#Huber Matos

[adribosch-fan]

Cárceles y presos políticos en Cuba: el terror está tras las rejas

No hay comparación entre las condiciones en las 14 prisiones que había en Cuba antes de 1959 y las más de 200 existentes en la actualidad Jorge Luis Gonzalez Suarez Prisión Provincial ,Pinar del Rio. LA HABANA, Cuba. — Claudio Rey Moriña perteneció a la Fuerza Aérea del Ejército de Cuba en la República, y después de 1959, durante 30 años, hasta su jubilación con el grado de coronel, fue el…

[rielpolitik]

REBEL YELL: 'Huber Matos Benitez', The Cuban Revolutionary Leader Imprisoned 20 Years....By Fidel Castro

Source – independent.co.uk “…Inspired by the abortive coup, Matos joined Castro and served as a commander in the Sierra Maestra mountains. The two men clashed occasionally, but Matos claimed that at one point Castro named him third in line for the leadership after Castro’s brother Raul. Che Guevara was fifth in line, he said. In an interview in 2009, Matos said he joined the revolution hoping to…

[bravesonnets]

— the death of camilo cienfuegos

october 28th marks the day cuban guerrilla commander camilo cienfuegos was officially declared dead after disappearing in 1959.

cienfuegos was one of the original guerrillas to land in cuba as part of the granma expedition alongside the castro brothers, che guevara, and juan almeida. known for his iconic cowboy hat and affable personality, cienfuegos was also an accomplished military leader who was considered the “hero of yaguajay” after waging a successful battle there.

at the time of his death, cienfuegos was in the process of arresting former ally huber matos who’d since turned against the revolution’s socialist direction. on his return flight to havana, cienfuegos’ plane vanished. after weeks of furious searching turned up nothing, cienfuegos was declared dead by the cuban government in november 1959.

given the inexplicable and unfortunate nature of cienfuegos’ death, speculation about what “really” happened to him abounded. matos and other reactionaries claimed cienfuegos was murdered by a jealous (or alternatively paranoid) fidel castro, but historians of the period acknowledge there’s little evidence to support this theory.

cienfuegos remained an ally to castro’s up until his death, even going so far as to personally arrest matos at castro’s request. cienfuegos was also especially close with che guevara who scoffed at the idea that castro or the government had anything to do with his disappearence. in 1962, guevara named his only son camilo after his fallen friend.

[latikobe]

Huber Matos, una de las historias Entre La Habana y Miami

Huber Matos, Foto Archivo

MIAMI, Estados Unidos.- Mañana jueves dos de mayo se presentará en Miami el libro que recoge, como parte de una compilación de historias, la entrevista realizada a Huber Matos, cuatro años antes de su muerte, ocurrida el 27 de febrero de 2014, por los periodistas Juan Castro Olivera y Eduardo del Campo Cortés, según publicó el Nuevo Herald.

El libro, titulado Entre La Habana y Miami, es una galería de retratos de las dos orillas, en una de las cuales se encontró Matos los últimos días de su vida. “El viejo comandante se quiebra y llora por su tierra lejana. Llora de impotencia. Llora posiblemente porque imagina su final como un desterrado”, dice el texto, escrito a cuatro manos.

“Antes de irme de Cuba quise ir a la tumba de mi madre para despedirme y poner una flor, pero no me dejaron, me dijeron que debía salir de inmediato. Había dado todo por mi patria, pero me fui echado y sin decir adiós”, contó Matos a los periodistas.

El libro también cuenta la historia de otros cubanos de Miami, como el dueño de un negocio en la Pequeña Habana, a quien conocían como Arturito El Tigre, que se robó un caballo en una de las casas del gobierno cubano, por lo tanto, él suele identificarse como el cuatrero que le robó un caballo a Fidel.

“En el libro tratamos de hacer un puente de historias personales, de reflejar cómo esas personas han vivido la situación de estar lejos de Cuba, de no regresar nunca más. Qué significa abandonar un país y vivir imaginando cómo estará su gente, su barrio”, dijo Castro Olivera al Herald.

Entre La Habana y Miami es una recopilación de historias humanas de las dos orillas, un proyecto que Castro Olivera se debía a sí mismo, en especial porque el gobierno cubano le negó el puesto de jefe de redacción del buró de AFP en La Habana, cuando luego de terminar su tarea en Miami, fue escogido por la agencia para continuarla en Cuba.

“Fue un acto de censura total”, afirmó Castro Olivera, que en ese momento presentó todos los documentos que pedía el gobierno cubano a los corresponsales, y casi llegando la fecha en que debía comenzar en el puesto, le denegaron la entrada a la Isla.

A los autores de Entre La Habana y Miami los impresionó la capacidad de los cubanos para “viajar con la mente”. Fantasean que están en Europa, tienen muchos detalles de las ciudades, una información que para los que nunca han podido salir de su país proviene de los libros y del cine, dijeron al Herald.

Entre La Habana y Miami se presenta en Books & Books, mañana 2 de mayo, a las 6:30 de la tarde, en el número 265 Aragon Ave, de Coral Gables. Teléfono 305 442 4408.

Huber Matos, una de las historias Entre La Habana y Miami

[jannis-world-connection]

Fidel Castro was a murderer, liar 🤥 and a traitor to his own people, to his “friends” like Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, Huber Matos...etc...#NotoSocialism https://www.instagram.com/p/B9ei7Pdhg41/?igshid=r7p5r7yb1gf3

[culturizando]

#UnDíaComoHoy: 28 de octubre en la historia

El 28 de octubre es el día 300º día del año. Quedan 64 días para finalizar el año. Estos son algunos de los eventos más destacados que ocurrieron un día como hoy 28 de octubre.

-Hoy se celebra el Día Mundial de la Animación. Este día se conmemora la primera proyección pública del Théâtre Optique (Teatro Óptico), de Émile Reynaud en el Museo Grevin de París en 1892, claro antecedente de la cinematografía de animación.

-312: en la batalla del Puente Milvio, Constantino I el Grande derrota a Majencio en la lucha por el Imperio romano. Esta batalla se libró en Roma frente al puente del Tíber conocido como Pons Milvius el 28 de octubre del 312 y enfrentó al ejército de Majencio con el de Constantino I el Grande. La victoria fue para este último quien pasó a ostentar definitivamente el título de coemperador en el trono de occidente junto con su cuñado Licinio que lo era de oriente. La leyenda cuenta que una noche, antes de la batalla, Constantino vio en sueños una cruz en el cielo al mismo tiempo que una voz divina le indicaba que con ese signo vencería. Constantino hizo decorar los escudos de sus soldados con el símbolo de la cruz (el futuro Crismón) y se lanzó contra el ejército enemigo. El emperador se percató enseguida de que los jinetes de Majencio tenían desprotegido el vientre de sus monturas, por lo que resultó fácil para sus tropas destripar a la caballería enemiga. Finalmente, venció después de una dura lucha. Luego de la visión y el triunfo en la batalla, Constantino no se proclamó cristiano de inmediato, pero la tendencia hacia el monoteísmo fue evidente muy rápidamente. En febrero de 313, fue proclamado el Edicto de Milán, que permitió a los cristianos a seguir su fe sin temor a la persecución. Todas las propiedades que habían sido confiscadas a la Iglesia fueron devueltas, y se hicieron inversiones para la construcción de nuevas iglesias y seminarios.

-1467: nace Erasmo De Rotterdam, humanista, filósofo, filólogo y teólogo holandés, autor de importantes obras escritas en latín. Principal intérprete de las corrientes intelectuales del renacimiento en el norte de Europa. Entre sus obras más destacadas están: Manual del Soldado Cristiano (1503), Sobre el método de estudio (1511), Educación del príncipe cristiano (1516), Sobre la diatriba del libre albedrío (1524) entre otras.

-1704: muere en Oates (Inglaterra) el filósofo inglés John Locke, padre del empirismo y liberalismo. Su obra más conocida es “Ensayo sobre el entendimiento humano” de 1690 .

-1886: en Estados Unidos, el presidente Grover Cleveland inaugura la Estatua de la Libertad, regalada por Francia.

-1941: nace Doris Wells, actriz, escritora y directora de cine venezolana. Doris María Buonafina mejor conocida como Doris Wells, es recordada por su actuación en algunas de las telenovelas más exitosas de finales del siglo XX y en la película Oriana de Fina Torres.

-1930: Picasso gana el primer premio internacional de pintura Carnegie.

-1955: nace Bill Gates, empresario estadounidense, fundador de Microsoft. De joven asistió a Lakeside, una de las escuelas más exclusivas de Seattle. En ese entonces, Bill Gates ya estaba interesado en la programación informática, interés que compartía con su compañero Paul Allen. Durante su paso por la Universidad de Harvard, Gates y Allen formaron un equipo de desarrollo de software. Sus principales clientes eran empresas y entidades gubernamentales. En 1975 desarrollaron Basic, un lenguaje de programación que luego se utilizó en la primera computadora personal lanzada al mercado, la Altair. El éxito del Basic los llevó, un año más tarde, a fundar la compañía Micro-Soft, que luego se llamaría Microsoft Corporation. Bill Gates abandonó sus estudios universitarios y asumió el cargo de presidente de la empresa. En 1980, por encargo de IBM, Microsoft creó el MS-DOS, el sistema operativo que revolucionaría la industria de la computación. Cuando en 1990 Bill Gates desarrolló una nueva generación de sistemas operativos, el MS Windows, Microsoft ya poseía gran parte del mercado. La fortuna de Bill Gates, uno de los hombres más ricos del mundo, fue valorada en 2012 en 61 mil millones de dólares.

-1956: en España se inauguran los servicios de Televisión Española, que al día siguiente comenzó a emitir sus programas.

-1959: muere Camilo Cienfuegos revolucionario cubano. Fue una de las figuras más emblemáticas de la Revolución cubana junto a Fidel Castro, el Che Guevara, Raúl Castro, Juan Almeida, entre otros. Era conocido como «El Comandante del Pueblo», «El Señor de la Vanguardia» y el «Héroe de Yaguajay». Camilo Cienfuegos fue un guerrillero de gran popularidad entre el Pueblo Cubano. Fue aclamado por millones de cubanos y designado jefe del Ejército Rebelde. Su popularidad lo convirtió en el tercer hombre dentro de la Revolución, luego de Fidel y Raúl Castro. Enviado a arrestar al Comandante Huber Matos luego de que este renunciara a su puesto en protesta de la influencia comunista en el gobierno revolucionario, Camilo desapareció misteriosamente durante su regreso de Camaguey a la Habana el 28 de octubre de 1959, día en que apareció asesinado. Siempre se ha especulado que su muerte fue obra de Castro, quien le temía debido a su popularidad entre las masas y a su gran sentido de democracia y justicia.

-1962: la Unión Soviética retira los misiles instalados en Cuba y Estados Unidos se compromete a no invadir la isla.

-1963: nace Eros Ramazzotti, cantante italiano.

-1967: nace Julia Roberts, actriz estadounidense. Ganadora del premio Óscar a la mejor actriz, así como de tres Globos de Oro. Conocida por sus intervenciones en películas como Magnolias de acero (1989), Pretty Woman (1990), El informe Pelícano (1993), La boda de mi mejor amigo (1997), Notting Hill (1999), Novia a la fuga (1999) y La gran estafa (2001), se convirtió en la actriz mejor pagada en el año 2000, año en el que protagonizó la película Erin Brockovich y por la que cobró veinte millones de dólares. Es considerada la octava mujer más rica del mundo del entretenimiento, con una fortuna estimada en 140 millones de dólares.

-1974: nace Joaquín Phoenix, actor estadounidense. Joaquin Rafael Bottom Dunnetz, conocido como Joaquin Phoenix, nació en San Juan (Puerto Rico) el 28 de octubre de 1974 en una familia de artistas conocida principalmente por su hermano, River Phoenix. Los primeros trabajos de Joaquin como actor fueron en campañas publicitarias y breves apariciones en dos shows de televisión en los que se presentó con su hermano River: “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” en 1982 y “Backwards: The Riddle of Dislexia” en 1984. Hizo su gran debut en la pantalla grande en la película Space Camp, filmada en 1986, y su primer papel como protagonista llegó gracias al filme Russkies, en 1987. En el 2000 interpretó al emperador Commodus en Gladiador, papel que le supuso una nominación al Óscar y al Globo de Oro como mejor actor de reparto. En 2005 ganó el Globo de Oro al mejor actor, además fue nominado al Óscar al mejor actor principal por su interpretación de Johnny Cash en la biopic “Walk the Line”.

