C U B ACUBAN REVOLUTION 1958
2 Pesos 1953-26 de Julio - 1958
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This is a SCARCE HIGH GRADE (AU)
Currency Banknote from Cuba . This Note is a Military Fundraising Note
from 1958 Cuban Revolution issued by Fidel Castro to raise money for
financing his Revolutionary Army.
This 2 Peso Note references
the Movement of July 26, (1958).
CUBAN REVOLUTION
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt that led to the overthrow of U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista of Cuba on January 1, 1959 by the 26th of July Movement led by Fidel Castro.[1]
The "Cuban Revolution" also refers to the ongoing implementation of social and economic programs by the new government.
Pre-1956
The Cuban revolution began [2] when the poorly armed Cuban rebels attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the barracks in Bayamo on 26 July 1953.[3] The exact number of rebels killed is debatable, however in his autobiography, Castro claims that five were killed in the fighting, and an additional fifty-six were killed later by the Batista regime.[4] Among the dead was Abel Santamaría,
second-in-command of the assault on the Moncada Barracks, who was
imprisoned, tortured, and executed the same day of the attack.[5] The survivors, among them Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl Castro Ruz,
were captured shortly afterwards. In a highly political trial, Fidel
Castro spoke for nearly four hours in his defense, ending with the
words; "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me." Fidel Castro was sentenced to 15 years in the presidio modelo prison, located on Isla de Pinos; Raúl was sentenced to 13 years.
In 1955, under broad political pressure, the Batista regime freed
all political prisoners in Cuba – including the Moncada attackers.
Batista was persuaded to include the Castro brothers in this release in
part by Fidel's Jesuit childhood teachers.[6]
The Castro brothers joined with other exiles in Mexico to prepare a revolution to overthrow Batista, receiving training from Alberto Bayo, a leader of Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. Fidel met and joined forces with Ernesto "Che" Guevara during this period.[7]
It was during this trip that (El Che) met Alberto Fernandez Montes
de Oca (Capitan Pachungo) born in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.They both
became best friends, El Che loved Pachu like his brother, who would
later fight with El Che.Later El Che would arrive in Cuba, ( not in the
Granma), but in a different yatch. El Che, Pachungo and others arrived
at La Sierra del Escambry, while Fidel and Raul arrived at Sierra
Maestra.<Ref. Elvis Leyva Rivera, Nephew of Alberto Fernadez Montes
de Oca (Pachungo).
December 1956 to mid-1958''I believe that there is no country in the world including any and
all the countries under colonial domination, where economic
colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in
part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I
approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra
Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned
to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is
as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part
of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the
matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban
revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear."
– U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, October 24 1963 [8]
The Granma
arrived in Cuba on 2 December 1956. It arrived in Cuba two days later
than planned because the boat was heavily loaded, unlike during the
practice sailing runs.[9] 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 their trek began, they were attacked by Batista's army. Most of the Granma
participants were killed in this attack, but a small number escaped.
While the exact number is in dispute, it is agreed that no more than
twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial bloody
encounters with the Cuban army and succeeded in fleeing to the Sierra Maestra mountains.[10] The group of survivors included Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raúl Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos.
The survivors were separated, alone or in small groups, and wandered
through the mountains, looking for each other. Eventually, the men
would find one another with the help of peasant sympathizers and would
form the core leadership of the guerrilla army. Celia Sanchez and Haydee Santamaria, sister of Abel Santamaria, were two women revolutionaries that assisted Fidel Castro in the mountains.
On March 13, 1957, a distinct group of revolutionaries – the student
anticommunist Revolutionary Directorate (RD; Directorio
Revolucionario) – stormed the Presidential Palace, attempting to
assassinate Batista and decapitate the regime. The attack was suicidal.
The RD's leader, student Jose Antonio Echeverria, died in a shootout
with Batista's forces at the Havana radio station he had seized to
spread news of Batista's death. The handful of survivors included Dr.
Humberto Castello (later Inspector General in the Escambray), and
Rolando Cubela and Faure Chomon (later Commandantes of the 13 of March
Movement, centered in the Escambray Mountains of Las Villas Province).[11]
The United States imposed an embargo on the government and recalled its ambassador, weakening the government's mandate further.[12] Batista's support was limited to communists (PSP) and even they began to pull their long-term support in mid-1958.[13]
Raul Castro (left), with his arm around second-in-command, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in their Sierra de Cristal Mountain stronghold in Oriente Province Cuba, 1958.
The regime resorted to often lethal methods to keep Cuba's cities
under Batista's control. But in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro,
aided by Frank País, Ramos Latour, Huber Matos,
and many others, staged successful attacks on small Batista garrisons.
