by Tad Szulc
When Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, one of the top Communist party leaders, finally traveled to the mountains late in July as part of the Communists' changing attitude toward the rebels, he stopped first to see Raúl. Rodríguez was subsequently quoted as saying that "in the Sierra Cristal, where Raúl Castro commanded, all was harmony with the Communists; but when I arrived at Fidel Castro's in the Sierra Maestra, harmony was converted into suspicion." This was Rodríguez's first trip to Fidel's headquarters; there would be others.
In the meantime, Fidel Castro was emphasizing unity and moderation. On July 20, while he was directing operations against the Quevedo battalion above the south coast, Radio Rebelde broadcast from the mountain the "Unity Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra," also known as the Caracas Pact (it was signed that week in the Venezuelan capital). This Manifesto was issued jointly by the 26th of July Movement and eight other Cuban opposition political parties and revolutionary and action organizations, including the rival Students' Revolutionary Directorate but not the Communists. Castro said later that this was due to objections to the Communists by all the other groups (which he accepted without public protest). Having long resisted pacts with other Cuban revolutionaries and politicians, Castro was evidently willing to sign the Caracas document because he was now dealing from a position of military strength. At the same time, the pact further improved his statesman's image: He was the indisputable leader of the revolution, and the other signers of the "Unity Manifesto," all of them political moderates, implicitly recognized this fact.
The Manifesto was not a revolutionary program but an agreement "to create a large revolutionary, civic coalition, made up of all of Cuba's sectors." It provided for "a common strategy to defeat the dictatorship by means of armed insurrection" and "the popular mobilization of all labor, civic, professional and economic forces, culminating in a great general strike on the civilian front." On the military front, it said, "action will be coordinated throughout the country." Concerning the future, only two points were made: "A brief provisional government will be formed to establish full constitutional and democratic rights"; and "a minimum governmental program will be formed to guarantee the punishment of those who are guilty of crimes, workers' rights, fulfillment of international agreements, public order, peace, freedom, as well as the economic, social, and political progress of the Cuban people." The Manifesto then asked the United States "to cease all military and other types of aid to the dictator." José Miró Cardona, the exiled president of the Cuban Bar Association, was the coordinator of the pact; it was understood that Manuel Urrutia, the president-designate who was in New York when the Manifesto was issued, would soon be flown to the Sierra Maestra.
It was to discuss post-Batista Cuba in the context of the Manifesto that Carlos Rafael Rodríguez had gone to see Fidel late in July, remaining until August 10, when he returned to Havana to report to the Communist party leadership. It is unclear whether Rodríguez had Fidel in mind when he spoke of the "suspicion" he encountered at La Plata, and there is no evidence to suggest that an actual agreement for subsequent collaboration emerged from these preliminary discussions. According to Rodríguez, Castro said that it would be a grave tactical error to alert the enemy prematurely by defining the revolutionary objectives with excessive clarity, but this did not necessarily commit him to an alliance with the Communists. Rodríguez was replaced at La Plata by Luis Más Martín, another ranking Communist leader and an old friend of the Castro brothers, who arrived on September 6. Más Martín told an interviewer later that Fidel, while reminiscing with him about obtaining books from the Communist party bookshop in Havana, remarked that "when the Revolution triumphs, we'll have Marxist books coming out of our ears." Again this is hardly a statement of political intent. Much more relevant was the Communist party's decision to maintain from then on a permanent presence with Castro, and his evident acceptance of it. Thus, Rodríguez came back to La Plata in mid-September, remaining with the rebels until the end of the war. No other Cuban political group sought or had such representation.