-1981: en Estados Unidos, Lars Ulrich y James Hetfield forman la banda de thrash metal Metallica. A la fecha, la banda ha editado nueve discos de estudio. Las ventas totales de Metallica superan los 100 millones US$, y se les considera parte de los cuatro grandes del thrash metal, junto con Megadeth, Slayer y Anthrax. Además, el grupo ha conseguido numerosos premios musicales, entre los que destacan nueve Grammys.

-1984: nace Finn Wittrock, actor estadounidense. Conocido por ser parte del elenco de American Horror Story, Unbroken, My All American, entre otras.

-1993: Borís Yeltsin decreta la propiedad privada del suelo en Rusia.

-2005: México se convierte en el 100.º país que ratifica el estatuto de la Corte Penal Internacional.

-2007: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner se convierte en la primera mujer en ocupar la presidencia de Argentina.

La entrada #UnDíaComoHoy: 28 de octubre en la historia aparece primero en culturizando.com | Alimenta tu Mente.

[read-with-sword-and-spear]

(Huber Matos in his final statement in court) "True history is not written by egotism, the ambitions, or the passions of men, but by facts analyzed in the light of the truth".

Quirk, Robert E. (1993). "Fidel Castro" (1st edition). New York, NY. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

[adribosch-fan]

¿De qué mueren los generales en Cuba?

¿De qué mueren los generales en Cuba?

Ya son seis los generales muertos Por Malú Kikuchi  El 6/1/1959, en camioneta descubierta entraron a La Habana los 3 reyes magos, Fidel Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos y Huber Matos. La revolución había triunfado. Batista había salido del país. Cuba iba a ser libre. En octubre 1959, Huber Matos estaba preso (lo estaría por 20 años, se negaba a ser comunista) y Camilo Cienfuegos se perdía en una…

[saibatudomt]

Falta de chuva prejudica a produção de milho em Mato Grosso

Previsão de produção para esta safra é de 26 milhões de toneladas do grão.

A falta de chuva está comprometendo parte da produção das lavouras de milho, em Mato Grosso. O estado deve produzir mais de 26 milhões de toneladas de milho e mais da metade já foi negociada pelos produtores.

Em uma fazenda que fica no município de Jaciara, a 142 km de Cuiabá, o plantio de milho foi finalizado no mês de março. Segundo o gerente da propriedade, Luís Antônio Huber, devido à…

[latikobe]

Semblanza de dos dictaduras

Fulgencio Batista y Fidel Castro (Collage CubaNet)

LA HABANA, Cuba. – La “dictablanda” batistiana y la dictadura de Fidel y Raúl Castro, comparadas con los demonios de la naturaleza, es como comparar un cicloncito categoría 1 con un huracán categoría 5, que aún nos azota y destruye al país.

La  primera pregunta que habría que hacerse para comentar estas dos dictaduras que han ocurrido en Cuba a partir de 1952, sería: ¿Fue Fidel Castro un hombre que respetó las leyes?

Luego basta analizar las efemérides de los años cincuenta del siglo pasado, para comprender cómo Fidel y Raúl se hicieron del poder  a punta de pistola  a lo largo de más de medio siglo.

Enero de 1952 se caracteriza porque comienza a funcionar en Cuba el Tribunal de Cuentas de la República, Fulgencio Batista participa en la Asamblea Nacional del Partido Acción Unitaria (PAU) y se abre el llamado “tercer frente” entre auténticos y ortodoxos.

Días antes de que el senador y expresidente se presentara en el Campamento de Columbia para dar un golpe de estado el 10 de marzo, La Habana estaba inmersa en acontecimientos gansteriles que pudieron haber influido en su ánimo: una bomba explota en la casa de los Gómez Mena, el yate  del Senador Vicente Tejera es destruido por el fuego, es asesinado un exministro por pistoleros en una cafetería y se realizan atentados a varias personalidades  y bufetes.

Unos días después del golpe militar de Batista, grupos de estudiantes universitarios revolucionarios se manifiestan en contra en las afueras  de la Universidad de La Habana, algo que se repite en días posteriores.  En un principio sólo gritaban “abajo el golpe” y “que viva nuestra Constitución”. Luego comenzaron a lanzar piedras hacia la Avenida San Lázaro y calle L del Vedado, gritando insultos contra Batista, hasta que por último se enfrentaron armados a la policía.

Como dato curioso, diremos que ese año la zafra azucarera sobrepasa los siete millones de toneladas y que en seis años había partido al exilio de Miami apenas 26 mil cubanos.

En la madrugada del 31 de diciembre de 1959, el dictador parte de Cuba definitivamente, consciente del clima de violencia que existía en el país, más la cifra de muertos.

Es importante destacar que en la prensa castrista y en los discursos de Fidel y Raúl, a lo largo de seis décadas, se ha repetido la cifra de los veinte mil muertos de Batista, creada y propagada por la Revista Bohemia en sus “Ediciones de la Libertad”, de enero de 1959.  En aquella ocasión se divulgaron los nombres de las víctimas.

Analizados esos nombres, se descubre que entre esos 600 están  los del Ataque al Cuartel Moncada, los asaltantes de Palacio, los del levantamiento del 5 de septiembre en Cienfuegos y otros.

Quedan fuera los centenares de muertos de la guerra que contabilizó el economista  Armando M. Lago, donde murieron 646 revolucionarios y 595 batistianos, mientras que la lucha urbana cobró el doble de vidas que en La Sierra Maestra. El total de muertes fue de 2 mil 741 cubanos.

Recientemente, la reconocida periodista castrista, Rosa Miriam Elizalde, mencionó esa cifra, añadiendo que  “la mayor parte eran víctimas escogidas al azar como escarmiento”, dando a entender la ineficacia de los organismos de investigación  especializados en  identificar a los terroristas.

Pero nunca ha escrito que, a partir de 1959,  en los primeros días de enero, Raúl Castro fusila a más de cien hombres a través de juicios sumarios, cuando aún no se había legalizado la pena capital, ni modificado la Constitución para ratificar 500 condenas a muerte por fusilamiento. Tampoco que hasta el 23 de diciembre de 1959 las ejecuciones habían alcanzado la cifra de 553 y se había sentenciado a 30 años de prisión al Comandante Huber Matos, quien cumplió íntegramente su condena.

Cuba llegó a tener en sus cárceles 150 mil presos políticos y que el número de fusilados, según cifras conservadoras, es de seis mil. El resultado de la dictadura castrista no puede ser peor y la diferencia entre una dictadura y otra es abismal.

  Fuentes consultadas:

Informes del Proyecto Registro de la memoria cubana, por  Armando M. Lago, doctor en Economía de la Universidad de Harvard.

¿Le dice algo el nombre de Esteban Ventura? , por Rosa Miriam Elizalde, Juventud Rebelde, 19 de mayo de 2019

Semblanza de dos dictaduras

[noticierouniversal-blog]

El contragolpe de Fidel Castro Cubanet

Fidel Castro haciendo su entrada a La Habana el 8 de enero de 1959. A su derecha Camilo Cienfuegos y a su izquierda Huber Matos (Corbis) LA HABANA, Cuba.- Corrían los meses finales de 1958 y los Rebeldes estaban muy lejos de ganar la guerra. El gobierno del dictador Fulgencio Batista seguía enviando grandes contingentes de tropas hacia la Sierra Maestra: diez mil hombres en 14 batallones,…

[un-gyvepress]

"a calzón quitao"

de Cristóbal Díaz Ayala

Dear Iván:

When in December of last year, I received the monumental gift of your book, as Christmastime makes me very depressed, and after reading the generous dedication that you wrote to me, I said to myself. better I keep this, to enjoy it after Christmas ... And so well I kept it, that I forgot the book .... and it is in September, when I check my books to protect them against Mary, the hurricane that visited us on the 20th of that month, and so I did. Well, as you know, Maria devastated Puerto Rico, I went to Miami where I spent almost a month, horrible, I returned to Borinquen, Puerto Rico, without electricity and other needs, and finally! I could taste your book ... Better said, your two books, because there are actually two books: One, dedicated to a subject that everyone enjoys, but very few deign to write about it: the album covers; There is very little written on the subject, and you, very cleverly, have let the covers speak for themselves. That theme haunts me since I saw, by the 40s, the first color covers, invented by Steinweiss, whom I had the pleasure of knowing, and try a little, many years later. The covers speak for themselves, and are the keys to open the chest of memories in our minds; no more, no less, they speak for themselves!

But we go with the other book: the one of your life, told from your heart, straight to the point, "a calzón quitao" (without pants on) as our Puerto Rican brothers say ...

We agree so much in musical taste, in appreciations, that it is incredible. Of course, you take me to an advantage, you're Cuban twice, because you were born in Cuba and specifically, in Santiago de Cuba ... You touch themes, which very few people know, such as, for example, that the East is the cradle of spiritualism in Cuba ... As a man of cinema, you have a cinematic memory, and your memories of Santiago de Cuba, are fascinating, and all your stories are also live stamps, that you seem to be seeing them, when you read them ...

You learn a lot from Cuba and the Cubans with your book; your anecdotes are full of happy and sad moments, well told and commented ... you remember and learn a lot from your many adventures and situations, especially during the revolutionary process against the Batista government, and even more, the illusions and disappointments with the fidelismo.

And the exile is coming, with your formidable cartoons about the NewYorkian environment. Equally accurate is your appreciation of the changes in Cuban music. But above all, it is the way, always pleasant, fresh and direct you have to narrate: you write from the heart, not the brain ...

You write me in the beautiful dedication that accompanies your book, "This book that I have been cultivating for a few years is a humble work, but created with a lot of love for our music, our history, our culture and our roots". I would say that more than humble, it is human, a quality that we are losing, but you, wisely, make us remember it.

Cristóbal Díaz Ayala

                                                     ✭

Querido Iván:

Cuando en diciembre del año pasado, recibí el monumental regalo de tu libro, como las Pascuas me deprimen mucho, y después de leer la generosa dedicatoria que me escribiste,  me dije. mejor guardo esto, para disfrutarlo después de las Pascuas.... Y tan bien lo guardé, que me olvidé del libro....y es en septiembre,  cuando reviso mis libros para protegerlos contra María, el ciclón que nos visitó el 20 de ese mes, y así lo hice. Bueno, como sabes María acabó con Puerto Rico, me fui a Miami donde pasé casi un mes, horrible, regresé a Borinquen,  sin electricidad y otras necesidades, y al fin! pude saborear tu libro...Mejor dicho, tus dos libros, porque hay en realidad dos libros: Uno, dedicado a un tema que todo el mundo disfruta, pero poquísimos se dignan a escribir sobre el: las portadas de los discos; Hay muy poco escrito sobre el tema, y tú, muy inteligentemente, haz dejado que las portadas hablen por sí mismas. Ese tema me persigue desde que ví, állá por los 40s, las primeras portadas en colores, inventadas por Steinweiss, a quien tuve el gusto de conocer, y tratar un poco, muchos años después. Las portadas hablan por sí mismas, y son las llaves para abrir el cofre de los recuerdos en nuestras mentes; ni mas, ni menos, hablan por sí solas!

Pero vamos con el otro libro: el de tu vida, contada desde tu corazón, "a calzón quitao" como dicen nuestros hermanos boricuas...

Coincidimos tanto en gusto musicales, en apreciaciones, que es increible. Claro, me llevas una ventaja, eres cubano por partida doble, porque naciste en Cuba y específicamente, en Santiago de Cuba... Tocas temas, que muy poca gente conoce, como por ejemplo, que Oriente es la cuna del espiritismo en Cuba... Como hombre del cine, tienes memoria cinematográfica, y tus recuerdos de la nochebuena santiaguera, son fascinantes, e igualmente todos tus relatos, son estampas vivas, que te parece estar viéndolas, cuando las lees...

