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PRE-DECEMBER 1956 of the 26th Of July Movement ]] On July 26, 1953 , a group of approximately one hundred poorly armed Guerrillas attacked the Moncada Barracks . Many of them were killed in the battles after the attack. The survivors, among them Fidel Castro Ruz and his brother Raul Castro , were captured shortly afterwards. In a highly political trial, they were sentenced to long prison terms. Castro was sentenced 15 years in the ''presidio modelo'' located on Isla De Pinos . In 1955 , due to pressure from civil leaders, the general opposition, and the Jesuits who had helped educate Fidel Castro, and perhaps because he had known the Castro brothers in their youth, Batista freed all political prisoners, including the Moncada attackers. The Castro brothers went into exile in Mexico , where they gathered more exiled Cubans to fight in the Cuban revolution for the overthrow of Batista. During that period, Castro also met the Argentine doctor Ernesto "Che" Guevara , who joined their forces. They were trained by Alberto Bayo , a former military leader of the failed "loyalists" in the Spanish Civil War . The group training in Mexico under the leadership of Fidel Castro left for Cuba in November 1956 , in a small yacht named, " Granma ." They hoped their landing in Eastern Cuba would coincide with planned uprisings in the cities and a general strike, coordinated by the ''llano'' wing of the 26th Of July Movement . It was their intention to launch an armed offensive and swiftly topple the Batista government. DECEMBER 1956 TO MID-1958 The Granma was delayed en route to Cuba, arriving late and at a location further east than was planned. This dashed any hopes for a coordinated attack with the ''llano'' wing of the movement. After arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in Southeastern Cuba. Shortly after their trek began, they were attacked by men from the army. Most of the Granma participants were killed in this attack, but a small number, between one and two dozen, escaped. The survivors were separated from one another, and alone or in small groups, wandered through the mountains, looking for other survivors. Eventually, this small group of persons, would find one another with the help of peasant sympathizers. This small group of people, which included Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara , Camilo Cienfuegos , and Raul Castro would form the core leadership of the guerilla army. From 1956 through the middle of 1958, Castro with the aid of the Pais brothers and Ramos Latour, Huber Matos, and many others, staged successful attacks on small Batista garrisons in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Batista forces tried bloody repression to retain control and the cities in Cuba remained under Batista's control until the end. Che Guevara and Raúl Castro helped consolidate political control in the mountains through executions of Batista Loyalists and potential rivals to Castro. The irregular poorly armed Escopeteros harassed the Batista forces through the foot hills and the plains of Oriente Province; in addition these much maligned forces provided Castro's main forces with moderate military support, intelligence, and protected supply lines. Thus Castro achieved military control of these mountains. During this time, Castro's forces were quite small, at times less than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force numbered between 30,000 and 40,000 in strength ( Bockman, Chapter 2 ). Yet nearly every time the army fought against the revolutionaries, they were the ones who retreated from the fight. The Cuban military was remarkably ineffective. A growing problem for the Batista forces was an arms embargo imposed on the Cuban government by the United States government on March 14 1958 . The Cuban air force rapidly lost its power as planes could not be repaired without spare parts from the U.S. Batista forces finally responded with an attack on the mountains called Operation Verano (the rebels called it "la Ofensiva"). Some 12,000 soldiers (more than half new, untrained recruits) attacked into the mountains. In a series of small scale fights, the Cuban army was defeated by Castro's determined fighters. In one battle (the Battle Of La Plata ) which lasted from July 11 till July 21, Castro's forces defeated an entire battalion, capturing 240 men, while losing just 3 of their own. The tide nearly turned on July 29 when Castro's small army (some 300 men) was nearly destroyed at the Battle Of Las Mercedes . The Cuban army under General Cantillo lured Castro's forces into a trap. After two days of fighting, Castro's forces lost 70 men, nearly one third of his men. With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and