Although it is impossible to say with any precision when Castro made the final decision to strike a deal with the Communists, the likelihood is that it happened during Rodríguez's residence on the mountain, culminating a very pragmatic process that began with the collapse of the April general strike. This would explain the ease with which Castro slid into a relationship with the Communists immediately after the victory. It is important, however, to understand that Castro's idea was to use the "old" Communists for his instant needs in the absence of any other urban organization he could trust, including his own 26th of July Movement. The Rebel Army was the revolutionary vanguard, but it was not prepared to run the country for him when it came down from the Sierra. Chances are that except for Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, the "old" Communists did not comprehend Fidel's strategy until he finally swallowed them up; that is why they attempted to undermine him afterward. Raúl Chibás, who flew to the Sierra for a second visit in August 1958, says that his nearly daily discussions with Fidel over long weeks covered every subject except the question of communism; in exile from Cuba for over a quarter-century, he still thinks Castro is a "Fidelista, not a Communist. "
Great insight into Castro's politics and ideology was expressed by Régis Debray, the French leftist intellectual who knew him better than any foreigner: "A Leninist is an opportunist with principles. Fidel is a Leninist. His principles remain firm, but the opportunities change. The unique thing about him is the combination of great realism in the evolution of the means available and the final goal. "In his 1967 Revolution in the Revolution?, Debray remarked that the stronger the revolutionary nucleus in Cuba, "the more it could permit itself to seek alliances." He also underlines the Castro novelty the "old" Communists missed: "Eventually, the future People's Army will beget the [political] party of which it is to be, theoretically, the instrument: essentially the party is the army . . . [the party] already existed in embryo—in the form of the Rebel Army. Fidel, its commander in chief, was already an unofficial party leader by early 1959. "
On October 10, 1958, Fidel Castro signed in the Sierra Maestra an agrarian reform law, known as Revolutionary Law 1, which preserved the moderate image. Drafted by the Rebel Army's advocate general, Humberto Sorí-Marín, but approved by Castro, the law turned over to tenants, renters, and squatters the land they worked; it said nothing about breaking up the great estates. This agrarian reform did not affect 58 percent of Cuba's land area held privately, though it benefited 64 percent of all the farmers. Coming after the bland Sierra Manifesto and the communication to the Cuban Liberation Junta in 1957, the revolutionary documents of 1958 were equally devoted to moderation despite (or because of?) the Rebel Army's victories.
It has been argued for over a quarter-century whether Castro and his movement were secretly more radical than they admitted in public, but historically it is an increasingly barren theme. Official Cuban histories cite Castro's "History Will Absolve Me" address in 1953 as an example of Marxist thought—and, taken at face value, even this evaluation is debatable—but no serious explanations are provided for the moderate voice from the Sierra, apart from Che Guevara's comment that the rebels had to live with "a minimum program." In the end, the public record must stand, and the Cuban exiled scholar Nelson P. Valdés is probably correct in saying that "the Cuban revolutionary leadership ached for truly radical credentials, but could not produce any." The truth may lie in the pragmatic opportunism that developed in the Sierra Maestra as the Rebel Army's final offensive began, and that was transformed into official radicalism after the victory a half-year later.
Karl E. Meyer, then an editorial writer for The Washington Post, visited Castro at La Plata for three days just as the rebel offensive was getting under way. He found Fidel relaxed, "sprawled across a bed," and expressing views that "as he described them to me are surprisingly moderate." Meyer wrote that "his social views are vague, but incline to a kind of welfare state liberalism." When Meyer arrived, Castro was readin
g Kaput by Curzio Malaparte, one of Mussolini's favorite journalists, and he quoted from Il Duce that "you can make a coup with the army or without the army, but never against the army." Flourishing his cigar, Castro observed: "We are proving Mussolini wrong. We are winning here in Cuba against the army." Castro complained that Israel was sending arms to Batista after the United States finally suspended deliveries. "Why should they do such a thing—we have nothing against the Jewish people." Meyer says that on his return to Washington, he passed this information on to an Israeli newspaper correspondent who used it in a story, "which in turn provoked a challenge in the Knesset and I believe brought an end to the shipments." Finally, Castro informed Meyer that "in three months, three fourths of the island will be in rebel hands." During Meyer's visit, a portrait of Fidelito in a gilt frame was delivered to Castro, and he exclaimed beamingly, "This is my son." Fidelito must have just returned to Havana with his mother after attending school for one year in Queens, New York, where they went shortly after the boy was kidnapped from his aunts in Mexico City.