Se aprende mucho de Cuba y los cubanos con tu libro; tus anécdotas están pletóricas  de momentos alegres y tristes, bien contadas y comentadas...se recuerda y aprende mucho de tus múltiples aventuras y situaciones, sobre todo durante el proceso revolucionario contra el gobierno batistianos, y más aún, las ilusiones y desengaños con el fidelismo.

Y viene el exilio, con tus viñetas formidables sobre el ambiente newyorquino. Igualmente es certera tu apreciación de los cambios  en la música cubana. Pero sobre todo, es la manera, siempre amena, fresca y directa que tienes de narrar: escribes desde el corazón, no del cerebro...

Me escribes en la hermosa dedicatoria que acompaña a tu libro, "Este libro que he venido cultivando por unos cuantos años. Es un trabajo humilde, pero creado con mucho amor a nuestra música, nuestra historia, nuestra cultura  y nuestras raíces". Yo diría que más que humilde, es humano, cualidad que estamos perdiendo, pero tu, sabiamente, nos hace recordarla.

Cristóbal Díaz Ayala

  Freddy, Fredesvinda García Valdés, also known as La Freddy, The Freddy, the Cuban Ella, a bolerista from the Camagüey Province of Cuba, the village of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, subject of the song in her name "Freddy" (Soy una mujer que canta / Para mitigar las penas / De las horas vividas y perdidas..... I am a woman who sings / To mitigate the pain / Of the hours lived and lost....) by Ela O'Farril, and inspiration for Guillermo Cabrera Infante's  Estrella Rodríguez in Tres tristes tigres.

LAS AVENIDAS RESTAURANT /                           EL RESTAURANTE LAS AVENIDAS

El restaurante Las Avenidas quedaba en los bajos de mi casa, ahora que nos habíamos mudado para la céntrica esquina donde convergen cuatro arterias principales: Ayesterán, Espada, Carlos III e Infanta. A unas ocho cuadras de allí se alzaba la infame prisión del Castillo del Príncipe, y a sólo cinco cuadras el periódico Revolución, órgano oficial del gobierno, que luego sería bautizado con el nombre de Granma. Por las tardes, después de regresar de la escuela, yo trabajaba de cajero en Las Avenidas. Aquél fue mi primer trabajo. Por su excelente cocina española, Las Avenidas había sido el lugar predilecto de muchos artistas y personalidades de la antigua sociedad habanera. Ahora lo era también de los líderes revolucionarios que se daban cita allí varias veces al mes para «socializar» y conversar mientras disfrutaban de los ricos manjares que el Chef Castellón les preparaba. Allí pude ver más de una vez al «máximo líder» y a su hermano, que venían a cenar; también, al Che Guevara; al carismático comandante Camilo Cienfuegos; al comandante Huber Matos, y a otros comandantes a quienes acompañaban sus respectivos cachanchanes. Una noche, entre cuentos y recuentos de la lucha armada, mientras todos reían, comían y bebían cual nuevos burgueses, alguien puso en la vitrola del restaurante un bolero del género musical conocido como filin. Lo interpretaba una cantante muy singular que al poco tiempo desaparecería para siempre del mapa musical cubano. Su nombre era simplemente Freddy. El recién nombrado jefe de la policía nacional revolucionaria, comandante Efigenio Ameijeiras, se paró sobre una silla, botella de Bacardí en la mano, como para decir algo muy importante. Borracho como una cuba, el comandante gritó a todo pecho: «¡Coño, compañeros! ¡Quiten esa mierda!» Se refería, claro está, a la bolerista. Enseguida uno de los ayudantes del restaurante cambió el disco por una pachanga de Pacho Alonso que repetía, una y otra vez: «Ya tú ves, a cualquiera se le muere un tío»—un título que recordaba que la adversidad podía estar a la vuelta de la esquina.

                                                 ✭

Las Avenidas restaurant was in the basement of my house, now that we had moved to the downtown corner where four main arteries converge: Ayesterán, Espada, Carlos III and Infanta. About eight blocks from there stood the infamous Castillo del Principe prison, and only five blocks the newspaper Revolución, official organ of the government, which would later be baptized with the name of Granma. In the afternoons, after school, I worked as a cashier at Las Avenidas. That was my first job. For its excellent Spanish cuisine, Las Avenidas had been the favorite place of many artists and personalities from the old Havana society. Now it was likewise for the revolutionary leaders that convened there several times a month to “socialize” and talk while enjoying the rich delicacies that Chef Castellón prepared for them. There, I saw more than once the Maximum Leader and his brother who came to dinner; also, Che Guevara; the charismatic Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos; Comandante Huber Matos, and other commanders who were accompanied by their respective cachanchanes. One night, between accounts and recounts of the armed struggle, while everyone laughed, ate and drank like new bourgeois, someone put a bolero on the restaurant Victrola, of the musical genre known as filin. It was performed by a very singular singer who soon would disappear forever from the Cuban musical map. Her name was simply Freddy. The newly appointed head of the National Revolutionary Police, Comandante Efigenio Ameijeiras, stood on a chair, a bottle of Bacardi in his hand, as if to say something very important. Drunk as a skunk, the commander shouted with whole heart: “¡Coño, compañeros! ¡Quiten esa mierda!” He was referring, of course, to la bolerista. Immediately, one of the restaurant workers changed the record to a pachanga from Pacho Alonso that repeated, again and again: “Ya tú ves, a cualquiera se le muere un tío” (you see now, a guy dies everyday)—a title that reminded that adversity could be just around the corner.