Che Guevara and Raúl Castro helped Fidel to consolidate political
control in the mountains, often through execution of suspected Batista
Loyalists or other Castro rivals. In addition, poorly armed irregulars
known as escopeteros
harassed the Batista forces in the foothills and plains of Oriente
Province. These also provided direct military support to Castro's main
forces by protecting supply lines and sharing intelligence. Ultimately,
the mountains came under Castro's control.
In addition to armed resistance, Batista's regime was also undermined by a pirate radio station called Rebel Radio (Radio Rebelde),
created in February 1958. Castro and his forces broadcast their message
to everyone from within enemy territory. The radio broadcasts were made
possible by Carlos Franqui, a previous acquaintance of Castro and Cuban exile now living in Puerto Rico.
During this time, Castro's forces were quite small, sometimes less
than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force numbered between
30,000 and 40,000 in strength. Yet nearly every time the army fought
against the revolutionaries, the army was forced to retreat. The Cuban
military was remarkably ineffective. A growing problem for the Batista
forces was an arms embargo imposed on the Cuban government by the
United States government on March 14, 1958. The Cuban air force rapidly
deteriorated as planes could not be repaired without parts from the
United States.
Batista forces finally responded with an attack on the mountains called Operation Verano
(the rebels called it "la Ofensiva"). Some 12,000 soldiers (half of
which were untrained recruits) were sent into the mountains. In a
series of small skirmishes, the Cuban army was defeated by Castro's
determined soldiers. In the Battle of La Plata,
which lasted from July 11 till July 21, Castro's forces defeated an
entire battalion, capturing 240 men, while losing just 3 of their own.
The tide nearly turned on July 29 when Castro's small army (some 300
men) was almost destroyed at the Battle of Las Mercedes.
With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and
was granted, a temporary cease-fire (August 1st). Over the next seven
days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces
gradually escaped from the trap. By August 8th, Castro's entire army
had escaped back into the mountains effectively ending Operation Verano
in failure for the Batista government.
Mid-1958 to January 1959
"The enemy soldier in the Cuban example which at present concerns
us, is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the
last crumb left by a long line of profiteers that begins in Wall Street
and ends with him. He is disposed to defend his privileges, but he is
disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are important to
him. His salary and his pension are worth some suffering and some
dangers, but they are never worth his life. If the price of maintaining
them will cost it, he is better off giving them up; that is to say,
withdrawing from the face of the guerrilla danger."
Map Showing Key Locations in the Sierra Maestra during the Cuban Revolution, 1958.
On August 21, 1958, after the defeat of the Batista "ofensiva",
Castro's forces began their own offensive. There were four fronts in
the "Oriente" province (now divided into Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Guantánamo and Holguín) directed by Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida Bosque.
Descending from the mountains, with new weapons captured during the
ofensiva and smuggled in by plane, Castro's forces won a series of
victories. Castro's major victory at Guisa,
and the successful capture of several towns including Maffo,
Contramaestre, and Central Oriente brought the Cauto plains under his
control.
Meanwhile, three columns under the command of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos
and Jaime Vega proceeded westward toward the provincial capital of
Santa Clara. Jaime Vega's column was ambushed and destroyed. The
surviving two columns reached the central provinces, where they joined
efforts with several other resistance groups not under the command of
Castro. According to Faria, when Che Guevara's column passed through
the province of Las Villas, specifically through the Escambray
Mountains — i.e., where the anticommunist Revolutionary Directorate
forces (13 of March Movement) had been fighting Batista's army for many
months — friction developed between the two groups of rebels. Che's
26th of July Movement troops were found to be heavily infiltrated by
communists, such as the polemicist Armando Acosta and the more
dangerous Comandante Felix Torres. But the combined rebel army
continued the offensive and Cienfuegos won a key victory in the Battle of Yaguajay on December 30, 1958 (earning him the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay").
Map of Cuba showing the location of the arrival of the rebels on the Granma yacht in late 1956 and the rebels' stronghold in the Sierra Maestra. The map also shows Guevara and Cienfuegos's route towards Havana via Las Villas Province in December 1958.
The next day (the 31st), the Battle of Santa Clara was a scene of great confusion. The city of Santa Clara
was captured by the combined forces of Che Guevara, Cienfuegos,
Revolutionary Directorate (RD) rebels led by Comandantes Rolando
Cubela, Juan ("El Mejicano") Abrahantes , and William Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic
just hours later on January 1, 1959. Comandante William Alexander
Morgan, for his part and leading RD rebel forces, continued fighting
and captured the city of Cienfuegos on January 1 and 2, during, and in,
the wake of Batista's departure.[15] Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning and immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba.
