Early stages: 1953–1955 Plan to attack Camp Colombia Rafael García Bárcena, a professor of philosophy, founded the National Revolutionary Movement (
Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario – MNR), consisting largely of middle-class members. In March 1953, the MNR had planned to attack and seize control of the barracks at Camp Colombia, but police had been alerted to the plot, with the conspirators being rounded up and tortured. In all, fourteen people were sentenced to imprisonment for the attack plot.
Attack on the Moncada Barracks Striking their first blow against the Batista government, Fidel and Raúl Castro gathered an upwards of 126 fighters and planned a multi-pronged attack on several military installations. On 26 July 1953, the rebels attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the barracks in Bayamo only to be decisively defeated by the far more numerous government soldiers following a call to withdraw when Fidel Castro realized a lack of adequate knowledge about the barracks, as well as the lack of weapon experience amongst the recruited fighters, would ultimately lead to failure. It was hoped that the staged attack would spark a nationwide revolt against Batista's government. After an hour of fighting most of the rebels and their leader fled to the mountains. The exact number of rebels killed is debatable; however, in his autobiography, Fidel Castro claimed that five were killed in the midst of battle, and an additional fifty-six were executed after being captured by the Batista government. Due to the government's large number of men, Hunt revised the number to be around 60 members taking the opportunity to flee to the mountains along with Castro. Among the dead was
Abel Santamaría, Castro's second-in-command, who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed on the same day as the attack.
Imprisonment and immigration Numerous key Movement revolutionaries, including the Castro brothers, were captured shortly afterwards. In a highly political trial, Fidel spoke for nearly four hours in his defense, ending with the words "Condemn me, it does not matter.
History will absolve me." Castro's defense was based on nationalism, the representation and beneficial programs for the non-elite Cubans, and his patriotism and justice for the Cuban community. In October 1953, Fidel was sentenced to fifteen years in the
Presidio Modelo prison, located on
Isla de Pinos, while Raúl was sentenced to thirteen years. However, on 15 May 1955, under broad political pressure, the Batista government freed all political prisoners in Cuba, including the Moncada attackers. Fidel's
Jesuit childhood teachers succeeded in persuading Batista to include Fidel and Raúl in the release. Soon, the Castro brothers joined with other exiles in
Mexico to prepare for the overthrow of Batista, receiving training from
Alberto Bayo, a leader of
Republican forces in the
Spanish Civil War. On 12 June 1955, the revolutionaries named themselves the "26th of July Movement", in reference to the date of their attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. A month later, in July, Fidel met the
Argentine revolutionary
Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Mexico, the latter joining his cause. Raúl and Fidel's chief advisor Ernesto aided the initiation of Batista's amnesty.
Student demonstrations By late 1955, student riots and demonstrations became more common, and unemployment became problematic as new graduates could not find jobs. These protests were dealt with increasing repression. All young people were seen as possible revolutionaries. Due to its continued opposition to the Cuban government and much protest activity taking place on its campus, the
University of Havana was temporarily closed on 30 November 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government).
Attack on the Domingo Goicuria Barracks While the Castro brothers and the other 26 July Movement guerrillas were training in Mexico and preparing for their amphibious deployment to Cuba, another revolutionary group followed the example of the Moncada Barracks assault. On 29 April 1956, an Auténtico guerrilla group comprising upwards of thirty rebels, brought together by Reynold García, attacked the Domingo Goicuría Barracks in the Matanzas province. A total of fifteen rebels died, with five killed during battle and the remaining ten captured and executed. At least one rebel had been executed by
Pilar García, Batista's garrison commander. Florida International University historian Miguel A. Bretos was in the nearby cathedral when the firefight began. In his 2011 biography, titled
Matanzas: The Cuba Nobody Knows', he wrote: "That day the Cuban Revolution began for me and Matanzas."