In making his military prediction to Meyer, Castro was not too far off the mark. Camilo Cienfuegos, leading the "Antonio Maceo Column" with 82 men, was ordered to march from the Sierra Maestra to the westernmost province of Pinar del Río, and Che Guevara, at the head of the "Ciro Redondo Column" with 148 men, was assigned to take the central province of Las Villas, including the Escambray Mountains. They left in the third week of August. It must have seemed a demented plan, considering that this was the first time the rebels were leaving the safety of the Sierra for the lowlands where Batista still had tens of thousands of soldiers and policemen, but Castro was convinced that Cienfuegos and Guevara would triumph. They were to act as military governors as well as set up revolutionary authority while they advanced. Castro himself planned to attack Santiago later in the autumn.
Incredibly, Cienfuegos and Guevara made it to Las Villas, marching, fighting, and starving under the most adverse conditions—and creating new myths for the Rebel Army. It took the first column nearly six weeks to cross western Oriente and Camagüey provinces to reach Las Villas, walking through swamps and swimming through rivers, without food most of the time. The second column under Che made it in seven weeks. They had extremely few casualties, and it had never occurred to the commanders or the men to doubt the wisdom of Castro's orders to seize most of Cuba with a total of 230 men. But astonishingly, the army was pulling back, volunteers were joining the invaders from the Sierra, and the rebels kept advancing. The plan was modified for Cienfuegos and Guevara to work together to reach the north coast of Las Villas and thereby sever the island into two parts; the march on Pinar del Río was set aside. In the Escambray Mountains, the Fidelista chiefs encountered four other separate revolutionary forces: the Students' Revolutionary Directorate (DR), a spinoff from the DR known as the "Second National Front of Escambray," a Communist party unit, and a unit organized by former President Prío. Che Guevara wrote that it took "laborious negotiations" to create an approximately common strategy in regard to the enemy, the problems being political and ideological differences. The DR and "Second Front" fighters were convinced that Guevara and Cienfuegos were Communists, and at first refused all cooperation. Enrique Oltuski, the provincial coordinator for the 26th of July Movement, had a bitter clash with Che Guevara over ideological matters. The Communist party unit, the only fully Communist guerrilla group in the whole war, worked well locally with the Sierra rebels. Still, the fighting against the Batista troops went on during November and December for the control of the provincial capital of Santa Clara.
At the head of "Column 1, José Martí," Fidel Castro moved out of his mountain haven in mid-September, initiating an offensive designed to capture most of Oriente province, then surround Santiago and force its capitulation. Raúl's forces in the east fanned out to attack Batista forces from the rear. Castro now had military momentum going for him as well as the financial resources he had lacked in the past: Landowners, industrialists, and businessmen were contributing to the 26th of July Movement on such a scale that in October Fidel could instruct Major Juan Almeida to pay a dollar for a single semiautomatic rifle bullet, if necessary. The Rebel Army could not afford to run out of ammunition as it raced to crush Batista. On December 6 Castro's column won a tough battle for the town of Guisa, opening the way into the heart of Oriente. And on the same day, Manuel Urrutia landed secretly in a field on the western outskirts of the Sierra Maestra, ready to become Cuba's provisional president. On his flight from Caracas, Urrutia brought a shipment of arms and ammunition for the rebels from Venezuela's provisional president, Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal. This was the first delivery of arms from a foreign government, but Larrazábal had ousted his country's dictatorship less than a year earlier, and he felt close to Castro; he was not the kind of traditional military officer the Fidelistas so feared at home as an alternative to Batista.
From Guisa, Castro kept up the pace, seizing the towns of Baire, Jiguaní, Maffo, and Contramestre, firing his rifle at the enemy, and issuing a daily broadcast of communiqués, proclamations, and ultimatums. His victories were particularly spectacular because at the outset his column consisted mainly of rough recruits from the Minas del Frío basic-training school. On December 19, Fidel established his command post outside of Jiguaní, receiving for the first time President-Designate Urrutia at a meeting also attended by Celia, Raúl, Vílma Espín, and Juan Almeida. Urrutia wrote later that Castro greeted him coldly, which seems unlikely in those euphoric days. The next morning, Colonel Aguilera, Castro's aide, had to hold Fidel back physically to prevent him from leading his column through enemy fire in the main street of the town they were attacking.
