into an intolerable torment — had made us an army of shadows. It was difficult to advance, very difficult. Our troop’s physical condition worsened day by day, and the meals — today yes, tomorrow no, the next day maybe — in no way helped to alleviate the level of misery we were suffering.
We spent the hardest days besieged in the vicinity of the Baraguá sugar mill in stinking swamps, without a drop of water, continuously attacked by the air force, without a single horse that could carry the weakest through barren marshes, with our shoes totally demolished by the muddy sea water, full of vegetation that injured our bare feet. Our situation was really disastrous when, with difficulty, we broke out of the encirclement at Baraguá and reached the famous Júcaro-Morón trail, a historic spot, the scene of bloody fighting between patriots and the Spaniards during the war of independence.
We did not have time to recover even a little when a new downpour, bad weather, in addition to enemy attacks or reports of their presence, forced us to march on. The troop was increasingly tired and disheartened. When the situation was most tense, however, when insults, pleas and tongue lashings were the only way to get the weary men to advance, a sight far away in the distance lit up their faces and instilled new spirit in the guerrillas. That sight was a blue streak to the west, the blue streak of the Las Villas mountain range, seen for the first time by our men. From that moment on, the same hardships, or similar ones, became much more bearable, and everything seemed easier. We slipped through the last encirclement by swimming across the Júcaro River, which divides the provinces of Camagüey and Las Villas, and it seemed already that a new light was shining on us.
Two days later we were in the heart of the Trinidad-Sancti Spíritus mountain range, safe, ready to begin the next stage of the war. We rested for another two days; we had to be on our way immediately and prepare ourselves to prevent the elections scheduled for November 3. We had reached the mountain region of Las Villas on October 16. Time was short and the task was enormous. Camilo was doing his part in the north, sowing fear among the dictatorship’s men.
Our task, upon arriving for the first time in the Escambray Mountains, was well defined: we had to harass the dictatorship’s military apparatus, above all its communications. And, as an immediate goal, we had to prevent the elections from taking place. But the task was made difficult because time was scarce, and because of the disunity among the revolutionary forces, which resulted in internal quarrels that cost us dearly, including in human lives.
We were supposed to attack the neighboring towns to prevent the elections, and plans were worked out to do this simultaneously in the cities of Cabaiguán, Fomento, and Sancti Spíritus, in the rich plains of the center of the island. Meanwhile, the small garrison at Güinía de Miranda — in the mountains — surrendered, and later the Banao garrison was attacked with little results. The days prior to November 3, the date of the elections, were extraordinarily busy. Our columns were mobilized everywhere, almost totally preventing voters in those areas from going to the polls. Camilo Cienfuegos’s troops in the northern part of the province paralyzed the electoral farce. In general, everything was halted, from the transport of Batista’s soldiers to commercial traffic.
In Oriente, there was practically no voting; in Camagüey, the percentage was a bit higher; and in the western region, in spite of everything, mass abstention was clear. This abstention was achieved spontaneously in Las Villas, as there had not been time to synchronize the masses’ passive resistance with the guerrillas’ activity.
In Oriente successive battles were taking place on the first and second fronts, as well as on the third — with the Antonio Guiteras Column. They were insistently exerting pressure on Santiago de Cuba, the provincial capital. Except for the seats of the municipalities, the government had nothing left in Oriente.
The situation was also becoming very serious in Las Villas, with stepped-up attacks on communications routes. When we arrived, we completely changed the system of struggle in the cities, as we rapidly sent the best militiamen from the cities to the training camp to receive instruction in sabotage, which proved effective in suburban areas.
During the months of November and December 1958, we gradually closed the highways. Captain Silva totally blocked the highway from Trinidad to Sancti Spíritus, and the island’s central highway was seriously damaged when the bridge across the Tuinicú River was dynamited, although it did not completely collapse. The central railroad was blocked at several points; moreover, the southern route had been cut by the second front and the northern route had been closed by Camilo Cienfuegos’s troops. Therefore the island was divided into two parts. The region most in upheaval, Oriente, received aid from the government only by air and sea, and this became increasingly uncertain. The symptoms of the enemy’s disintegration were increasing.