Insurgency: 1956–1957 in late 1956, the rebels' stronghold in the
Sierra Maestra, and Guevara and Cienfuegos' route towards Havana via
Las Villas Province in December 1958
Granma landing The yacht
Granma departed from
Tuxpan,
Veracruz, Mexico, on 25 November 1956, carrying the Castro brothers and eighty others, even though the yacht was designed to accommodate twelve people with a maximum of twenty-five. The yacht landed in Playa Las Coloradas on 2 December, in the southern municipality of
Niquero, arriving two days later than planned because the boat was heavily loaded, unlike during the practice sailing runs. 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. Three days after the trek began, Batista's army attacked and killed most of the
Granma participants – while the exact number is disputed, no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial encounters with the Cuban army and escaped into the Sierra Maestra mountains. The group of survivors included Fidel and Raúl Castro, Che Guevara and
Camilo Cienfuegos. The dispersed survivors, alone or in small groups, wandered through the mountains, looking for each other. Eventually, the men would link up again – with the help of peasant sympathizers – and would form the core leadership of the guerrilla army. A number of female revolutionaries, including
Celia Sánchez and
Haydée Santamaría (the sister of
Abel Santamaría), also assisted Fidel Castro's operations in the mountains.
Battle of La Plata On 17 January 1957, the 26th of July Movement engaged in armed combat with Cuba's small army garrison stationed in barracks in La Plata, a village in the Sierra Maestra mountain. The battle began at 2:40 am, initiated by Fidel who shot the first two bullets. There had been a brief moment of urgency on the rebels' end, as the army garrison had been pushing forward in an unexpectedly relentless manner, whilst the rebels' explosives were not detonating when thrown. Subsequently, Guevara and Luis Crespo closed in on the barracks and the latter set it on fire, helping ward off the soldiers and shoot those who were in the line of fire. It was not long before the Cuban army garrison surrendered. In the end, the rebels were uninjured. In contrast, two Cuban soldiers died in the midst of battle, five were wounded, and three were taken as prisoners (they ultimately succumbed to their injuries); only some were able to escape. Only one of the surviving Cuban army soldiers worked under the command of Raúl following the battle, eventually being promoted to lieutenant. The 26th of July Movement's success in this battle marked the first major victory the rebels. In addition, the men took advantage of the available loot left behind by the opposing party: nine weapons were taken, an abundance of ammo, clothes, food, and fuel.
Presidential palace attack At approximately 3:21 pm on 13 March 1957 the student opposition group
Directorio Revolucionario 13 de Marzo stormed the Presidential Palace in Havana, attempting to assassinate Batista and overthrow the government. The attack ended in utter failure. The DR's leader, student
José Antonio Echeverría, died in a shootout with Batista's forces at the Havana radio station he had seized to spread the news of Batista's anticipated death. The handful of survivors included Dr. Humberto Castelló Aldanás (who later became the Inspector General in the Escambray),
Rolando Cubela Secades and
Faure Chomón (both later Comandantes of the 13 March Movement, centered in the Escambray Mountains of Las Villas Province). The plan, as explained by Faure Chaumón, was to attack the Presidential Palace and occupy the radio station
Radio Reloj at the
Radiocentro CMQ Building in order to announce the death of Batista and call for a general strike. Marcos "Marquitos" Rodríguez Alfonso began arguing with Fructuoso, Carbó and Machadito; Joe Westbrook had not yet arrived. Marquitos, who gave the airs to be a revolutionary, was strongly against the revolution and was thus resented by the others. On the morning of 20 April 1957, Marquitos met with lieutenant colonel Esteban Ventura Novo and revealed the location of where the young revolutionaries were, Humboldt 7. After 5:00 pm on 20 April, a large contingent of police officers arrived and assaulted apartment 201, where the four men were staying. The men were not aware that the police were outside. The police rounded up and executed the rebels, who were unarmed. The incident was covered up until a post-revolution investigation in 1959. Marquitos was arrested and, after a double trial, was sentenced by the Supreme Court to the penalty of death by firing squad in March 1964.
Frank País Frank País was a revolutionary organizer affiliated with the 26th of July Movement who had built an extensive underground urban network. He had been tried and acquitted for his role in organizing an unsuccessful uprising in Santiago de Cuba in support of Castro's landing at the beginning of December in 1956. On 30 June 1957, Frank's younger brother
Josué País was killed by the Santiago police. During the latter part of July 1957, a wave of systematic police searches forced Frank País into hiding in Santiago de Cuba. On 21 July, País had hid in Raúl Pujol Arencibia's home. An ongoing search in the area forced the two men to relocate, however. On 30 July he was in a safe house with Pujol Arencibia, despite warnings from other members of the Movement that it was not secure. The Santiago police under Colonel José Salas Cañizares surrounded the building. Frank and Raúl attempted to escape. However, an informant betrayed them as they tried to walk to a waiting getaway car. The police officers drove the two men to the Callejón del Muro (Rampart Lane) and shot them in the back of the head. In defiance of Batista's regime, País was buried in the
Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in the olive green uniform and red and black armband of 26 July Movement. In response to the death of País, the workers of Santiago declared a spontaneous general strike. This strike was the largest popular demonstration in the city up to that point. The mobilization of 30 July 1957 is considered one of the most decisive dates in both the Cuban Revolution and the fall of Batista's dictatorship. This day has been instituted in Cuba as the Day of the Martyrs of the Revolution. The Frank País Second Front, the guerrilla unit led by Raúl Castro in the Sierra Maestra was named for the fallen revolutionary. His childhood home at 226 San Bartolomé Street was turned into The Santiago Frank País García House Museum and designated as a national monument. The international airport in Holguín, Cuba also bears his name.