With a Cuban song in the heart

Con una canción cubana en el corazón

– Iván Acosta

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn’t know where north or south is. If you don’t eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you’re lost in a forest, not knowing anything. — Fidel Castro [Humans] make [their] own history, but [they] do not make it out of the whole cloth; [they] do not make it out of conditions chosen by [themselves], but out of such as [they] find close at hand. — Karl Marx The Epoch of Fidel Fidel Castro was one of the outstanding revolutionary leaders over the entire course of recorded world history. His astonishing and heroic life experiences are intertwined with the accomplishments, example, and practice of the Cuban Revolution that he was the central leader of. The political and personal integrity of Fidel Castro stood rock-solid in the face of decades of tremendous, unremitting pressures directed by the US government to destroy the Cuban Revolution (and him personally through murder). The skilled resistance Fidel personified at the head of the politically conscious, organized, and mobilized Cuban masses gave him the moral high ground over decades in the treacherous waters of world politics in the “Cold War” era and beyond. As I wrote in my October 9, 2017 essay “Our Che: 50 Years After His Execution“: … During the Fidel hate-fest produced by the US media oligopolies after his death, there were small demonstrations, in the hundreds at most, of “die-hard” longtime opponents of the Cuban Revolution – a clear minority today even among Cuban-Americans. The antecedents of these now fast-fading counter-revolutionary forces in 1962 filled the Orange Bowl football stadium in Miami to welcome the return to the United States of the captured mercenary invaders who were defeated at the so-called Bay of Pigs (Playa Giron in Cuba). That occurred after the Cuban revolutionary government exchanged them, well fed and in one piece – that is, never tortured – in exchange for medicines, after negotiations. The relatively tiny and politically insignificant anti-Fidel protests in 2017 Miami were endlessly repeated in incessant, loop coverage by the cable oligopolies, in a crude manipulation aimed at creating the impression that Fidel was a hated ‘dictator.’ Meanwhile, in Cuba, millions upon millions of Cubans, across every generation, lined the cities and countryside throughout the nation to pay respect and love for ‘the undefeated’ Fidel to his final resting place in Santiago de Cuba. The ashes of Fidel Castro on the way to Santiago de Cuba Fidel and the enduring example of the Cuban Revolution consumed the US ruling class with an unrelenting scorn and hatred. They seethed at the sheer effrontery of the Cuban revolutionaries carrying out a socialist revolution in the interests of the working class, the peasantry, and the oppressed, that is, in the interests of the vast majority of the Cuban people. This is the case, notwithstanding the mass migrations encouraged – and uniquely expedited legally to the United States – by Washington for decades. This reached 7-10% of the Cuban population, resulting in a kind of Cuban diaspora. This self-exiling was centered initially on the Batista-era police, army, and gangster personnel, followed by the Cuban ex-bourgeoisie and owners of expropriated latifundia, and, finally, as the political confrontation between revolutionary Cuba and the United States government intensely sharpened, quickly came to include broad layers (but by no means all) in the Cuban professional and middle classes, a relatively affluent small minority. For example, some 3,000 out of the 6,000 doctors in Cuba before the Revolution emigrated from Cuba to the United States in this period. Most Cuban workers and peasants rarely, if ever, saw a doctor their entire lives in “the good old days” when median life expectancy in Cuba was 52 (it’s now 78). For many years now, the island has produced some 10,000 Cuban doctors a year and, at the Latin American School of Medicine, the largest medical school in the world, has trained, free of charge, tens of thousands of doctors from all over the world who are now practicing in working-class and impoverished communities in their countries. Similar comparisons can be made for all other contemporary Cuban professions. The special venom and hatred preserved for Fidel Castro by Washington and Wall Street, by all the representatives and spokespeople of world capitalism and imperialism, was, of course, a badge of honor for the Cuban revolutionary. Certainly, the once powerful virtual industry of anti-Castro misinformation and propaganda has been politically defeated worldwide. But it has resources and lingers on in the continued, weakened US anti-Cuba policy of economic war and political hostility, and in the renewed efforts by the Donald Trump White House to pressure and threaten socialist Cuba, following the establishment of formal Washington-Havana diplomatic relations in 2015. Of course, genuine social and people’s revolutions, such as the Cuban Revolution, inevitably generate bitter hatreds and resentments from the overthrown and vanquished ruling classes. The special hatred of the overturned Cuban ruling classes, allied with Washington and defeated in the course of the Cuban Revolution, toward Fidel, the personification of their social and political vanquishers, is of a piece with how the representatives and beneficiaries of the Confederate slavocracy in their era – and their dwindling band of political heirs, to this day – felt about Abraham Lincoln, William Tecumseh Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, and others, not to speak of revolutionary abolitionists like John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, and Harriet Tubman.1 Fidel after laying a wreath at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC in 1959. The fact is that Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution successfully and heroically, under the banner of revolutionary socialism, defied the US government diktat. At the time, this was unique in US-Latin American relations. This in an era of full-spectrum US economic, financial, military, and political dominance across the Americas. This was seen by successive US White Houses and Congresses as an utter and unacceptable affront. Rampant CIA (always under the direction of the Executive Branch of the US government) disinformation and misinformation campaigns – perhaps the classic “fake news” model – began in the 1960s in response to the Cuban Revolution and its successful development and world resonance. This is factually unassailable and has long been part of the public record from released, once “classified” documents. Two books that document covert US anti-Cuban subversive campaigns. Washington’s Factories of Fabrication There were, in fact, (now known in detail from then-secret government documents released under the US Freedom of Information Act), major US government operations, with significant assigned personnel and large budgets, employed specifically to disseminate disinformation and misinformation, that is false information with the deliberate intention to deceive, about the actual reality and facts of the Cuban Revolution and its leadership. This was a classic “fake news” model. Many millions of dollars, employing no doubt hundreds of personnel directly and indirectly – were spent on so-called “psychological-warfare operations” (psy-ops) to spread lies – about revolutionary Cuba in the form of gossip, innuendo, and rumors made up out of whole cloth, on the theory, I suppose, that if you throw enough bullshit against a wall, some is bound to stick. The modus operandi in the CIA’s factories of falsification were the spreading of conspiracy theories, fabricated to cause confusion and, hopefully, cause divisions and splits in the revolutionary leadership. Among the most notorious lies spread far and wide concerned two of the Cuban Revolution’s most revered revolutionary heroes and martyrs, Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto Che Guevara. Camilo Cienfuegos and Fidel Castro Revolutionary hero Camilo Cienfuegos didn’t really die in a plane crash after a mission to counter anti-revolutionary activity centered around Huber Matos in Camaguey, but was actually killed by Fidel Castro, who was “threatened” and “feared” Camilo’s popularity. (Matos, an icon of counter-revolutionary exiles for years, was sentenced and incarcerated for 20 years for sedition and treason, that is, collaboration with US government agencies in the period leading up to the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion. Camilo Cienfuegos was dispatched to relieve Matos of his military command and arrest him and his top adjutants. Matos was one of a relative handful of revolutionary combatants in M-26-J who opposed the radicalization of the Revolution in a socialist direction, politically split from the Movement, and went over to the side of US subversion and intervention.) Fidel Castro and Che Guevara Another particularly notorious example of such CIA “psychological operations” was the worldwide effort to plant false stories in big-business and other media outlets, about a supposed falling out and political rupture between Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Che Guevara did not really go out of public view to organize anti-imperialist struggles in Africa and Latin America, but was actually imprisoned and even killed by Fidel Castro. (When that Big Lie was no longer operative, a new mendacity was promoted that Fidel refused to “rescue” Che in Bolivia and “allowed” him to die, still peddled to this day.) This was during a period in 1965-66 where Che, with the full moral and political support of Fidel and the central Cuban communist leadership, had disappeared from public view and was preparing and organizing revolutionary armed struggles in first the Congo, and then Bolivia. Such efforts by US intelligence agencies over the years were, of course, accompanied, and complemented by, more direct, material attempts – hundreds of times in documented fact – to assassinate Fidel Castro and other popular leaders of the Revolution and the Cuban government and other repeated acts of terrorism and economic sabotage. The ”Dictator” Commitment to overturning the revolutionary government led by Fidel Castro in Cuba was never, for over five decades, a source of serious division between the Democratic and Republican parties ruling in Washington. The Fidel Castro government was caricatured and slurred as a personal dictatorship in Cold War propaganda, as well as a puppet and client of the Soviet Union. The most common presentation and image of Fidel Castro in these circles was that of a “bellicose” and “unaccountable” dictator. The more “moderate” version, which, more or less, acknowledges the big social and human advances of the Cuban Revolution and its record, unmatched in this world, of international solidarity, presents a “benevolent” dictator (whose absence would surely be the end of Cuban socialism). Contrary to this boilerplate of anti-Castro propaganda, perhaps Fidel Castro’s most distinct leadership quality was how he continually, in the most difficult and challenging circumstances, before, during, and for decades after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, was his skill, ability, and political perspective to forge teams of outstanding individuals, the opposite of “yes-men,” toadies, and sycophants. There has never been anything in Cuba remotely resembling a state-fostered Stalin- or Mao-like “cult of personality” around Fidel. Just the opposite, laws were enforced keeping his name, and any other living leader, off public sites such as statues and streets. Raul Castro, in his moving tribute to Fidel on December 3, 2016, said, “Fidel was always against the cult of personality until his dying days. He was consistent with that attitude, insisting that after his death his name and figure never be used to name plazas, avenues, streets, and other public places, as well as the building of statues.” The Cuban National Assembly has passed a law implementing Fidel’s wish. The reality was that Fidel Castro was never any kind of personal dictator with the inclination, desire, or power to rule arbitrarily. Undoubtedly Fidel Castro had great political authority and personal popularity. Nevertheless, one of Fidel Castro’s greatest strengths and characteristics as a revolutionary and a leader was his ability to foster and develop united team leadership based on ideas, program, and revolutionary ethics. To forge inclusive and collaborative teams of revolutionary fighters, men and women, of Spanish, African, and other national origins, and from different social and class backgrounds. This was the case not only during the revolutionary struggle for power, but over decades in the face of all the enormous challenges and threats from a resentful imperial ex-overlord ninety miles away during the Cold War. These disciplined and revolutionary teams navigating the treacherous waters of that tumultuous era in world politics. Revolutionary fighters such as Ricardo Alarcon, Juan Almeida, Raul Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, Victor Dreke, Vilma Espin, Ernesto Che Guevara, Armando Hart, Melba Hernandez, Jose Ramon Machado, Frank Pais, Manuel Pinero, Jorge Risquet, Raul Roa, Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Ramiro Valdes, Harry Villegos, and countless others who were the remarkable individual products of the struggle for the Cuban Revolution, its defense, and its revolutionary internationalism around the world. Such individual human material, capable of organizing, leading, and sustaining a mass revolutionary struggle for power, has to have within themselves the discipline, sacrifice, creative thinking, tactical savvy, culture, and humanity that are the opposite of sycophants and toadies. At any rate it is ludicrous beyond even the most primitive logic to think that “one-man rule” (as Hillary Clinton once described the Cuban government led by Fidel) could have survived the unremitting onslaught of US imperialism – the most powerful economic and military counter-revolutionary machine in world history – for nearly 60 years. Actually, all of the truly bloody right-wing military and family dictatorships that Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean endured throughout the 20th Century – from Batista’s Cuba to Somoza’s Nicaragua to Pinochet’s Chile, from Guatemala to Haiti to Uruguay to Argentina — were sustained, supported, and armed by Washington. This era of US domination peaked during the era of “Operation Condor,” from the mid-1970s, where Washington and its ultrarightist military partners in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay ran death squads and other terrorist operations against working-class, peasant, democratic, and revolutionary forces across the Americas. In those terrible years, “totalitarian” “Communist” Cuba was perhaps the major force in the Hemisphere that was actively promoting grass-roots struggle to restore democratic rights and space in Latin America and fight for social justice. This goes a long way to explaining the broad contempt and derision held for US anti-Cuba policy across the Americas.2 Under the leadership of this popular revolutionary team, with the indefatigable Fidel as the central spokesperson and holding great political authority, Cuba forged an infant revolutionary government stamped by the interests, social dominance, and political authority of workers and farmers. This translated socially and politically to concrete measures and progressive policies, backed by mass mobilizations and assemblies of Cuban working people and the clear, large majority of the Cuban population. These policies included: radical land reform; massive youth-led drives that succeeded in eradicating illiteracy; the legal obliteration of race discrimination and historic advances for Afro-Cubans; the self-organization of Cuban women into the Federation of Cuban Women and truly remarkable in policies and practices promoting women’s rights and equality; the massive expansion of trade unions and workers control and management of industry; and the establishment of free, high-quality health care and education for all Cubans. All of this was in the interests of, and with the participation of, the large majority of Cuban society. Counter-revolutionary organizations grew up that became aligned to the US government and acted under its general political direction. Like all great revolutionary transformations and overturns in history, the Cuban Revolution became marked by profound social and class – and thereby political – polarization. There never has been, and never will be a genuine people’s revolution – overturning the existing social and political order – that does not, by definition, impose its authority on the defeated classes.3 The Main Source of Fidel’s Legacies Fidel Castro was a great humanitarian, one of the world’s great promoters of universal health care and universal access to quality education. He inspired and led the organization of an amazing legacy of Cuban medical internationalism and relief and aid for peoples devastated by hurricanes, earthquakes, and other so-called “natural disasters.” All of this has gained near-universal recognition and love. Fidel Castro led some of the greatest advances in the fight against racism and white supremacy and the oppression of women for any nation-state in world history. Fidel Castro had a mastery of the strategy and tactics, the art, of revolutionary politics. But this was never not some abstract Machiavellian skill-set in intrigue, as portrayed in literature and drama from time immemorial. Fidel Castro was a world-historic military figure and commander. This aspect of his legacy is often ignored or downplayed in the “democratic West.” But the truth is that Fidel was at the center of two distinct, major, world-impacting military campaigns: the 1956-1958 Cuban revolutionary war and the war with apartheid South Africa from 1976-1990 in Angola and southern Africa. In both cases Fidel stands out as a practitioner of military science and the logistics, organization, strategy, and tactics that were tested and led to clear victory. In both cases Fidel was fighting forces backed clearly, albeit covertly, by the United States government. These were two world-changing events with a decisive military component. Both unfolded under the military command of Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro also became, as head of state, a skilled and savvy “statesman” and negotiator who advanced and expanded Cuba’s diplomatic ties and relations on a world scale in the face of the US blockade, as well as in Cuba’s highly complex relations with both enemies, allies, and friends. Picking up steam in the 1980s and 1990s Cuban diplomacy eventually established diplomatic relations with every country in the western Hemisphere, Washington being the last holdout until 2015 under the Barack Obama administration. Fidel had an important political part in breaking open negotiations that led to cease-fires and an eventual end to decades of armed conflicts and war in Colombia. Fidel Castro had great oratorical and literary skills. He communicated largely through speeches. These may have been famous, generally, for their length, and were thus easily and cheaply caricatured by his opponents as a way to avoid dealing with their content. I have had the personal privilege and excitement of witnessing a dozen or so speeches by Fidel Castro, short, long, and very long (up to six hours), in both massive and much smaller settings. While sometimes exhausted and straining to concentrate, I was never bored. Fidel’s speeches, especially addresses to the Cuban people, registered the candor and transparency of familiarity, taking up the social, economic, international, and other challenges facing Cuba. Fidel’s speeches were full of statistics and empirical data, quotes from studies, news accounts, books, political opponents word-for-word, and international press agencies. But they were also filled with big ideas, razor-sharp analysis, political acuity, and philosophical depth. Fidel sometimes found it hard to resist imparting any and every important fact, document, or statistic to his audience. How his clearly “photographic memory” could even retain ten percent of them all (as he generally spoke with few notes, and, of course, without a teleprompter) was beyond my wildest ability to understand. All of this without a trace of the racist, “populist,” megalomaniacal bombast associated with the most effective fascist demagogues like Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler. Fidel often said his style was not to impose his ideas but to convince.  