An extremely intense campaign for revolutionary unity had to be carried out in the Escambray Mountains because operating there was a group led by Commander [Eloy] Gutiérrez Menoyo (Second National Front of the Escambray), another of the Revolutionary Directorate (led by Commanders Faure Chomón and Rolando Cubela), another smaller one of the Authentic Organization, another of the Popular Socialist Party (commanded by [Félix] Torres), and us. In other words, there were five different organizations operating under different commands and in the same province. After laborious talks that I had to have with their respective leaders, we reached a series of agreements and it was possible to go on to form a more or less common front.
From December 16 onward, systematic cutting off of bridges and all kinds of communication had made it very difficult for the dictatorship to defend its forward positions and even those on the central highway. Early that day, the bridge across the Falcón River, on the central highway, was destroyed, and communications between Havana and the cities to the east of Santa Clara, the capital of Las Villas Province, were virtually cut off. Also, a number of towns — the southernmost being Fomento — were besieged and attacked by our forces. The commander of the city defended his position more or less efficiently for several days. Despite the air force’s punishment of our Rebel Army, however, the dictatorship’s demoralized troops would not advance overland to support their compañeros. Realizing that all resistance was useless, they surrendered, and more than 100 rifles joined the forces of freedom.
Without giving the enemy any respite, we decided to paralyze the central highway immediately, and on December 21 we simultaneously attacked Cabaiguán and Gudyos, both on the central highway. The latter town surrendered in a few hours, and during the following days, so did Cabaiguán with its 90 soldiers. (The surrender of the garrisons was negotiated on the political basis of letting the soldiers go free on the condition that they leave the liberated territory. Thus, they were given the opportunity to surrender their weapons and to save themselves.) Cabaiguán once again proved the dictatorship’s ineffectiveness, as it never sent infantry units to reinforce those under siege.
In the northern region of Las Villas, Camilo Cienfuegos was attacking several towns, which he was subduing at the same time that he laid siege to Yaguajay, the last bastion of the dictatorship’s troops. It was under the command of a captain of Chinese ancestry who resisted for 11 days, immobilizing the revolutionary troops in the region. At the same time our troops were already advancing along the central highway toward Santa Clara, the provincial capital.
After Cabaiguán had fallen, we set out — in active collaboration with the forces of the Revolutionary Directorate — to attack Placetas, which surrendered after only one day of struggle. After taking Placetas, we liberated in rapid succession Remedios and Caibarién on the northern coast, the latter an important port. The picture was turning gloomy for the dictatorship, because in addition to the continuous victories scored in Oriente, the Second Front of the Escambray was defeating small garrisons, and Camilo Cienfuegos controlled the north.
When the enemy withdrew from Camajuaní without offering resistance, we were ready to launch the definitive attack on the capital of Las Villas Province. Santa Clara is the hub of the island’s central plain, with 150,000 inhabitants, center of the railway system and of all communications in the country. It is surrounded by small bare hills, which had previously been taken by the troops of the dictatorship.
At the time of the attack, our forces had considerably increased our weaponry, as we had taken several positions and some heavy weapons, for which there was no ammunition. We had a bazooka without shells, and we had to fight against about 10 tanks. But we also knew that for us to fight most effectively, we had to reach the city’s populous neighborhoods, where the tanks’ efficiency diminishes a lot.
While the troops of the Revolutionary Directorate were taking the Rural Guard’s Garrison No. 31, we set about to besiege almost all of Santa Clara’s fortified positions. Our fight focused mainly on the defenders of the armored train stationed at the entrance of the road to Camajuani. These positions were tenaciously defended by the army, which was well equipped.
On December 29 we began the struggle. At first the university served as our base of operations. Later, we established our headquarters closer to the city’s downtown area. Our men were fighting against troops supported by armored units and would force them to flee, although many paid for their boldness with their lives. The dead and wounded began to fill up the improvised cemeteries and hospitals.
I remember an episode that shows the spirit of our forces in those final days. I had admonished a soldier because he was sleeping in the midst of battle, and he replied that he had been disarmed for accidentally firing his weapon. I responded with my customary dryness: “Get yourself another rifle by going disarmed to the front line… if you’re up to it.” In Santa Clara, while I was speaking to the wounded in the Hospital de Sangre, a dying man touched my hand and said, “Do you remember, commander? In Remedios you sent me to find a weapon… and I earned it here.” He was the fighter who had accidentally fired his weapon. He died a few minutes later, and I think he was content for having proven his courage. Such was our Rebel Army.