Naval mutiny at Cienfuegos On 6 September 1957 elements of the Cuban navy in the
Cienfuegos Naval Base staged a rising against the Batista regime. Led by junior officers in sympathy with the
26th of July Movement, this was originally intended to coincide with the seizure of warships in Havana harbour. Reportedly individual officials within the U.S. Embassy were aware of the plot and had promised U.S. recognition if it were successful. By 5:30am the base was in the hands of the mutineers. The 150 naval personnel sleeping at the base joined with the approximately fifty original conspirators, while eighteen officers were arrested. About two hundred 26th of July Movement members and other rebel supporters entered the base from the town and were given weapons. Cienfuegos was in rebel hands for several hours. By the afternoon Government motorised infantry had arrived from
Santa Clara, supported by B-26 bombers given by the United States. Armoured units followed from Havana. After street fighting throughout the afternoon and night the last of the rebels, holding out in the police headquarters, were overwhelmed. Approximately 70 mutineers and rebel supporters were executed and reprisals against civilians added to the estimated total death toll of 300 men. The use of bombers and tanks recently provided under a US-Cuban arms agreement specifically for use in hemisphere defence, now raised tensions between the two governments.
Escalation and U.S. involvement The United States supplied Cuba with planes, ships, tanks, and other technology such as
napalm, which was used against the rebels. This would eventually come to an end due to a later
arms embargo in 1958. On the other side, the Cuban rebels were supplied by
Yugoslavia under
Josip Broz Tito. According to
Tad Szulc, the United States began funding the 26th of July Movement around October or November 1957 and ending around middle 1958. "No less than $50,000" would be delivered to key leaders of the 26th of July Movement, the purpose being to instill sympathies to the United States amongst the rebels in case the movement succeeded. of the Second National Front of the Escambray, 26 July 1959 While Batista increased troop deployments to the Sierra Maestra region to crush the 26 July guerrillas, the Second National Front of the Escambray kept battalions of the Constitutional Army tied up in the Escambray Mountains region. The Second National Front was led by former Revolutionary Directorate member
Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo and the "Comandante Yanqui"
William Alexander Morgan, who was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army after going AWOL. Gutiérrez Menoyo formed and headed the guerrilla band after news had broken out about Castro's landing in the Sierra Maestra, and José Antonio Echeverría had stormed the Havana Radio station. Thereafter, on 14 March 1958, the United States imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban government and recalled its ambassador
Arthur Gardner, weakening the government's mandate further. Batista's support among Cubans began to fade, with former supporters either joining the revolutionaries or distancing themselves from Batista. Batista's government often resorted to brutal methods to keep Cuba's cities under control. However, in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro, aided by Frank País, Ramos Latour,
Huber Matos, and many others, staged successful attacks on small garrisons of Batista's troops. Castro was joined by CIA connected
Frank Sturgis who offered to train Castro's troops in guerrilla warfare. Castro accepted the offer, but he also had an immediate need for guns and ammunition, so Sturgis became a gunrunner. Sturgis purchased boatloads of weapons and ammunition from CIA weapons expert Samuel Cummings' International Armament Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia. Sturgis opened a training camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he taught Che Guevara and other 26 July Movement rebel soldiers guerrilla warfare. In addition, poorly armed irregulars known as
escopeteros harassed Batista's forces in the forests and mountains of
Oriente Province. The
escopeteros also provided direct military support to Castro's main forces by protecting supply lines and by sharing intelligence. Ultimately, the mountains came under Castro's control. In addition to armed resistance, the rebels sought to use
propaganda to their advantage. A
pirate radio station called
Radio Rebelde ("Rebel Radio") was set up in February 1958, allowing Castro and his forces to broadcast their message nationwide within enemy territory. Castro's affiliation with the
New York Times journalist
Herbert Matthews created a front page-worthy report on anti-communist propaganda. The radio broadcasts were made possible by
Carlos Franqui, a previous acquaintance of Castro who subsequently became a
Cuban exile in
Puerto Rico. During this time, Castro's forces remained quite small in numbers, sometimes fewer than 200 men, while the Cuban military and police force had a manpower of around 37,000. Even so, nearly every time the Cuban military fought against the revolutionaries, the army was forced to retreat. The arms embargo imposed by the United States is a significant contributing factor to Batista's weakened forces. The Cuban air force rapidly deteriorated: it could not repair its airplanes without importing parts from the United States.
