The strategic victory
Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro
narrates history, the defeat of 10,000 of Batista regime in his latest
work which is to be published soon.
Fidel Castro Ruz
WITHIN a few days the book titled The Strategic Victory, in which I
narrate the battle waged for the extermination of the little Rebel Army,
is to be published. I begin it with an introduction in which I explain
my doubts as to its title "...I didn't know whether to call it
'Batista's Last Offensive' or 'How 300 defeated 10,000,'" the latter of
which sounded like a science fiction story.
It includes a small autobiography: "I did not wish to wait for the
publication some day of the responses to numerous questions asked me
about my childhood, adolescence and youth, stages which converted me
into a revolutionary and armed combatant.
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Fidel
Castro |
The title that I finally decided on was The Strategic Victory.
It is divided into 25 chapters, contains many photographs of a
quality possible in those circumstances and the relevant maps. Finally,
it has diagrams of the types of weapons used by both contenders. In the
final pages of Chapter 24, I made affirmations that turned out to be a
premonition.
In the final part, which I wrote to be read out by Radio Rebelde on
August 7, the day after the end of the final battle of Las Mercedes, I
stated: "The offensive has been liquidated. The greatest military effort
in our history as a Republic concluded in the most horrific disaster
imaginable on the part of the arrogant dictator, whose troops in full
flight after two-and-a-half months of defeat after defeat are signaling
the final days of his odious regime. The Sierra Maestra is already
totally free of enemy forces." The book on "the strategic victory"
textually explains: "After 74 days of incessant fighting, the defeat of
the enemy offensive signified the strategic turning point of the war.
From that moment the fate of the dictatorship was definitively decided,
as the imminence of its military collapse became evident."
Handover of prisoners
"That same day I wrote a letter to Major General Eulogio Cantillo,
who directed the entire military campaign from the command post in the
area of operations, based in Bayamo. I confirmed to Cantillo that around
160 captured soldiers were in the hands of our forces, many of them
wounded, and that we were prepared to immediately establish the relevant
negotiations for their handover. After complicated negotiations, this
second handover of prisoners took place several days later in Las
Mercedes.
"In the course of those 74 days of intensive fighting to repel and
defeat the major enemy offensive, our forces suffered 31 losses. The sad
news of their deaths never daunted the spirit of our forces, although it
made the victory painful on many occasions. Even so, the loss of
combatants could have been far higher, taking into account the
intensity, duration and violence of the land actions and air attacks,
without the extraordinary skill achieved by our guerrillas in the rugged
landscape of the Maestra and because of the solidarity among the rebels.
Many times, serious injuries saved their lives; in the first place,
because their companeros did the impossible to transfer them to where
the doctors could attend to them, and everything in spite of the rough
terrain and the whistling of the bullets in the midst of the battles.
"Throughout these pages I have mentioned the names of our dead, but I
wish to list them all here in order to present once and for all the
complete chart of our martyrs, worthy of the eternal memory, full of
respect and admiration, of all our people. They are:
"Commanders: Andr‚s Cuevas, Ram˘n Paz and Ren‚ Ramos Latour, Daniel.
"Captains: Angel Verdecia and Geonel Rodrˇguez.
"Lieutenants: Teodoro Banderas, Fernando Ch vez, El Artista, and
Godofredo Verdecia.
"Combatants: Misail Machado, Fernando Martˇnez, Albio Martˇnez,
Wilfredo Lara, Gustavo; Wilfredo Gonzalez, Pascualito; Juan de Dios
Zamora, Carlos Lopez Mas, Eugenio Cedeno, Victuro Acosta, El Bayames;
Francisco Luna, Roberto Corrˇa, Luis Enrique Carracedo, Elinor Teruel,
Juan V zquez, Chan Cuba; Giraldo Aponte, El Marinero; Federico Hadfeg,
Felipe Cordumy, Lorenzo Veliz, Gaudencio Santiesteban, Nicolas Ul,
Luciano Tamayo, Angel Silva Socarras and Jos‚ Diaz, El Galleguito.
"Campesino collaborators: Lucas Castillo, other members of his
family, and Ibrahim Escalona Torres.
"Eternal honour and glory, infinite respect and affection for those
who died during that period.
"The enemy suffered more than 1,000 casualties, of those 300-plus
dead and 443 prisoners, and no less than five complete large units of
its forces were annihilated, captured or dismantled. A total of 507
weapons remained in our power, including two tanks, 10 mortars, a number
of bazookas and 12 Caliber-30 machine guns.
Collapse of Batista regime
"All of that was compounded by the effect on morale of this outcome
and its significance in the advance of the war: from that moment, the
strategic initiative remained definitively in the hands of the Rebel
Army, moreover, the absolute master of an extensive territory into which
the enemy did not even try to penetrate again. In effect, the Sierra
Maestra was liberated for ever.
"The victory over the major enemy offensive of the summer of 1958
marked an irreversible turning point in the war. The Rebel Army,
triumphant and extraordinarily reinforced by the vast quantity of
weapons taken, was in a condition to initiate its final strategic
offensive.
"Those events opened a new and final stage in the war of liberation,
characterized by the invasion into the central area of the country, the
creation of the fourth Eastern Front and the Camaguey Front. The battle
extended throughout the country. With the devastating Oriente and Las
Villas campaigns, the Rebel Army's final major offensive led to the
definitive defeat of the dictatorship army and, as a consequence, to the
military collapse of the Batista regime and the taking of power by the
triumphant Revolution.
"In the victorious counteroffensive of December of that year, the
triumph was decided by nearly 3,000 men equipped with weapons seized
from the enemy.
"The columns of Che and Camilo, advancing across the Cauto and
Camaguey plains, reached the center of the country. The former Column
one once again trained more than 1,000 recruits in the Minas del Frio
school, and with chiefs who came from its own ranks, took the towns and
cities on the central highway between Bayamo and Palma Soriano. New T-37
light tanks were destroyed, heavy tanks and fighter planes were unable
to prevent the taking of cities hundreds of times larger than the little
town of Las Mercedes.
"In its advance, Column one was joined by the forces of the Frank
Paˇs Second Eastern Front. In that way we occupied the city of Palma
Soriano on December 27, 1958.
"Precisely on January 1, 1959 - the date noted in a letter to Juan
Almeida before the start of the dictatorship's final offensive against
the Sierra Maestra - the revolutionary general strike decreed via Radio
Rebelde from Palama Soriano paralyzed the country. Che and Camilo
received orders to advance along the central highway to the capital, and
there were no forces to offer resistance.
"In a meeting with myself, Raul and Almeida, Cantillo acknowledged
that the dictatorship had lost the war, but shortly afterward coup
maneuvers, counterrevolutionary, pro-imperialist and in violation of the
conditions agreed for an armistice, were instigated in the capital.
Despite that, within three days we had at our disposition the 100,000
weapons and the vessels and aircraft that, not long before, had
supported and made possible the escape of the last battalion that
penetrated into the Sierra Maestra."
An untiring team of personnel from the Council of State's Historical
Affairs Office; designers from the Creativo de Casa four group, under
the direction of the assistant professorship; with the cooperation of
the cartographer Otto Hern ndez , Brigade General Amels Escalante,
artist Jorge Oliver, young designer Geordanis Gonzalez, under the
direction of Katiuska Blanco, the brilliant and untiring journalist, are
the principal actors in this feat. I thought that it would be months
before this book was published. Now I know that it will be on the
streets by early August. And, for myself, having worked for months on
the subject after my serious illness, I am now inspired to continue
writing the second part of this history, which should be called, if the
team does not suggest another name, "The Final Strategic Counter
offensive."
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