was granted, a temporary cease-fire (August 1st). Over the next seven days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually escaped from the trap. By August 8th, Castro's entire army had escaped back into the mountains. Operation Verano had been a failure for the Batista government. POST-1959 Hundreds of suspected Batista-era agents, policemen and soldiers were put on public trial for human rights abuses and war crimes, including murder and torture. Most of those convicted of murder were executed by firing squad, and the rest received long prison sentences. One of the most notorious examples of “revolutionary justice” being the executions of over 70 captured Batista regime soldiers, directed by Raúl Castro after capturing Santiago . Guevara was appointed supreme prosecutor in La Cabaña Fortress . This was part of a large-scale attempt by Fidel Castro to cleanse the security forces of Batista loyalists that could launch a counter-revolution. Many others were dismissed from the army and police, and some high-ranking officials in the '' Ancien Régime '' were exiled as military attachés. In 1961 after the Bay Of Pigs Invasion , the new Cuban government also confiscated all property held by religious organizations without compensation including the Roman Catholic Church . Hundreds of members of the clergy, including a bishop, were permanently expelled from the nation, with the new Cuban government being officially atheist. According to geographer and Castro Comandante Antonio Núñez Jiménez , 75% of Cuba's best farmable land was owned by foreign individuals or foreign (mostly U.S.) companies. One of the first policies by the newly formed Cuban government was implementing land reforms. Land reform efforts did not raise living standards because instead of subdividing larger holdings into small private farms, cooperatives were formed. Comandante Sori Marin nominally in charge of land reform objected, fled and eventually was executed. Many other anti-Batista, but not Marxist, rebel leaders were forced in to exile, purged in executions, or in failed uprisings such as those of the Beaton brothers. To replace his attrited power base among the former rebels, shortly after taking power the new Cuban government also created a Revolutionary militia. Castro also initiated Committees For The Defence Of The Revolution or CDR’s in late September of 1960 . The CDR’s were tasked with the responsibility of keeping "vigilance against counter-revolutionary activity." Local CDR’s were also tasked with keeping a detailed record of each neighborhood’s inhabitant’s spending habits, level of contact with foreigners, their work and education history, and any "suspicious" behavior. Castro also nationalized all United States and other foreign-owned property in the nation on August 6 , 1960 . Land and companies owned by upper and middle class Cubans were also nationalized, including the plantations owned by Fidel Castro's family. The United States , in turn, responded by placing an Embargo On Cuba , which is still in place after more than 40 years. Many attempts have been made by the U.S. to overthrow Castro's government. One of the most notorious is the failure of the Bay Of Pigs Invasion . During the Cold War , the U.S. saw Cuba as a strategic location and wanted to invade. But after the Cuban Missile Crisis , it promised verbally to never invade the island. In July 1961, the ''Integrated Revolutionary Organizations'' (IRO) was formed by the merger of Fidel Castro's '' 26th Of July Revolutionary Movement '', the ''People's Socialist Party'' (the old Communist Party) led by Blas Roca and the ''Revolutionary Directory March 13th'' led by Faure Chomón . On March 26 , 1962 the IRO became the ''United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution'' (PURSC) which, in turn, became the Communist Party Of Cuba on October 3 , 1965 with Castro as First Secretary . Failed rebellions now called War Against The Bandits continued until about 1965. SEE ALSO
Castro and Che Guevera presided over short summary trials of alleged "Batistianos" without any due process. They were basically kangaroo courts where the accused were found guilty with ot without evidence before they even entered the court. "Revolutionary justice" usually meant most were immediately executed without the possibility of any sort of appeal. This brutal approach conrasted sharply with the leniency a imprisoned Castro received from Batista when he had been pardoned and released by Batista in 1955. SOURCES Bonachea, Ramon L. and San Martin, Marta. ''The Cuban Insurrection: 1952-1959''. New York, Transaction Books, 1974 The Spirit Of Moncada Fidel Castro's Rise To Power, 1953 - 1959. Bockman, Larry (Major USMC), 1984. |
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