The hills of Cápiro continued to resist, and we went on fighting there all day December 30, at the same time gradually taking different points in the city. By then, communications between downtown Santa Clara and the armored train had been cut off. Those in the train, seeing that they were surrounded on the hills of Cápiro, tried to escape by rail, with all their magnificent cargo. Arriving at the spur that we had previously destroyed, the locomotive and some cars were derailed. Then a very interesting battle began, in which the men were forced out of the armored train by our Molotov cocktails. They were very well protected, but willing to fight only at a distance, from comfortable positions, and against a virtually unarmed enemy, in the style of the colonists against the Indians of the U.S. West. Cornered by men who, from nearby points and adjoining railroad cars, were throwing bottles with burning gasoline, the train became, thanks to the armored plating, a veritable oven for the soldiers. In a few hours, the whole complement surrendered with its 22 cars, its antiaircraft guns, its machine guns of the same type and its fabulous quantity of ammunition — fabulous, of course, compared with our meager supply.
We had been able to take the power station and the city’s whole northwest side. We went on the air to announce that Santa Clara was almost in the hands of the revolution. In that announcement, which I made as commander in chief of the armed forces in Las Villas, I remember I had the sorrow of informing the Cuban people of the death of Capt. Roberto Rodríguez, “El Vaquerito” [The little cowboy], small in height and young in years, leader of the Suicide Squad, who had played with death a thousand and one times fighting for freedom. The Suicide Squad was an example of revolutionary morale, and only selected volunteers joined it. But whenever a man died — and that happened in every battle — when the new candidate was named, those not chosen would be grief-stricken and even cry. How curious to see those seasoned and noble figures showing their youth in their tears of despair, because they did not have the honor of being in the front line of combat and death.
Next fell the police station, surrendering the tanks that defended it. And in rapid succession Garrison No. 31 surrendered to Commander Cubela, while the jail, the courthouse, the provincial government palace and the Grand Hotel — where snipers had kept firing from the 10th floor almost until the combat ended — surrendered to our forces.
At that moment, only the Leoncio Vidal Garrison, the largest fortress in central Cuba, had not surrendered. But by January 1, 1959, there were already signs of growing weakness among the forces defending it. That morning, we sent Captains Núñez Jiménez and Rodríguez de la Vega to negotiate the surrender of the garrison.
The reports were contradictory and extraordinary: Batista had fled that day, leaving the armed forces high command in a shambles. Our two delegates established radio contact with [Gen. Eulogio] Cantillo, telling him of the surrender offer. But he refused to go along because this constituted an ultimatum, and he had taken over command of the army in strict accordance with instructions from the leader Fidel Castro. We immediately contacted Fidel, telling him the news, but giving our opinion of Cantillo’s treacherous attitude, an opinion with which he absolutely agreed. (In those decisive hours, Cantillo let all the main figures responsible for Batista’s government escape. His attitude was even more wretched if one considers that he was an officer who had made contact with us and whom we had trusted as a military man of honor.)
The results that followed are known to everyone: Castro’s refusal to recognize Cantillo’s authority; Fidel’s order to march on the city of Havana; Colonel Barquín’s taking over command of the army after leaving the Isle of Pines prison; the seizure of Camp Columbia by Camilo Cienfuegos and of La Cabaña fortress by our Column No. 8; and the final installation, in a few days, of Fidel Castro as prime minister of the provisional government. All this belongs to the country’s present political history.
We are now in a position in which we are much more than simple instruments of one nation. We are now the hope of the unredeemed Americas. All eyes — those of the great oppressors and those of the hopeful — are firmly on us. In great measure, the development of the popular movements in Latin America depends on the future stance that we take, on our capacity to resolve so many problems. And every step we take is being observed by the ever-watchful eyes of the big creditor and by the optimistic eyes of our brothers in Latin America.
