A Dawn of Glory in Cuban History

Seventy-one years ago, on July 26, 1953, the emancipatory struggle advocated by José Martí was revived with the attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks in Bayamo, in the glorious Cuban effort. The legacy of his doctrine nourished the determination and courage of that group of young revolutionaries who belonged to the Centennial Generation.

If in the past the brave and determined revolutionaries went into battle to either win or die, the challenge for today’s revolutionaries is no less heroic: to always defend this Revolution for which thousands of men and women of this country gave their lives, to move forward with the tools of work and daily effort, to confront the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against Cuba and its subversive policies, and to work on ideological strengthening to preserve the Cuban political and social system on all fronts.

Because we have learned from Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro and his comrades the importance of the contribution of the indispensable factor of awareness as an accelerating axis of historical development. They provided the decisive impetus, the necessary organization, the correct ideological and political interpretation, the correct guidance of the masses on the path to be followed, and the heroic example of struggle and sacrifice.

The Moncada boldly put into practice the revolutionary thesis propounded by the Supreme Leader of the Cuban Revolution. On the basis of the existing objective conditions for the revolutionary struggle, the determined action of a vanguard group through the struggle against the Batista tyranny could overcome the enormous accumulation of subjective difficulties that existed to advance the revolution and achieve the decisive involvement of the masses in the struggle.

The occupation of these important military barracks was not the main objective of the plan, but part of an essential operation to arm the people and initiate the irregular warfare that would lead to the defeat of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

It brought to the national forefront a new revolutionary organization made up of hitherto unknown young people who assumed the role of vanguard in the struggle against the bloody tyranny, publicly defining both the old politicians and the supposedly revolutionary opposition groups.

The murders committed by the army from the day of July 26, 1953, revealed the true face of the tyranny before the eyes of the people, showing it in all its ferocity and wickedness against the attackers.

Three years after the events of Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, many of these young people would again be part of the rebel army contingent that began the guerrilla struggle with the Granma yacht, the Sierra Maestra… and would culminate victoriously on January 1, 1959.

There are exceptional messages that have a long destiny over time; the message of Rubén Martínez Villena in his Lyrical Civil Message is certainly a message to Moncada. This was emphasized by the leader Fidel at the end of his speech on the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks, when he proclaimed: «From here we tell you, Rubén: the 26th was the attack you asked for.»

Never before have words been backed up by deeds. They were spoken in the same place where, two decades earlier, one of the most generous and significant acts of the liberation process had taken place, an act in which life was offered, bare-chested, for the greatest justice of man.

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez