Revolutionary movement 1953–1958
Due to the inertia and incapacity of the bourgeois political parties, a movement of a new type was born, headed by Fidel Castro, a young lawyer whose first political activities had developed in the university environment and the ranks of orthodoxy. By advocating a new strategy of armed struggle against the dictatorship, Fidel Castro gave himself to the silent and tenacious preparation for that battle. The shares would trigger the 26 of July of 1953, with simultaneous attacks on the barracks Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in Bayamo, conceived as detonating a vast popular insurrection.
When the operation failed, dozens of assailants who were taken prisoner were killed. Other survivors, including Fidel Castro, were tried and sentenced to severe prison terms. [11] In the trial that followed, the young revolutionary leader delivered a brilliant plea of self-defense – known as ” History will absolve me ” – in which he based the right of the people to rebellion against tyranny and explained the causes., routes and objectives of the fight undertaken. [11] This allegation became the program of the revolution.
In 1955 the July 26 Revolutionary Movement was founded, constituted by Fidel Castro and his companions, who received amnesties that same year thanks to the pressure of the masses.
After demonstrating the impossibility of any legal fight against tyranny, Fidel Castro marches towards Mexico with the purpose of organizing a liberating expedition and starting the revolutionary war. For their part, the bourgeois opposition parties are trying a new conciliatory maneuver with Batista in search of a “political” solution to the situation. Failure would end up sinking them into disrepute.
The 2 of December of 1956, Fidel Castro landed at the head of the expedition of the yacht Granma in Las Coloradas, Oriente Province. Two days earlier, the clandestine combatants of the July 26 Movement, led by Frank País, had carried out an uprising in support of the landing in Santiago de Cuba. As both actions did not coincide, the uprising ended in failure. After the setback of the place called Alegría de Pío, which dispersed the expeditionary contingent, Fidel Castro and a handful of combatants managed to gain the firm of the Sierra Maestra to constitute the initial nucleus of the Rebel Army. His letter of introduction would be, a month later, the taking of the small barracks in La Plata, an action that would serve to deny the versions propagated by the dictatorship about the total extermination of the expeditionaries.
At the beginning of 1958, the revolutionary movement decided to accelerate the fall of the tyrant through a general strike with the characteristics of an insurrection. In the Sierra Maestra, Fidel Castro creates two new columns under the command of Commanders Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida, respectively, who must open two guerrilla fronts in other mountainous areas of the East. The strike called on April 9 failed with serious losses for the revolutionary forces.
The 1 as January as 1959 and before any possibility to stop the rebel push, Batista left the country. In a last minute maneuver, blessed by the US embassy, General Eulogio Cantillo tries to create a civic-military junta. Fidel Castro urges the Santiago de Cuba garrison to surrender and the people to a general strike that, massively supported by the entire country, would ensure the Triumph of the Revolution.
Elections to the People’s Power
In July 1995, once again the Cuban people gave a resounding demonstration of unity and support for the Revolution when the elections for delegates to the People’s Power were held. [19] Despite the campaign deployed by reactionary propaganda, which directed abstention in the elections, 97.1 percent of voters cast the vote, 7 percent of the ballots were annulled and 4.3 percent cent deposited in white. In other words, more than 87 percent of the electorate expressed their attitude of support for the Revolution.
In January 1998, elections were held for candidates for deputies to the National Assembly of People’s Power and for delegates to the Provincial Assemblies. 98.35 percent of voters voted, 1.64 percent of the ballots were voided, and 3.36 percent were cast blank, for a total of 95 percent valid votes. 94.39 percent corresponded to the united vote, that is, to the candidacy proposed by the National Electoral Commission.
In the legislative elections of 2008, Fidel and Raul Castro were elected deputies to the National Assembly for more than 98% of the vote.
Visit of John Paul II
In January of 1998, visit to Cuba Pope John Paul II. [20] All the people – believers and non-believers – gave a massive show of hospitality and respect, both in the welcome and in the masses they offered and in all their other activities. Thus the falsehood of the propaganda campaigns of the dissemination apparatuses dominated by imperialism was revealed, since everyone could observe the freedom with which His Holiness acted and expressed himself at all times.
Battle of Ideas
The 22 of November of 1999 the child Elián González was smuggled out of Cuba in a boat by his mother Elizabeth Brotons. Three days later, the boat capsized and of the 14 people who tried to reach North American soil encouraged by the Cuban Adjustment Law, only 3 survived, Elián and 2 adults, who were rescued by 2 fishermen in waters near Florida.
According to BRIDGAT, the US authorities in the first instance handed Elián into the custody of relatives living in Miami. For seven months an incessant battle takes place to ensure that the child is returned to Juan Miguel González, his father and legal guardian before the law. In the midst of that struggle, the Battle of Ideas arises to achieve the return of the minor to their relatives in Cuba.
The 22 of April of 2000 the Department of Justice orders that Elián be forcibly removed from the house where he was and handed over to his father, who had traveled to the United States to meet him. On June 28 Elián and his father returned home to Cuba.