Final offensives: 1958–1959 Operation Verano Batista finally responded to Castro's efforts with an attack on the mountains called
Operation Verano (
Summer), known to the rebels as
la Ofensiva. The Cuban army sent approximately 12,000 soldiers into the mountains, around 7,000 them untrained recruits who had little experience with trekking and fighting through rocky terrain. In a series of small skirmishes, Castro's determined guerrillas defeated the Cuban army. The Battle of El Jigüe, albeit commonly referred to as the
Battle of La Plata (1958), was a surprise attack on Fidel's base in
Sierra Maestra, planned by Cuban army major general
Eulogio Cantillo who put Battalion 17 and Battalion 18, commanded by Fidel's former peer at the University of Havana
José Quevedo Pérez, on the front lines. The battle spanned from 11 to 21 July 1958 and is widely considered to be a "turning point" in the revolution. However, the tide nearly turned on 29 July 1958, when Batista's troops almost destroyed Castro's small army of some 300 men at the
Battle of Las Mercedes. With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and received, a temporary cease-fire on 1 August. Over the next seven days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually escaped from the trap. By 8 August, Castro's entire army had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.
Battle of Las Mercedes The Battle of Las Mercedes (29 July–8 August 1958) was the last battle of Operation Verano. The battle was a trap, designed by Cuban General
Eulogio Cantillo to lure Fidel Castro's guerrillas into a place where they could be surrounded and destroyed. The battle ended with a cease-fire which Castro proposed and which Cantillo accepted. During the cease-fire, Castro's forces escaped back into the mountains. The battle, though technically a victory for the Cuban army, left the army dispirited and demoralized. Castro viewed the result as a victory and soon launched his own offensive. Battalion 17 began its pull back on 29 July 1958. Castro sent a column of men under
René Ramos Latour to ambush the retreating soldiers. They attacked the advance guard and killed some 30 soldiers but then came under attack from previously undetected Cuban forces. Latour called for help and Castro came to the battle scene with his own column of men. Castro's column also came under fire from another group of Cuban soldiers that had secretly advanced up the road from the Estrada Palma Sugar Mill. As the battle heated up, General Cantillo called up more forces from Bayamo and Manzanillo and approximately 1,500 troops started heading towards the fighting. However, this force was halted by a column under Che Guevara's command. While some critics accuse Che for not coming to the aid of Latour, Major Bockman argues that Che's move here was the correct thing to do. Indeed, he called Che's tactical appreciation of the battle "brilliant". By the end of July, Castro's troops were fully engaged and in danger of being wiped out by the vastly superior numbers of the Cuban army. He had lost 70 men, including René Latour, and both he and the remains of Latour's column were surrounded. The next day, Castro requested a cease-fire with General Cantillo, even offering to negotiate an end to the war. This offer was accepted by General Cantillo for reasons that remain unclear. Batista sent a personal representative to negotiate with Castro on 2 August. The negotiations yielded no result but during the next six nights, Castro's troops managed to slip away unnoticed. On 8 August when the Cuban army resumed its attack, they found no one to fight. Castro's remaining forces had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.