Palma Soriano, directly northwest of Santiago, fell on December 20, and Castro found himself retracing his steps of more than five years earlier as a conspirator en route to Moncada. At that point, Batista began to prepare to flee Cuba. People in Havana and the other cities as well as in the countryside were openly against him everywhere and, scenting blood and defeat, were assuming pro-Castro attitudes publicly. The ship was sinking. In Havana a Castro agent was contacted secretly by a faction of senior army officers proposing a peace settlement with the rebels by replacing Batista with a civilian-military junta. This junta would be composed of General Eulogio Cantillo, with whom Fidel had exchanged letters during the summer offensive, an anti-Batista army officer now in prison, Manuel Urrutia, and two other civilians chosen by the revolutionaries. The agent was further informed that the United States would immediately recognize such a junta. This was the military-coup trap Castro had suspected and feared all along, and he shot back a brief message: "Conditions rejected. Arrange personal meeting between Cantillo and me. "
Despite subsequent denials, the United States was actively engaged in secret maneuvers to prevent Castro from taking power. The report of the board of inquiry on the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion says that the CIA first sought to collaborate with Justo Carrillo's Montecristi group, which had army links, to set up a new regime that would block Castro. On December 8, 1958, the report states, former U. S. ambassador to Cuba, William D. Pawley, and the CIA station chief in Havana, James Noel, "approached Batista and proposed the establishment of a Junta to whom Batista would turn over the reins of government." The State Department supported these efforts, while the CIA seemed to have switched policies since financing the M-26 earlier in the year.
Castro and Cantillo met near Palma Soriano on December 28, and the rebel commander repeated his rejection of a junta; power, he said, had to be vested in the revolutionary army. With Santiago surrounded, Cantillo agreed to lead a rebellion on December 31, and turn over his troops unconditionally to Castro. Celia Sánchez and Vílma Espín were present along with Raúl Chibás and Major José Quevedo, who had just arrived at Fidel's new headquarters at the Oriente sugar mill outside of Palma Soriano. Quevedo was the superb Batista troop commander whom Castro had defeated in July and brought over to the Rebel Army (in the 1980s, Quevedo was the
Cuban military attaché in Moscow). However, Cantillo broke his word, informed Batista of the junta plan, and gave him until January 6 to leave the country. Then, he asked Castro for a week's postponement of their deal, instantly arousing Fidel's suspicions. However, events moved very fast. Che Guevara finally captured Santa Clara on December 30, putting an armored train out of action, and the regime had nothing left to shore itself up. Just after midnight on New Year's Eve, Batista, his family, and closest associates drove to Camp Columbia's airfield and took off for the Dominican Republic. His final act was to appoint General Cantillo the head of the armed forces.
Fidel Castro spent New Year's Eve quietly at the sugar mill with Celia and his commanders, learning from radio broadcasts at dawn what had just occurred in Havana. Carlos Rafael Rodríguez was in Palma Soriano, too, but apparently he did not see Castro that night; Chibás, summoned by Celia to join Fidel in his room, says that Fidel seemed annoyed over Rodríguez's presence. It was not good for his image, Chibás thinks. (Incongruously, Errol Flynn was also in Palma Soriano at that exact moment, shooting a movie.) That morning in the capital, Cantillo formed a junta, chaired by Carlos M. Piedra, a Supreme Court judge, and Castro instantly swung into action. Speaking over Radio Rebelde from its new location in Palma Soriano, Castro first issued an ultimatum to the Santiago garrison to surrender by 6:00 P. M. or be attacked, saying that "the history of 1898 will not be repeated," an allusion to the fact that American forces had not allowed Cuban independence fighters to enter the city at the end of the war with Spain. Then, he issued a proclamation to the nation denouncing the junta as "accomplices of the tyranny," and calling a general strike the next day. He ordered Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara to march on Havana to seize, respectively, Camp Columbia and the La Cabaña fortress. "The Rebel Army will continue its sweeping campaign," Fidel shouted. "Revolution, yes; military coup, no! "