With our feet planted firmly on the ground, we are beginning to labor and produce our first revolutionary works, confronting the first difficulties. But what is Cuba’s main problem if not the same as of all Latin America, the same as even enormous Brazil with its millions of square kilometers and with its land of marvels that is a whole continent? The one-crop economy. In Cuba, we are slaves to sugarcane, the umbilical cord that binds us to the large northern market. We must diversify our agricultural production, stimulate industry. And we must ensure that our minerals and agricultural products, and — in the near future — our industrial production, go to the markets that are best suited for us and by means of our own transportation lines.
The government’s first big battle will be the agrarian reform, which will be audacious, thorough, but flexible: it will destroy the latifundia in Cuba, although not Cuba’s means of production. It will be a battle that will absorb a great part of the strength of the people and the government during the coming years. The land will be given free to the peasant. Landowners who prove that they came by their holdings honestly will be compensated with long-term bonds. But the peasantry will also be given technical assistance; there will be guaranteed markets for the products of the soil. And production will be channeled with a broad national sense of development in conjunction with the great battle for agrarian reform, so that within a short time the infant Cuban industries can compete with the monstrous ones of the countries where capitalism has reached its highest level of development. Simultaneously with the creation of the new domestic market that the agrarian reform will bring about, and the distribution of new products to satisfy a growing market, there will arise the need to export some products and to have the adequate instrument to take them to this or that part of the world. That instrument will be a merchant fleet, which the already approved Maritime Development Law envisages.
With those elementary weapons, we Cubans will begin the struggle for our territory’s total freedom. We all know it will not be easy, but we are all aware of the enormous historic responsibility of the July 26 Movement, of the Cuban Revolution, of the nation in general, to be an example for all peoples of Latin America, whom we must not disappoint.
Our friends of the indomitable continent can be sure that, if need be, we will struggle no matter what the economic consequence of our acts may be. And if the fight is taken further still, we shall struggle to the last drop of our rebel blood to make this land a sovereign republic, with the true attributes of a nation that is happy, democratic, and fraternal with its brothers of Latin America.
A few days ago a cable brought the news of the death of some Guatemalan patriots, among them Julio Roberto Cáceres Valle.
In this difficult profession of a revolutionary, in the midst of class wars that are convulsing the entire continent, death is a frequent accident. But the death of a friend, a comrade during difficult hours and a sharer in dreams of better times, is always painful for the person who receives the news, and Julio Roberto was a great friend. He was short and frail; for that reason we called him “El Patojo,” Guatemalan slang meaning “Shorty” or “Kid.”
El Patojo had witnessed the birth of our revolution while in Mexico and had volunteered to join us. Fidel, however, did not want to bring any more foreigners into that struggle for national liberation in which I had the honor to participate.
A few days after the revolution triumphed, El Patojo sold his few belongings and, with only a small suitcase, appeared in Cuba. He worked in various branches of public administration, and he was the first head of personnel of the Department of Industrialization of INRA (National Institute of Agrarian Reform). But he was never happy with his work. El Patojo was looking for something different; he was seeking the liberation of his own country. The revolution had changed him profoundly, as it had all of us. The bewildered boy who had left Guatemala without fully understanding the defeat had now become the fully conscious revolutionary.
The first time we met we were on a train, fleeing Guatemala, a couple of months after the [1954] fall of Arbenz. We were going to Tapachula, from where we could reach Mexico City. El Patojo was several years younger than I, but we immediately formed a lasting friendship. Together we made the trip from Chiapas to Mexico City; together we faced the same problems — we were both penniless, defeated and forced to earn a living in an indifferent if not hostile environment. El Patojo had no money and I only a few pesos; I bought a camera and, together, we undertook the illegal job of taking pictures of people in the city parks. Our partner was a Mexican who had a small darkroom where we developed the film. We got to know all of Mexico City, walking from one end to another, delivering the atrocious photographs we had taken. We battled with all kinds of clients, trying to convince them that the little boy in the photo was really very cute and it was really a great bargain to pay a Mexican peso for such a marvel. This is how we ate for several months. Little by little the contingencies of revolutionary life separated us. I have already said that Fidel did not want to bring him to Cuba, not because of any shortcomings of his, but so as to avoid turning our army into a mosaic of nationalities.