1958 Cuban general election , 1958 president elect The last competitive presidential elections took place on 3 November 1958 with the three major presidential candidates were
Carlos Márquez Sterling of the Partido del Pueblo Libre,
Ramón Grau of the
Partido Auténtico and
Andrés Rivero Agüero of the Coalición Progresista Nacional. There was also a minor party candidate on the ballot, Alberto Salas Amaro for the Party of Cuban Unity. Although Andrés Rivero Agüero won the presidential election with 70% of the vote, he was unable to take office due to the Cuban Revolution. Rivero Agüero was due to be sworn in on 24 February 1959. In a conversation between him and the American ambassador
Earl E. T. Smith on 15 November 1958, he called Castro a "sick man" and stated it would be impossible to reach a settlement with him. Rivero Agüero also said that he planned to restore constitutional government and would convene a Constitutional Assembly after taking office. After Castro took power, the
1940 Constitution of Cuba, the Congress and the Senate of the Cuban Republic, were quickly dismantled shortly thereafter.
Battle of Guisa On the morning of 20 November 1958, a convoy of the Batista soldiers began its usual journey from Guisa. Shortly after leaving that town, located in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, the rebels attacked the caravan. Guisa was 12 kilometers from the Command Post of the Zone of Operations, located on the outskirts of the city of Bayamo. Nine days earlier, Fidel Castro had left the La Plata Command, beginning an unstoppable march east with his escort and a small group of combatants. On 19 November, the rebels arrived in Santa Barbara. By that time, there were approximately 230 combatants. Fidel gathered his officers to organize the siege of Guisa, and ordered the placement of a mine on the Monjarás bridge, over the Cupeinicú river. That night the combatants made a camp in Hoyo de Pipa. In the early morning, they took the path that runs between the Heliografo hill and the Mateo Roblejo hill, where they occupied strategic positions. In the meeting on the 20th, the army lost a truck, a bus, and a jeep. Six were killed and 17 prisoners were taken, three of them wounded. At around 10:30 am, the military Command Post located in the Zone of Operations in Bayamo sent a reinforcement made up of Co. 32, plus a platoon from Co. L and another platoon from Co. 22. This force was unable to advance for the resistance of the rebels. Fidel ordered the mining of another bridge over a tributary of the Cupeinicú River. Hours later the army sent a platoon from Co. 82 and another platoon from Co. 93, supported by a T-17 tank.
Battle of Yaguajay In December 1958, Fidel Castro ordered his revolutionary army to go on the offensive against Batista's army. While Castro led one force against
Guisa,
Masó and other towns, another major offensive was directed at the capture of the city of Santa Clara, the capital of what was then
Las Villas Province. Three columns were sent against Santa Clara under the command of Che Guevara, Jaime Vega, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Vega's column was caught in an ambush and completely destroyed. Guevara's column took up positions around Santa Clara (near Fomento). Cienfuegos's column directly attacked a local army garrison at Yaguajay. Initially numbering just 60 men out of Castro's hardened core of 230, Cienfuegos's group had gained many recruits as it crossed the countryside towards Santa Clara, eventually reaching an estimated strength of 450 to 500 fighters. The garrison consisted of some 250 men under the command of a Cuban captain of
Chinese ancestry,
Alfredo Abon Lee. The attack began on 21 December. Convinced that reinforcements would be sent from Santa Clara, Lee put up a determined defense of his post. The guerrillas repeatedly attempted to overpower Lee and his men, but failed each time. By 26 December Camilo Cienfuegos had become quite frustrated; it seemed that Lee could not be overpowered, nor could he be convinced to surrender. In desperation, Cienfuegos tried using a homemade tank against Lee's position. The "tank" was actually a large tractor encased in iron plates with attached makeshift flamethrowers on top. It, too, proved unsuccessful. Finally, on 30 December Lee ran out of ammunition and was forced to surrender his force to the guerrillas. The surrender of the garrison was a major blow to the defenders of the provincial capital of Santa Clara. The next day, the combined forces of Cienfuegos, Guevara, and local revolutionaries under
William Alexander Morgan captured the city in a fight of vast confusion.
Battle of Santa Clara and Batista's flight On 31 December 1958, the
Battle of Santa Clara took place in a scene of great confusion. The city of
Santa Clara fell to the combined forces of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, and Revolutionary Directorate (RD) rebels led by Comandantes
Rolando Cubela, Juan "El Mejicano" Abrahantes Fernández, and William Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba by air for the
Dominican Republic just hours later on 1 January 1959. Comandante William Alexander Morgan, leading RD rebel forces, continued fighting as Batista departed, and had captured the city of
Cienfuegos by 2 January. Cuban General
Eulogio Cantillo entered Havana's
Presidential Palace, proclaimed the
Supreme Court judge
Carlos Piedra as the new president, and began appointing new members to Batista's old government. ==Aftermath==