In the early years of the Revolution Fidel’s speeches explaining to Cubans the historic roots of racist discrimination and the oppression of women and the revolutionary government’s policies are master classes in this method.4 In his speeches to mass rallies, workplaces, large and very small communities, revolutionary international gatherings, and in historic speeches to the United Nations General Assembly, Fidel retained an unsurpassed ability to break down and communicate big ideas and history. This rational and fact-based mastery of the spoken word undoubtedly places Fidel Castro in the pantheon of great orators in contemporary history. (See a comprehensive archive of Fidel’s speeches here.) Fidel’s Marxism Any of these specific accomplishments stand out on their own.  Any one by itself would mark an exceptional life. Taken together, looking at Fidel’s life and practice as a whole, they all flowed from Fidel’s embrace of socialism and Marxism as a coherent world outlook and guide to revolutionary action, as he understood it and further developed it, in the course of the Cuban revolutionary struggle. Fidel fought his entire conscious political life under that banner.  Moreover, Fidel’s works – written and spoken – made a great contribution to the development of Marxism and socialism, in theory and practice. Fidel’s life underlines the truth of Lenin’s political and organizational perspective that ‘’without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.” Influenced by revolutionary democratic, socialist, and Marxist ideas and theories as a young, rebellious man, already familiar with the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, he embraced, assimilated, and developed the dialectical and materialist world outlook and methodology. Fidel defended the Marxist method and the integrated philosophical world outlook of dialectical and historical materialism. And yet Fidel Castro, the staunch communist and materialist-atheist, inspired and was embraced by countless Christians, Muslims, Jews and believers of every denomination and creed. Of course, as with everything else about the “polarizing” Fidel this was usually – but not mechanically or uniformly – expressed along class lines. (See the brilliant dialogue between Fidel and the Christian Liberation Theologist Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo, known as Frei Betto, in the best-selling, widely translated Fidel and Religion (Ocean Press, 2006).5 Proletarian Internationalism All of us are products of the space and times we live in, but Fidel, to an extraordinary degree, also shaped his times, the times of an entire epoch. Fidel’s impact was not in the interests of the oppressors and exploiters, the colonial masters and white supremacists; the imperialist warmongers out for markets and loot; and the ruling-class beneficiaries of grotesque inequality, racism, and misogyny. His life, and the historical impact of his life, was dedicated to the interests of toiling humanity, of workers and peasants, of oppressed nations and nationalities, of women ground down by unspeakable subjugation and “tradition.” Fidel Castro was the ally and champion of all who fought for social justice, for human progress and a better world, and for the revolutionary transformation of the capitalist world order and its inhuman social relations. Fidel practiced international solidarity decade after decade, under always changing objective circumstances in the world, and often under conditions of great difficulty and danger for revolutionary Cuba.  He embodied what the Marxist movement had once termed proletarian internationalism. Fidel and the Cuban Revolution’s legacy of international solidarity remains the anchor of Cuba’s foreign policy to this day. For Fidel and the young Cuban revolutionaries he was part of and led, this was not a hollow, ritual phrase, something to give lip service to only to contradict in practice, but a genuine belief and a genuine practice. In 1976 Cuba sent volunteer revolutionary combatants to the front-line of newly independent Angola to beat back the invading behemoth of the South African apartheid state (covertly backed by Washington). In 2014 Cuba rushed doctors and medical personnel to West Africa in what became the decisive turning point in containing and overcoming the 2014-15 Ebola epidemic. Marx and Engels Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the founders of scientific socialism, gave, as theoreticians, activists, and political leaders, a tremendous impulse and dynamic to the modern workers movement in the late 19th Century and beyond to this day. But, of course, neither revolutionary wielded governmental or state power, although they both, as leaders of the International Working Men’s Association, keenly observed and drew the lessons from the 1871 Paris Commune – following the unfolding Franco-Prussian War which exploded in the heart of Europe – the first seizure of governmental power by a mass working-class and popular movement. Marx and Engels Furthermore, both Marx and Engels died at the dawn of the qualitative leaps in the development of 19th Century capitalism. Their prescient writing on the development of British imperialism in their lifetimes anticipated, but did not directly experience, the qualitative, epochal transformation of world capitalism into 20th Century nationally-based, monopolized, and oligarchic finance capitalism. And the concurrent revival of direct imperialist expansion out of the rapidly industrializing capitalist centers and a massive overproduction of capital searching for raw materials, cheap labor, new markets to conquer and subordinate, and super-profits. Colonial Empires were spawned in the United Kingdom, France, and much of the rest of Western Europe; e.g., Belgium in the Congo, the Netherlands in Indonesia, and so on. German colonialism was late to the European enterprise and the United States entered the “Age of Empire” signaled and accelerated by the 1898 Spanish-American War. This directly impacted on the burning question of Cuban independence and sovereignty, as the colonial rule in Cuba of the pre-capitalist fraying and hollowed-out Spanish Empire disintegrated, and was displaced by US neo-colonialism and decades of yanqui economic and political domination. The 20th Century Latin American political arena which was characterized by a state of, more or less, permanent political turmoil and intensifying class struggle under conditions of massive poverty and social inequality, that was interlocked with foreign, mainly US, economic and political domination. Since the 1898 Spanish-American War, which marked the origins of the modern American Empire, Washington engaged in frequent overt and covert violent invasions, interventions, and subversion across the Americas, over the subsequent decades. (For a comprehensive list of US interventions in the Americas since 1898 click here.) Lenin Vladimir Lenin V.I. Lenin, the central leader of the November 7, 1917 Russian Revolution, and the Communist International founded in 1919, died in January 1924, at the age of 55, as the Soviet workers state he led, was beginning to recover from the utter devastation of the 1918-22 Civil War. This was an exceedingly brutal war, coming directly on top of the carnage of World War I, starting in 1914 on the Eastern-Russian front. Millions upon millions of dead and brutalized. The Civil War pitted conservative and reactionary forces from the overthrown ruling classes – with liberal and “moderate socialist” forces forming at the end of the anti-Bolshevik line – aiming to crush the new revolutionary power.  These fragmented forces, without any agreed social or military policies between them, gained strength as they were soon backed up, armed, and otherwise supported by the allied major powers; e.g., Great Britain, France, and the United States, who were still, but not for much longer, furiously engaging in the World War I bloodbath. These forces were beyond livid that Lenin’s government had withdrawn Russia from the war and called for the immediate end, on all sides, to what they accurately termed an imperialist war. The Bolshevik-led government dispatched People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Leon Trotsky to negotiate with the German imperialists in the name of the Russian state they now headed, and which was still formally at war with Germany and its allies (and losing badly to). Adding insult to injury, in what was a huge political blow and embarrassment, Trotsky was authorized to publicly release the secret protocols between the overthrown Tsarist Monarchy (and the “Provisional Government” which followed it) and the European military powers. These released documents were politically explosive as they exposed the expansionist, aggrandizing, and colonial aims of the warring imperialist powers. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution accelerated and deepened the growth of global mass anti-war sentiment and action, including among soldiers. With the – totally intertwined politically with the Bolshevik Revolution – outbreak of anti-war and revolutionary struggle inside Germany in 1918, and the political collapse of its war effort, the political imperative to end the inter-imperialist slaughterhouse became inevitable, and an armistice was signed in November 1918. The thus victorious – if exhausted and facing political turmoil and instability at home – British, French, and US “Allied Powers” hardly lost a beat and stepped up military attacks and intervention against the Bolshevik government. Eventually well over a dozen other major or lesser powers directly intervened on Russian territory, joining in the cause to overthrow Lenin’s government, fighting in conjunction with the so-called “White Army.” This greatly added to the length and ferocity of the Civil War.6 Lenin’s revolutionary government was under siege from practically the moment it took power through the mass organizations of elected workers, soldiers, and poor peasant councils (soviets) in November 1917. There was hardly any period of time while Lenin was alive that his revolutionary government could lose its focus on defeating the imperialist-backed counterrevolution. When Lenin died in January, 1924, his actual political legacy became practically buried inside the Soviet Union by the massive impoverishment and military bleeding of Russian society over the entire period. The subsequent political developments in the battered Soviet Union after Lenin’s death, and the consolidation of governmental power under Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s and early 1930s, led to the eventual physical elimination of the entire generation of revolutionaries, including virtually the entire Red Army leadership, identified with Lenin, from 1936-1938. Conservative figures for the Stalinist purges start with over 100,000 Communists executed. And yet another false, endlessly repeated, assertion and narrative is that Stalinism was the continuation of Leninism when the two were actually antithetical. As I will return to below, opponents and propagandists against the Cuban Revolution, including those positioning themselves on the left, have generally tried to smear Fidel Castro and the Revolution itself as “Stalinist.” (For Fidel’s actual views on Stalin and Stalinism, see the last sections of this essay.) The Longevity of Fidel In Fidel’s political lifetime, peers such as Malcolm X, Maurice Bishop, and Thomas Sankara also emerged as outstanding revolutionary leaders. Malcolm X was a strong supporter of the Cuban Revolution. More and more consciously in the last two years of his life, following his split from Elijah Muhammed’s Nation of Islam, Malcolm X had started to embrace anti-capitalist and socialist views when he was murdered in February 1965. (See my essay “To the Memory of Malcolm X: Fifty Years After His Assassination“.) Maurice Bishop led the 1979 Grenadian Revolution and Thomas Sankara led a revolutionary popular government from 1983-87 in Burkina Faso. Both were conscious revolutionary Marxists who briefly wielded central governmental and state power. Maurice Bishop was overthrown and murdered in a coup by counter-revolutionary secret factions in the government and state led by Bernard Coard. Thomas Sankara  was overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by Minister of State Blaise Compaore, with covert support from the French state, in October 1987. The brutality, terror, and chaos from Coard’s counter-revolutionary coup became the pretext for the Ronald Reagan Administration to invade and occupy Grenada and dispatch Coard’s hated regime. Cuban construction workers, who were working on the unfinished, renamed in 2009 Maurice Bishop International Airport, resisted the US invasion. Fidel Castro was furious at the anti-Bishop coup and Maurice Bishop’s murder along with seven of his leading comrades from the New Jewel Movement-led revolutionary government that lay destroyed. Compaore managed to consolidate a repressive and regressive regime, under the cover of a series of rigged elections, that lasted 27 years. He was forced to resign in October 2014 after a sustained mass uprising, fleeing to the Ivory Coast. Maurice Bishop was 39 and Thomas Sankara was 37 when they were executed. Fidel and Malcolm X Fidel and Maurice Bishop Fidel and Thomas Sankara Ernest Che Guevara, born in Argentina and of Irish heritage, was recruited to Fidel Castro’s July 26 Movement as the guerrilla army’s doctor in Mexico in 1956. In the Cuban revolutionary war, Che became a top military commander and led the decisive Battle of Santa Clara that opened the road to the collapse of the Batista regime and the triumphant march of Fidel into Havana.  Che left Cuba in 1965 to organize revolutionary internationalist missions in the Congo and then Bolivia, fully backed by Fidel and the Cuban government. Che was executed after his capture in Bolivia in October 1967 at the age of 39. (See my essay Our Che: Fifty Years After His Execution.) Che Guevara Fidel survived and carried on. His example is bound to be a permanent, weighty, and material political force for future generations and time immemorial. Fidel’s example is certain to be continually renewed and embraced again and again by new generations of social-justice fighters and revolutionaries. Without exaggeration or illusion, this is politically true also in the United States, where accurate information about Cuba is available and disseminated, and where there is clear and large majority opposition to continuing US economic and travel sanctions. There is also a growing layer of Americans who are politically sympathetic to the Cuban Revolution and its social and internationalist policies, as they hear even some of the truth. Many hundreds of thousands of US citizens and legal residents have visited the island over the decades and especially in recent years, and seen its reality with all its strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and contradictions, which the Cuban people and government disdain to ignore or sweep under the rug.7 Unintended Consequences of World War II An entire epoch of anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggle was ushered in by the titanic consequences and dynamics of World War II and the post-war era. A new world relationship of forces was consolidated “geopolitically” in the post-war “Cold War” period. There was a shift in the gravitational forces of revolutionary struggles towards colonial independence struggles which became intertwined with class struggles in the advanced capitalist-imperialist states. Coming seemingly out of the blue, less than fifteen years after the end of World War II, the Cuban Revolution entered the world as the dust was starting to settle from the consequences of the post-World War II. These consequences, intended and unintended, included: 1) The decline and displacement of the British, French, and other European colonial Empires. These had been, more or less, maintained up until World War II but were now completely upturned by the actual unfolding of events during and after the war. 2) The rise of US imperialism, which displaced the European powers militarily, economically, financially, and politically in world capitalist economic and military structures. This registered the relative dominance of US capital in the post-war capitalist order. US capitalism boomed during the war, which was not fought on continental US soil. In heavy and industry, manufacturing, finance, and living standards, US capitalism dwarfed its capitalist rivals. 3) The rise of the Soviet Union – its survival and geographic and political expansion – followed its utterly heroic victory over Nazi Germany at an exceeding bloody price in the largest bloodbath in human history on the World War II Eastern Front. The Soviet government and Red Army went from the cusp of annihilation in the opening five months of Hitler’s invasion with the Nazi war machine advancing on Moscow in late 1941 to the conquering of Berlin in April 1945.  This gave a new lease on life and great political prestige to the Stalin-led Soviet Union and the “world Communist movement,” despite gross political errors and crimes (a point I will return to). In Europe, Communist Parties in a number of countries such as Yugoslavia, Italy, France, and Greece became mass parties leading broad military formations and where they were leading forces in largely working class and popular anti-Nazi resistance movements. A people’s revolution became a socialist revolution in Yugoslavia. Communist Parties in France and Italy for many years after got up to 40% of the vote in national parliamentary elections. Revolution in Asia Japan was the most advanced, industrialized capitalist economy in all of Asia and had secured its colonial rule in a territorially united Korea from 1905-10. A brutal, militarized Japanese imperialism struggled mightily to displace European colonial rule with its own in the World War II period.  That war era in the entire Asian Continental and Pacific Rim, South Asia, and southeastern Asia began militarily years sooner than the September 1, 1939 German-Nazi invasion of Poland. Imperial Japan’s 1931 invasion and occupation of Chinese Manchuria deepened in 1937 into full-scale Japanese anti-China aggression. This was ineffectively countered by the Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-chek. After the Japanese government decided to bomb the US territory and major naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 1941 the so-called “Pacific Theater” became a bloody back-and-forth war between the established colonial powers and the ambitious Empire-building and consolidating (or so they hoped) Japanese imperialist aggressors, who became allied with Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and other Axis forces. The main unintended consequence of World War II in Asia was that the violent and bloody conflict between imperialist powers created space for independence and national liberation struggles. Invariably the most consistent and courageous independent fighters were influenced by, and many embraced, left-wing, socialist, and communist world outlooks, looking to the oppressed masses, workers and peasants, as the primary force to deliver national salvation. The war and the erosion of the colonial empires accelerated an unstoppable dynamic toward national sovereignty and independence. In particular, the Chinese and Vietnamese Revolutions, led by liberation forces and leaderships identifying themselves as Communist, such as Mao Zedong and Zhu De in China and Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap in Vietnam, had a worldwide political impact and influence. This was certainly the case with Fidel Castro’s generation of revolutionary-minded patriotic youth in Cuba and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, including Ernesto Guevara in Argentina, all living under the dominance of the US behemoth in the Western Hemisphere. This domination of US capital and US power in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America generally took different forms than direct colonial rule on the European model. Fidel Castro devoured these world events as he came of age in exactly this mid-20th Century vortex of history growing up as a teenager, student, and young adult on the island of Cuba in the center of the Caribbean. Fidel developed a political consciousness and identity that was forged, in its essential core, out of the global colonial independence and national liberation struggles. Fidel and the Historical Moment The Cuban Revolution took place in a Western Hemisphere firmly in the “sphere of influence” of Washington and US capital. Cuba found itself at the center of the Cold War. The Cuban Revolution ushered out the 1950s period: from the Korean War and its stalemated end; the 1953 death of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khruschev’s “de-Stalinization; the 1954 Vietnamese victory over French imperialism at Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords imposed on the Vietnamese; the 1956 British-French-Israel Suez War with Egypt; the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary; and the late-Eisenhower era abortive thaw and détente of US-Soviet relations. In any case, immediately upon the seizure of power, the Cuban revolutionaries began to establish fraternal, internationalist links with anti-imperialist fighters worldwide. But Fidel and the other young revolutionary fighters around the July 26 Movement also looked to and had an independent political (and sympathetic) stance toward the legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, augmented by their total embrace of the 1949 Chinese Revolution and the Ho Chi Minh-led national liberation movement in Vietnam. Cuba was the first Latin American nation to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1960. Volatility and Permanent Crisis in Today’s Capitalist World Order Today’s volatile political world – over 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact-allied governments – is increasingly marked by an accelerating unraveling of that great post-World War II capitalist world order, politically dominated by US military and economic power and a so-called “socialist camp” centered on the Soviet Union, that was also a world military power. Nevertheless, the old, fraying world structures still stamps the framework of world economics, finance, politics, and social relations towards the end of the second decade of the Twenty-First Century. What has been developing, with accumulating force again today, ten years after the financial crash and near-meltdown of the so-called “Great Recession” of 2007-08, is the relative erosion and decline of US economic, financial, and political power, and Washington’s overall weight in world politics and “global affairs” today. This has been unfolding objectively over a number of years, in this still-young 21st Century. This political reality has been much lamented by Democratic and Republican party establishments, and has deepened political divergences and factionalism within, across, and between both big-business parties. This has been deepening in the opening period of the Donald Trump White House. (As the US rulers wring their hands over whether Trump is accelerating this erosion and decline with his impulsive methods and demagogy in the US and internationally, I cannot recall, in my lifetime, such a joint crisis within both capitalist parties, and the lesser-evil, two-party oligarchy.) In this context, revolutionary Cuba today – and this is the living legacy of Fidel – has become, in word and deed, the leading voice for working people and oppressed nations and peoples in every tribune at hand in today’s world.  