On January 2nd, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido,
ordered his soldiers not to fight and Castro's forces took over the
city. The forces of Guevara and Cienfuegos entered Havana at about the
same time. They had met no opposition on their journey from Santa Clara
to Cuba's capital. Castro himself arrived in Havana on January 8th
after a long victory march. His choice for president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó took office on the 3rd.[16]
Post-1959: After the revolution
"Our revolution is endangering all American possessions in Latin
America. We are telling these countries to make their own revolution."
Castro went to the United States later on to explain his revolution
to the U.S. He said, "I know what the world thinks of us, we are
Communists, and of course I have said very clearly that we are not
Communists; very clearly."[18]
Hundreds of suspected Batista-era agents, policemen and soldiers
were put on public trial for human rights abuses and war crimes,
including murder and torture. Most of those convicted in revolutionary
tribunals of political crimes were executed
by firing squad, and the rest received long prison sentences. One of
the most notorious examples of revolutionary justice was the execution
of over 70 captured Batista regime soldiers, directed by Raúl Castro
after capturing Santiago. For his part in Havana, Che Guevara was appointed supreme prosecutor in La Cabaña Fortress.
This was part of a large-scale attempt by Fidel Castro to cleanse the
security forces of Batista loyalists and potential opponents of the new
revolutionary regime. Others were fortunate to be dismissed from the
army and police without prosecution, and some high-ranking officials in
the ancien régime were exiled as military attachés.[19]
In 1961, after the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the new Cuban government also nationalized all property held by religious organizations including the Roman Catholic Church. Hundreds of members of the church, including a bishop, were permanently expelled from the nation, with the new Cuban government being officially atheist.
Faria describes how the education of children changed as Cuba became
officially an atheist state: private schools were banned and the
progressively socialist state assumed greater responsibility for
children.[20]
According to geographer and Cuban Comandante Antonio Núñez Jiménez,
75% of Cuba's best arable land was owned by foreign individuals or
foreign (mostly U.S.) companies. One of the first policies by the newly
formed Cuban government was eliminating illiteracy and implementing
land reforms. Land reform efforts helped to raise living standards by
subdividing larger holdings into cooperatives.
Comandante Sori Marin, nominally in charge of land reform, objected and
fled, but was eventually executed. Many other non-Marxist, anti-Batista
rebel leaders were forced in to exile, purged in executions, or
eliminated in failed uprisings such as that of the Beaton brothers.
Shortly after taking power, the Castro also created a Revolutionary
militia to expand his power base among the former rebels and the
supportive population. Castro also initiated Committees for the Defense of the Revolution
or CDRs in late September 1960. Informants became rampant within the
population. CDRs were tasked with keeping "vigilance against
counter-revolutionary activity." Local CDRs were also tasked with
keeping a detailed record of each neighborhood's inhabitant's spending
habits, level of contact with foreigners, their work and education
history, and any "suspicious" behavior.[21]
One of the most widely persecuted groups were homosexuals, particularly
homosexual men. Sex became a form of liberation and protest against the
Castro government; Reinaldo Arenas, a famous Latin American writer,
depicts such subjugation and protestation in his autobiography, "Antes
Que Anochezca."
Cuba began expropriating land and private property under the
auspices of the Agrarian Reform law of May 1959. Cuban lawyer Mario
Lazo writes that farms of any size could be and were seized by the
government. Land, businesses, and companies owned by upper and middle
class Cubans were also nationalized, including the plantations owned by
Fidel Castro's family. By the end of 1960, the revolutionary government
had nationalized more than 25 billion dollars worth of private property
owned by Cubans.[22] Cuba also nationalized all United States and other foreign-owned property in the nation on August 6, 1960. The United States, in turn, responded by freezing all Cuban assets in the US, severing diplomatic ties,[23] and tightening the embargo on Cuba, which is still in place after 50 years.[24] In response to the acts of the Eisenhower administration, Cuba turned to the Soviet Union for support. [25]
In July 1961, the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (IRO) was formed by the merger of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Revolutionary Movement, the People's Socialist Party (the old Communist Party) led by Blas Roca, and the Revolutionary Directorate March 13th led by Faure Chomón.[26] On March 26, 1962, the IRO became the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution (PURSC) which, in turn, became the Communist Party of Cuba on October 3, 1965 with Castro as First Secretary.
Many attempts have been made by the U.S. to overthrow Cuba's government. One of the most notorious is the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. After the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 the US promised to never invade the island. Desperate but unsuccessful rebellions, known as the War Against the Bandits, continued until about 1965. **
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