El Patojo had been a journalist, had studied physics at the University of Mexico, had left his studies and then returned to them, without ever getting very far. He earned his living in various places, at various jobs, and never asked for anything. I still do not know whether that sensitive and serious boy was overly timid, or too proud to recognize his weaknesses and his personal problems to approach a friend for help. El Patojo was an introvert, highly intelligent, broadly cultured, sensitive. He matured steadily and in his last moments was ready to put his great sensibilities at the service of his people. He belonged to the Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo [Guatemalan Labor Party] and had disciplined himself in that life — he was developing into a fine revolutionary cadre. By then, little remained of his earlier hypersensitivity. Revolution purifies people, improves and develops them, just as the experienced farmer corrects the deficiencies of their crops and strengthens their good qualities.
After he came to Cuba we almost always lived in the same house, as was fitting for two old friends. But we no longer maintained the early intimacy in this new life, and I only suspected El Patojo’s intentions when I sometimes saw him earnestly studying one of the native Indian languages of his country. One day he told me he was leaving, that the time had come for him to do his duty.
El Patojo had had no military training; he simply felt that duty called him. He was going to his country to fight, gun in hand, to somehow reproduce our guerrilla struggle. It was then that we had one of our few long talks. I limited myself to recommending strongly these three things: constant movement, constant wariness and eternal vigilance. Movement — never stay put; never spend two nights in the same place; never stop moving from one place to another. Wariness — at the beginning, be wary even of your own shadow, friendly peasants, informants, guides, contacts; mistrust everything until you hold a liberated zone. Vigilance — constant guard duty; constant reconnaissance; establishment of a camp in a safe place and, above all, never sleep beneath a roof, never sleep in a house where you can be surrounded. This was the synthesis of our guerrilla experience; it was the only thing — along with a warm handshake — which I could give to my friend. Could I advise him not to do it? With what right? We had undertaken something at a time when it was believed impossible, and now he saw that it had succeeded.
El Patojo left and in time came the news of his death. At first we hoped there had been a confusion of names, that there had been some mistake, but unfortunately his body had been identified by his own mother; there could be no doubt he was dead. And not only he, but a group of comrades with him, all of them as brave, as selfless, as intelligent perhaps as he, but not known to us personally.
Once more there is the bitter taste of defeat and the unanswered question: Why did he not learn from the experience of others? Why did those men not heed more carefully the simple advice which we had given them? There is an urgent investigation into how it came about, how El Patojo died. We still do not know exactly what happened, but we do know that the region was poorly chosen, that the men were not physically prepared, that they were not sufficiently wary and, of course, that they were not sufficiently vigilant. The repressive army took them by surprise, killed a few, dispersed the rest, then returned to pursue them, and virtually annihilated them. They took some prisoners; others, like El Patojo, died in battle. After being dispersed, the guerrillas were probably hunted down, as we had been after Alegría de Pío.
Once again youthful blood has fertilized the fields of the Americas to make freedom possible. Another battle has been lost; we must make time to weep for our fallen comrades while we sharpen our machetes. From the valuable and tragic experience of the cherished dead, we must firmly resolve not to repeat their errors, to avenge the death of each one of them with many victories, and to achieve definitive liberation.
When El Patojo left Cuba, he left nothing behind, nor did he leave any messages; he had few clothes or personal belongings to worry about. Old mutual friends in Mexico, however, brought me some poems he had written and left there in a notebook. They are the last verses of a revolutionary; they are, in addition, a love song to the revolution, to the homeland, and to a woman. To that woman whom El Patojo knew and loved in Cuba are addressed these final verses, this injunction:
Take this, it is only my heart
Hold it in your hand
And when the dawn arrives,
Open your hand
And let the sun warm it…
El Patojo’s heart has remained among us, in the hands of his beloved and in the loving hands of an entire people, waiting to be warmed beneath the sun of a new day which will surely dawn for Guatemala and for all the Americas. Today, in the Ministry of Industry where he left many friends, there is a small school of statistics named in his memory “Julio Roberto Cáceres Valle.” Later, when Guatemala is free, his beloved name will surely be given to a school, a factory, a hospital, to any place where people fight and work to build a new society.