In the worldwide Battle of Ideas that Fidel stressed continually in his last years, the Cuban Revolution is the living, resonant, politically attractive socialist alternative to today’s capitalist world disorder with its grotesque inequality and permanent fueling of war. Understanding this is the opposite of any residual 1960s or ancient Cold War-era nostalgia. Before the Revolution: Fidel the Activist and Organizer Fidel Castro, the offspring of a Spanish-immigrant who became a prosperous landowner, entered political life as a student activist at the University of Havana. He set up a law practice under permanent financial stress insofar as his clients were invariably poor and destitute working people facing the daily blows and rigged social relations of the Cuban neo-colonial state. And he could never bring himself to charge them.8 Fidel remained true to his rebel student youth in this period. He deepened his youthful convictions and principles through theoretical and political study, with and was active in, the multi-class Orthodox People’s Party founded and led by Eduardo Chibas in 1947. That party put the fight against the corruption that enveloped Cuban politics and economics at its center and projected what could be termed a left-wing “populist” program for the promotion of a Cuban identity, economic independence, and social reforms. (See Ramonet p. 83-88 for Fidel’s assessment of the Ortodoxos and the other middle-class political tendencies.) The late-1940s and early 1950s was a rich period in Cuban politics in general, and student and youth politics in particular. Revolutionary ideas were in the air, transmitted through such figures as the revolutionary socialist martyrs Julio Antonio Mella and Antonio Guiteras. This was a period of mounting social and political crisis in Cuba leading up to the 1952 military coup that installed Fulgencio Batista in power. Fidel entered into this with all his heart and soul and brain. “I began to acquire a more radical political awareness, and I was learning more and more about Marx and Lenin. I was reading Engels and other authors and works on economics and philosophy, but mainly political works – the political ideas, the political theories of Marx.” (See Ramonet, p. 89-90.) The seizure of power by military forces led by Fulgencio Batista on March 10, 1952 abrogated the 1940 Cuban Constitution, a relatively progressive document that incorporated land reform, health care, public education, and a minimum wage. The 1940 Constitution was itself inspired by the 1933-34 mass struggles of workers and youth and the political upheavals that followed the collapse of the repressive regime of Gerardo Machado. Batista, a prominent military figure, had emerged from the turmoil and political instability of the “1933 Revolution” as the dominant figure in the Cuban state across a series of “elected” weak and corrupt regimes. Batista managed to get himself directly elected President during World War II from 1940-44, posing as a progressive in the “anti-fascist world camp.” Cuban Communists, renamed the Popular Socialist Party (PSP) in 1944, actually joined the Batista Cabinet, taking two ministerial posts in those years. This became an important factor in the development of the July 26 Movement as an independent revolutionary formation in the period that opened up after the Batista coup.9 During this time Batista accumulated a tidy fortune, living it up in south Florida after his single term allowed under the Constitution ended. Facing certain defeat in the 1952 election he was contesting, Batista orchestrated the military coup which was backed by Washington, the real power in the Cuban neo-colony. Batista’s coup accelerated the political and social crisis in Cuba, as he moved to consolidate an exceedingly venal and repressive regime. Batista’s government allied itself with top US organized-crime mafias, promoting a tourism based on promoting Cuba’s island beauty and beaches with casino gambling and prostitution on a grand scale. The period is captured with great artistry and verisimilitude in the classic Francis Coppola film The Godfather Part II. The dictatorship allied with the most reactionary sectors of Cuban society, and with the US organized crime families and gangster enterprises that had become a key component of Havana and Cuba’s economic and commercial activity. Even as the Batista government became more unpopular and more hated by the year, it necessarily became even more dependent on, subservient to, and propped up by Washington, then under the Republican Dwight Eisenhower Administration, with Democratic Party control of both the US House of Representatives and Senate. The support for Batista was solid and bipartisan, if increasingly anxious, in Washington right up to the collapse of the regime.10 Under the conditions of Batista’s deeply unpopular regime, there sprung up a plethora of competing factions, student and left-wing radicals, the Popular Socialist Party, small groups calling themselves “Trotskyist,” militant workers in the divided Cuban labor movement working clandestinely, and among the bourgeois liberal and conservative opposition political forces. All contested for political influence and a mass base amidst the general opposition and revulsion to the Batista coup and its attempts to consolidate a stable government. Fidel exploded into the center of Cuban politics on July 26, 1953 with a highly organized armed attack by 160 young, largely working-class, fighters on the Moncada and Bayamo Barracks of the Batista dictatorship. These were highly disciplined and trained combatants motivated by patriotic and revolutionary purpose. Along with Fidel, the other central leaders of the preparation and organization of the July 26, 1953 attacks were Abel Santamaria and Jesus Montane. The plan and political perspective of the Moncadista insurrectionists was to seize the two Barracks, disarm the government troops, seize broadcast and other means of communication, and call for a mass uprising. The outcome of the assault can be said to be a classic example of military defeat becoming political victory. In this case a military defeat transformed into a dynamic political advance and the ultimate victory of the Cuban Revolution within less than five years. (See Ramonet pages 104-134 for a fascinating account of the Moncada assault, the unanticipated difficulties and errors, and the necessary retreat and aftermath.) Abel Santamaria was tortured to death by Batista’s troops following his surrender and capture. Fidel, Jesus Montane, Raul Castro, Juan Almeida and other rebels survived with some luck, but the post-attack scene was mark by extraordinary bestial conduct, which quickly became public, on the part of Batista’s henchmen, with unspeakable torture and murder of disarmed youth being the fate of most. Cuban public opinion was horrified, and this became a factor in preserving the lives of the survivors. Public revulsion also began to overlap with growing sympathy for the July 26 youth. Growing anti-Batista mass demonstrations and protests mounted against the increasingly isolated and repressive regime. Fidel’s stirring speech in his defense before the kangaroo court – “Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.” – presented the program and political orientation of the insurrectionists. It was reproduced and widely circulated by the growing cadre of organized supporters who became the July 26 Movement (M-26-J). The pamphlet History Will Absolve Me became a key recruiting tool for the Movement and its major programmatic document. Political pressure on the Batista government became focused on a mass campaign for amnesty for the Moncada fighters, which also built the Movement. All the fighters were released after barely two years of incarceration. Batista and his goons evidently believed their death squads would be more likely to get away with murder outside the prison walls than within. The July 26 Movement emerged as the most, dynamic, creative, and attractive political force in the unfolding pre-revolutionary situation developing inside Cuba in the mid-1950s. Raul Castro, Juan Almeida, Fidel Castro and other Moncadistas released in May 1955 Fidel, Raul, Juan Almeida, and other Moncadistas were eventually able to get to Mexico where colonies of Latin American freedom fighters were to be found, and who worked and played in overlapping social and political circles. In Mexico, Fidel and his team began recruiting cadre who received military training (from a veteran Republican fighter in the 1930s Spanish Revolution and Civil War) for a planned landing in the Cuban countryside, the launching of a rural guerrilla war, and the concurrent launching of a nationwide revolutionary movement politically connected to the armed struggle in every corner of Cuba. What became a vibrant, clandestine urban movement led by figures like Armando Hart, Enrique Oltuski, Frank Pais, Celia Sanchez, and Haydee Santamaria whose responsibilities included funneling arms and trained cadre to the guerrilla army. Among the first recruits to the expeditionary army was Dr. Ernesto Guevara, an Argentine and the only non-Cuban among the guerrilla army in formation. Guevara had organized a clinic for impoverished workers and peasants in Guatemala before escaping, and also ending up in Mexico, one step ahead of the death squads of the CIA-installed murderous military regime that overthrew the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz government. Soon he had befriended a number of July 26 Movement cadre, including Raul Castro. Ernesto became Che, the affectionate moniker affixed to him by his Cuban pals soon to become his comrades. It was the July 26 Movement that emerged at the head of a genuinely mass, revolutionary movement to overthrow Batista and his regime. M-26-J seized state power under a clear and definite social and political program that it began to implement. Fidel became the central leader of a revolutionary government directing and organizing a new type of state power and social relations in the 20th Century and reaching out politically everywhere across the Americas and worldwide. The July 26 Movement was, in practice, a centralized combat organization, the expression, in a political-military form, of a political vanguard. In the military defeat of Batista’s US-backed Cuban army, what became, from the twelve or so (out of 82) ambushed survivors of the Granma expedition, the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) that defeated the far more numerous – and strongly equipped and armed by Washington –  Cuban army under Batista’s command.11 Leading a Socialist Revolution In the definition given by Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky in his History of the Russian Revolution, “The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historic events…the forcible entry of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.” In that sense, the Cuban Revolution was a genuine people’s revolution. Its radicalization and transformation into a socialist revolution was based on mass mobilizations and mass participation. All flowing out of a new mass consciousness. But this collective united action of the popular majority was the concentrated political expression of the transformation of millions of individual human beings who, in the words of Karl Marx, describing the insurgent workers of the Paris Commune, decided to “storm the heavens.” This dialectical interplay between individual and mass is the dynamic human spring in any genuine people’s revolution. The working teams of outstanding cadre forged and trained under Fidel’s central leadership had boundless faith in the ability of working people and the oppressed to enter the realm, on a truly mass scale, of struggle and organization. These were professional revolutionaries, volunteers for a cause, motivated by patriotic and, for many, socialist convictions. Individuals prepared to embrace the discipline required for effective action, if, and it was a big “if,” there was a leadership that was honest, self-sacrificing, politically savvy, courageous, and prepared to go all the way. In a 1987 interview with Italian television journalist Gianni Mina, Fidel said, “You can’t be a revolutionary without a large dose of idealism and a tremendous confidence in human beings. A sceptic can’t be a revolutionary. A revolutionary is an optimist, someone who believes in human beings.” What the Cuban Revolution conquered socially, in the interests of the large majority in its opening years, is all the more remarkable when we realize it was done in the teeth of violent, unscrupulous, permanent aggression by the United States government. This aggression included the April 1961 mercenary invasion by counter-revolutionary exiles organized by the CIA that was smashed at the Bay of Pigs (Playa Giron to Cubans).12 President John Kennedy’s “Operation Mongoose,” a program of unbridled terrorism, economic sabotage, death squads and assassination teams (some 600 assassination plans and programs were put into play against Fidel Castro alone by the spooks of Washington in these years) was now intensely in play after the Bay of Pigs debacle. Concrete preparations and projections were well underway for a direct US invasion, which “Mongoose” aimed to soften the ground for. These were the conditions, with Cuba facing the total devastation of a full-scale US assault by air, land, and sea, that led the Soviet government led by Nikita Khrushchev to propose to the Cuban government placing nuclear weapons in Cuba as a deterrence to the coming US invasion. Decisive in the Cuban government’s reluctant acceptance, was the Soviet presentation of the necessity of the missile placement, in order to, as Castro put it in the Ramonet interviews, ”to improve the balance of strategic forces.” Specifically, Khrushchev hoped to acquire, with a fait accompli, the leverage to eliminate operational US nukes near Soviet borders in Turkey. (See my essay “55 Years After: Political Legacies of the Cuban Missile Crisis” for more on Operation Mongoose and the unfolding of events leading to the nuclear missile crisis. Revolutionary Cuba in the 1960s became the political and organizing center across the Americas for revolutionary struggle against US domination and the rule of the oligarchies – two things that were hand in glove. In the early years after the triumph of the Revolution, the CIA set up in South Florida the largest base operation at that point, in its history. Daily operations were spun and run into Cuba involving plans for sabotage, terrorism, assassination, and so on. Organized, trained, funded, and directed from Washington, the operatives – by and large – were Cuban exiles. Thousands of Cuban citizens lost their lives as a result of such actions over the years. The Agrarian Reform With all this as a daily backdrop, Fidel and the Cuban revolutionaries carried out their program and policies, with mass support and mobilizations, utterly transforming Cuba. The centerpiece for implementing, through popular mobilization and governmental power, the July 26 Movement’s program of radical social reforms was the transformation of the Cuban countryside by the Agrarian Reform Law. Agrarian reform was the fulcrum for the social and economic transformations heralded by the Revolution. Deliberations to codify in law, and implement in practice, a comprehensive agrarian reform began within the central July 26th Movement leadership almost immediately after the military victory, and the establishment of a provisional government. The most profound direction and input came from the collaboration between Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The agrarian reform was seen as the necessary foundation and catalyst for Cuba’s industrial development.13 The National Institute of Agrarian Reform was organized to implement the Law, with Fidel Castro as President and Che Guevara appointed head of the Department of Industrialization on October 8, 1959. Che held the central political and administrative responsibility within INRA. Che organized and trained an INRA militia of 100,000. Their responsibilities included seizing control of expropriated land, supervising distribution, and helping to establish viable farm cooperatives. Some 500,000 acres of confiscated land was owned by US corporations. INRA, under Che’s direction, financed highway construction, built housing for peasants and farming cooperatives, and other industrial projects, including resorts for tourists. All these economic measures dynamically interacted with the implemented radical social policies and laws that fundamentally altered and transformed social relations on the island to the clear benefit of the oppressed and exploited large majority of the Cuban population. These included a massive, successful campaign to wipe out illiteracy, and, what was particularly annoying to foreign and domestic big-business owners, progressive labor laws that greatly expanded trade-union membership and facilitated struggles for higher wages and better working conditions. Revolutionary laws and policies abolished racist Jim Crow-style segregation and discrimination policies, leading to huge advances for Cubans of African origins. The Revolution dealt big blows against the oppression of women including: legalizing the right to abortion (the first country in the Western Hemisphere to do so); the establishment of day-care facilities; equality in pay; greater access to education and professional training; and the eradication of organized prostitution with job training for ex-prostitutes. (It is estimated that one out of three women in Havana were super-exploited in the gangster-run commercial “sex industry.”) These measures were not yet explicitly socialist; banking, manufacturing, and large-scale wholesale and retail distribution remained in private hands. However, the anti-capitalist tendency was clear and the encroachments on the prerogatives of domestic and foreign capital were intolerable to the ruling classes. With the implementation of the Agrarian Reform Law it was clear to all that social relations in Cuban society were being fundamentally transformed and that working people in the city and countryside were becoming politically and socially dominant. Moreover, the evaporation of the old neo-colonial state and its repressive apparatus – the Cuban “deep state” so to speak — left a vacuum in political and social… http://clubof.info/

[cubaverdad]

El reptil impostor Fidel Guarapo Castro Ruz

El reptil impostor Fidel Guarapo Castro Ruz [28-04-2017 19:31:06] Martín Guevara Duarte Escritor. (http://ift.tt/17r20lQ).- A propósito de la dura actualidad española de corrupción, escuché un comentario al pasar, en que se invocaba a modo de posible solución la figura del mayor reptil de la Historia de América Latina: El elemento más hábil sin duda para usar éxitos y penurias de las personas, comunidades, razas, países, sensibilidades, en beneficio de sus propósito más íntimo y personal: atornillarse al poder. Utilizó absolutamente a todos y a todo lo que tuvo alrededor, primero a su papá Ángel, un inmigrante en el Oriente cubano cuya única cultura y mandato era enriquecerse a fuerza de corrupción y explotación de los guajiros, luego usó a las guajiras pobres de su finca para llevárselas a su cama gratis como semi esclavas que eran, al hermano menor para meterlo dentro de sus proyectos, más tarde en La Habana, a las organizaciones estudiantiles y universitarias democráticas, a sus dirigentes Echevarría y Chibás, más adelante a todos los que convinieron atacar bajo sus órdenes el cuartel Moncada y que murieron valientemente mientras él y su hermano quedaron vivos sin un sólo rasguño y salieron de la prisión tras sólo un año y medio luego de haber matado soldados del ejército. Luego a Mirta Díaz Balart y a toda la familia Balart y a toda la burguesía cubana para recaudar fondos. Más tarde a los cubanos exiliados o emigrados a Miami, a las estrellas de Hollywood, a Camilo Cienfuegos, a Frank País, a Huber Matos, a Carlos Franqui, a Lázaro Peña, a Blas Roca, a su propia cuñada y familia Espin, burgueses de Santiago de Cuba, al pariente de este servidor, el cual desde la Sierra le decía que si eran comunistas había que dejarlo claro, y Guarapo le respondía que no, que había que ser inteligente y seguir con el rosario de cuentas y la cruz al cuello porque el pueblo era creyente y así se lo conseguía engañar para el gran objetivo. El objetivo de adueñarse de Cuba. Usó al Che, lo engaño siempre, le dijo que apoyaba su idea de industrializar mientras sabía que el monocultivo seguiría siendo el eje de la economía cubana, le ordenó que se hiciese cargo de los fusilamientos, que fuese a la ONU a reconocer de su boca que se fusilaba y se seguiría fusilando, pero él nunca se atrevió a decirlo, lo usó para establecer mejores relaciones con los países porque el Che hablaba bien francés, era muy decidido y educado para esas lides, lo mando a tres viajes importantes de representación alrededor del mundo, pero cuando empezó a ver que el Che desconfiaba de la URSS, de su compromiso revolucionario con el resto del mundo comenzó a conspirar a la orden del PCUS para quitárselo de encima, se lo quitó en dos ocasiones, la tercera fue la vencida, lo liquidaron con su gran aporte de mandarlo donde sabía que nadie lo apoyaría, y luego lo abandonó cuando más lo precisaba. Utilizó a los representantes de África, a Salvador Allende de Chile, a Perón de Argentina le pidió un millón de dólares de entonces en locomotoras Fiat, automóviles Chevrolet Chevy para taxis, Dodge para la policía, FIAT 125 y Renault, además de una pacificadora y materiales para industria, que nunca hizo ni siquiera el amago de devolver. Utilizó a la URSS cada día y cada minuto para sus aspiraciones y sus veleidades de emperador de la Gran Revolución. Utilizó a Mella, Villena, Guiteras, a Máximo Gómez, a Maceo y por supuesto a José Martí para echarle la culpa del trabajo voluntario y de la sórdida Escuela al campo y la Beca, experimentos que destrozaron al adolescente cubano. Usó a Trudeau, a Barbra Walters, a Caamaño , a Velasco Alvarado, a México y su buena onda con Cuba, usó Angola, Etiopía y Mozambique para enriquecer sus posiciones militares. Usó a Granada, a Nicaragua, a el Salvador, usó a Guatemala, a cada pueblo sangrante de América Latina. Usó el golpe de Chile, usó a la Argentina como nadie, apoyó a Jorge Rafael Videla el mayor represor de militantes de izquierda en América Latina, porque la URSS le dio la orden que se callase la boca de las violaciones a los Derechos Humanos en Argentina ya que esta le vendía el grano a Moscú que otros países no se atrevían por el bloqueo establecido por EEUU. Fidel Guarapo Castro Ruz llegó a la traición de dar la orden de votar en Suiza en contra de una comisión que investigase las violaciones de derechos humanos en Argentina mientras se estaba desapareciendo a treinta mil militantes, soldados del propio Fidel Guarapo, porque hay que decir que toda esa soberbia armada de la década del setenta la generó y apoyó él mismo, y luego apoyó su muerte y su tortura callando los crímenes de Videla al pueblo de su traicionado amigo Ernesto Guevara. Volvió a utilizar a la dictadura de ultra derechas argentina cuando la Guerra de las Malvinas, Guarapo castro se mostró solidario con Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri uno de los mayores asesinos de niños y mujeres del Ejército argentino, y con su canciller Nicanor Costa Méndez famoso por decir no somos negros latinoamericanos, somos civilizados europeos, ofreciéndoles toda la sangre cubana que precisasen. La misma sangre que no usó para rescatar al Che ni a otros presos políticos. Fidel usó a Gianni Miná, a Tad Szulc, a Oliver Stone, a Frey Betto. a María Schriver, a Errol Flynn, a Ava Gardner, a Mandela, a Bem Bella, a Mengistu Haille Mariam, a Zamora Machel, a Agontinho Neto, a Dos Santos, a Mao, a Pham Van Don, Francisco Franco con quien nunca rompió relaciones, e incluso visitó la casa de su explotador y misógino padre en Galicia, de la mano del único ministro Franquista en la democracia Manuel Fraga, con quien se llevó muy bien jugaron dominó bebiendo y comiendo abundantemente durante una semana como sólo hacen dos que se reconocen en lo más intimo como idénticos. Fidel usó a las familias de sus víctimas, a veces tratándolas excepcionalmente bien para ser perdonado o sobreseído en la critica y el afecto interno, comprando voluntades con casas, coches, privilegios, siendo el caso de la familia Guevara y de muchas más. Y lo consiguió con muchos de ellos que mienten como verracos cada vez que hablan con un medio extranjero o viajan para obtener prebendas y pagos a la obediencia debida, diciendo que en Cuba todos viven igual que hay justicia, que hay libertad, para así mantener sus privilegios paupérrimos. Fidel Guarapo castro usó a sus hermanos, incluso a su hermano mayor Ramón para que obtuviese un ejemplar de vaca superlativa en la donación de leche, bautizada por el propio Fidel no por su hermano Ramón quien la consiguió, como "Ubre Blanca" , que le sirvió al mandamás inflexible para hacerse propaganda mundial ya que era una vaca de la cual se obtenían hasta 120 litros de leche diarios entre el ordeñe de la mañana y el de la tarde. Usó a los palestinos y a los judíos, usó a Atrafat y a Rabin, prohibió las religiones y besó las manos de tres Papas, el más anti comunista, el neo nazi, y el neo socialista, pero lo gracioso es que cuando besó al anti comunista él se mostraba como comunista, cuando besó al filo nazi él era chavista, y cuando besó al socialista él ya había abandonado la fe en el socialismo. Cuando se cayó la posibilidad de ser Emperador de la Gran Revolución Latinoamericana como era su ambición, ya que la URSS se desmoronó, pasó a darse publicidad nada menos que como "pacifista", "ecologista", religioso, quien había traicionado al Che en Bolivia para que la URSS siguiese produciendo armas nucleares sin critica alguna, y quien invadía cada país que podía y apoyaba cada aventura guerrillera que le podía dar réditos una vez concluida triunfante se presentaba sin el más mínimo rubor como pacifista. En medio de aquel pacifismo, recordó repentinamente sus orígenes Jesuitas y encargó el libro "Fidel y la religión" a Frei Beto, no sin continuar reprimiendo a todos los religiosos en el territorio nacional hasta los años noventa en que la escasez era tal, que obligó a establecer prioridades para la represión de las fuerzas policiales y militares y de espionaje ideológico. Utilizó la represión más brutal contra gays, lesbianas, contra jóvenes que no fuesen sumisos a las milicianos, contra hippies, rockeros, contra jóvenes rebeldes, hedonistas, irredentos, pacíficos, abusó de ellos de manera vil, cruel, mataron a muchos. Y luego utilizó la imagen de John Lennon, por supuesto después de muerto, el mismo que había encarcelado a todo aquel según sus términos "afeminado con guitarrita al hombro" que escuchaba a John Lennon. Luego apareció nuevamente el sueño imperialista de la mano de Chávez y el bolivarianismo sostenido con infinito petróleo. Cuba que había sido novia de España cuando era dueña del mundo, luego de EEUU cuando fue este el dueño, luego de la URSS, un novio tosco y rudo pero poderoso, de repente se vio jineteando a un plebeyo como Venezuela, pero lleno de petróleo fresco. Usó el asesinato de grandes y leales soldados suyos para evitar su propia vergüenza. Traicionó a Ochoa, a Tony y a Vicente de La Guardia de la manera más vil que se pueda tener idea. Fidel Guarapo Castro continuó usando a todo su pueblo, fue cumpliendo años de manera ingente mientras sus compañeros de lucha lo miraban con esos grandes ojos hinchados por la muerte y la traición desde los años cuarenta hasta el nuevo milenio, usó al niño Elián y su dolor, usó a los emigrantes de El Mariel, usó a los presos, usó como nadie el Bloqueo económico, o la Ley Helms Burton, a él sólo le iba bien el recrudecimiento de las hostilidades de EEU contra Cuba para presentarse como David contra Goliat y mantener cohesionado a su pueblo tras consignas sencillas, fáciles pero muy efectivas de unión frente a la agresión del enemigo exterior. Fidel se enfurecía cada vez que ascendía un presidente demócrata ya que le ponía las cosas difíciles, Kennedy, Clinton, Carter, Obama no le servían para su victimismo, él desplegaba todo su encanto anti imperialista y felicidad cuando tomaban el poder, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, o los Bush. Al cabo de su vida usó la sangre, el sudor, el sacrificio de los cubanos hambreados para vivir como un rey consumiendo diariamente vinos de doscientos dólares la botella, y hacerse estirar la vida hasta más allá de lo posible, comprometiendo médicos de todo el mundo, excepto de su tan cacareada excepcional medicina cubana, aterrorizado frente a la proximidad de la muerte vaya a saber bajo cuales de tantos perturbadores recuerdos de crímenes y traiciones, muerte a la que tanto había invocado, según él, cuando hubiese falta de "socialismo", sin embargo a la que tanto había rehuido toda la vida viviendo su entorno plagado de guardaespaldas. Fidel utilizó la sangre y el dolor intenso de miles de cubanos, la prisión de decenas de miles de cubanos, el exilio y la muerte de millones de cubanos, usó la libertad, la represión, la vida y anhelos de todo el pueblo cubano en su totalidad. Por eso mientras viva no descansaré denunciando cada vez que aparezca la más tímida sombra de simpatía por este canalla abyecto, que dejó sin gota de sangre revolucionaria a Cuba y a toda América, sin gota de dignidad y orgullo a todo el pueblo de Cuba, al cual lo hacia sentir una basura frente a cualquier visitante extranjero, por más burgués, capitalista, o analfabeto e insignificante que éste fuese, siempre y cuando aterrizase en "la tierra más linda que jamás ojos humanos han visto", con un manojo de miserables dólares. Cuidado con estos sátrapas, cometer el error de caer hechizado por sus cantos de sirenas, significan el secuestro de una eternidad en el poder sin dejar en pie ni una sola virtud. Source: El reptil impostor Fidel Guarapo Castro Ruz - Misceláneas de Cuba - http://ift.tt/2qj0sM0 via Blogger http://ift.tt/2psneRG

[latikobe]

60 años de la Revolución Cubana y el legado más aciago de la historia

El dictador Fidel Castro junto a Ernesto Guevara, el Ché.

MIAMI, Estados Unidos.- David venció a Goliat. Luego de ese primero de enero, de 1959, el periodista Herbert Matthews escribió en The New York Times: “El más duro, el mas fuerte, el más brutal de los dictadores modernos de América Latina, el general Fulgencio Batista, tuvo su merecido esta semana”.

Y, justiciero, entonces héroe entregado a la tierra por el mismísimo Dios, Fidel Castro, fue quien le dio su merecido. Guardián de la justicia, osado, valiente y necesario, se alzó contra el principal emisario del, para ellos, funesto imperio americano en el Caribe. Y entonces, en enero de 1959, el mismo Herbert Matthews, cronista de las hazañas de los barbudos en Sierra Maestra, lo decretó al titular su artículo sobre la victoria de Fidel Castro: “Cuba: el primer paso hacia una nueva era”.

Lo que no sabía Matthews —y lo que nadie supo en ese momento, porque todos, absolutamente todos, andaban embelesados por un fenómeno inédito, indescriptible y peligroso—, era que esa nueva era jamás acabaría. Que sería eterna y que, aunque se añejaría con arrolladora rapidez, no mermaría. Andaría arrastrando sus pies, como ánima decrépita empecinada en no descansar, llevándose consigo lo que se atravesara.

Y tampoco mermaría el embrujo. Porque a todos les fascinó las hazañas de un grupo de hombres, barbudos, que se atrevía a desafiar desde una montaña, y con pocos recursos, a la mayor nación del mundo. “La reprobación por lo que Fidel ha hecho en la práctica con sus poderes dictatoriales, no podrá extirpar del corazón de los latinoamericanos la emoción de haber visto desafiado, ¡desde Cuba!, el poder imperial norteamericano”, escribió el pensador y periodista venezolano, Carlos Rangel.

Como Cuba “sufría más que ninguna otra nación latinoamericana, en su orgullo, en su dignidad (…) la humillación de ser y no ser americano“, precisó Rangel, los barbudos que alzaban los banderines de la Revolución encontraron un terreno fértil para, con el respaldo de un pueblo que aplaudió los gestos autoritarios, imponer esa nueva era que llegaría con la sangre de los disidentes y la sumisión de los más débiles.

Muerte. Terror. Éxodo. No podía empezar peor la Revolución que se imponía. Señales fuertes demostraban desde entonces, el último año de la década de los cincuenta y los primeros de los sesenta, que la “nueva era” a la que hacía referencia Herbert Matthews estaría caracterizada por lo peor de la miseria humana. Que la violencia y el terror serían desgastadas herramientas. Que no habría disidencia y el objetivo sería la ruina entera de una isla, otrora la más próspera del Caribe.

Y, entonces, el hechizo fue desvaneciéndose. Muchos de los cautivados dejaron de estarlo. Desapareció la ceguera y los espejismos se diluyeron. Entonces, se reveló la verdad: Fidel Castro no era ningún héroe ni semidiós de hazañas homéricas. Bocazas, carismático, atractivo, viril e insolente, se había hecho con el poder, rodeado de agresivos y sanguinarios lamebotas, para no soltarlo y someter a todo aquel que estuviera dispuesto a desafiarlo.

Por ese propósito absolutista desapareció a quienes empezaron a incomodarlo. Fueron víctimas de él antiguos grandes compañeros. Varios de sus mejores aliados, y precisamente por sobresalir, terminaron nadando con los peces, alimentando a los gusanos —o escondidos tras barrotes de los calabozos—. Huber Matos, Camilo Cienfuegos y el mismo Che Guevara son testimonio de la fiereza del máximo comandante. De cuán implacable y cruel puede ser.

“Fidel, el Che, Raúl Castro y unos cuantos tipos más, audaces e ignorantes, estaban decididos a liquidar una imperfecta democracia liberal, regida por una Constitución socialdemócrata, totalmente perfectible, y transformar ese Estado en una dictadura prosoviética sin propiedad privada, ni derechos humanos, y mucho menos separación e independencia de poderes. Simultáneamente, echaban sobre los hombros de los cubanos la responsabilidad de ‘enfrentarse al imperio yanqui’ y transformar el planeta para imponer, a sangre y fuego, el ‘maravilloso’ modelo social desovado por Moscú desde 1917”, escribe el intelectual cubano Carlos Alberto Montaner.

Y así fue. La miseria, rauda, llegó. Con ella, la huida. Miles de cubanos empezaron a abandonar la isla ante la imposición del raído modelo comunista. El tiempo se detuvo pero no pudo evitar la descomposición de las arquitecturas y los vehículos en las ahuecadas calles de La Habana. El estropeado paisaje, que se balancea entre una belleza histórica y el terror por la abrumadora miseria, sirve como prueba de la supresión de los mercados y las libertades.

Han pasado sesenta años. Seis décadas, exactas, desde que se empezó a imponer uno de los más letales totalitarismos de la historia. Seis décadas en las que un régimen, con impunidad, ha podido fusilar y llevar a la tumba, según la organización Cuba Archive, a unas 9 mil víctimas; seis décadas de impunidad de un régimen que traficaba la sangre de perseguidos políticos a Vietnam. De la Revolución que mató, que impuso la miseria y disfrutó el botín.

Alguno hablará de la Revolución Cubana como un proyecto fracasado. Pero cómo se fracasa cuando los planes se implantaron, el modelo gobernó, y se disfrutó la abundante riqueza. Cómo es fracaso cuando los mayores jerarcas, y sus aliados, jamás interrumpieron la oligarca costumbre de posar el buen whisky en las mesas de mimbres mientras se acompaña con un buen puro y se disfruta, luego, un paseo en yate por las costas de Varadero.

Y ese es, al final, su legado. El más aciago de la historia. La grosera opulencia que contrasta con la miseria de sus gobernados —de quienes oprimen, más bien—. Es también su legado, el de la Revolución Cubana, el sometimiento de otros pueblos. La claudicación, humillante y deshonrosa, de gobernantes, títeres, peones desleales, ingratos, felones, ante la voluntad de la gran estrella de la izquierda mundial, Fidel Castro, y su línea de sucesión imperial.

Eso fueron Hugo Chávez, Daniel Ortega, Lula da Silva, Cristina Kirchner, Evo Morales, Manuel Zelaya, Daniel Correa, Michelle Bachelet, José Mujica, Ollanta Humala, Dilma Rousseff. Hijos del Foro de Sao Paulo, aquel proyecto de Fidel Castro para volver potable sus ideas comunistas. Que en su momento enarbolaron el estandarte del Socialismo del siglo XXI para imponer en la región los Días de sumisión. Ese, al final, también el máximo legado de la Revolución Cubana.

La miseria y el horror que aún hoy asedia a los venezolanos, a los bolivianos y a los nicaragüenses. De la que muchos pudieron salvarse, pero que aún brilla, en el corazón de los países que algún Dios abandonó, amén de que el proyecto y el legado de Fidel Castro sigue vivo. El aciago legado que debe acabar.

Este trabajo fue publicado originalmente en el Programa Cuba, de la Universidad Sergio Arboleda, Bogotá, Colombia

60 años de la Revolución Cubana y el legado más aciago de la historia