Cuba's revolutionary struggle began with the independence wars of the 19th century and has continued through the battles against U.S. imperialist domination of the island between 1898 and 1959, the 1956-58 revolutionary war against the U.S.- supported dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista that triumphed on Jan. 1, 1959, and through the 40-year struggle to advance and defend Cuba's socialist revolution, which continues to this day.
Alarcón's speech is of special interest, since it concentrates on the class forces and social dynamics that guaranteed the revolutionary character of the intertwined struggles for independence and the abolition of slavery that forged the Cuban nation.
On Oct. 10, 1868, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the owner of a sugar plantation at La Demajagua near the town of Manzanillo in southeastern Cuba, rang the sugar mill's bell and assembled his slaves. Céspedes announced he was freeing them, and called on them to join him in a fight to win Cuba's independence from Spain. As he and other revolutionaries had planned, Céspedes then formed up a contingent of fighters and attacked the nearby town of Yara. This act, known in Cuban history as the Grito de Yara (Cry of Yara), was the beginning of Cuba's first war for independence, which lasted until 1878. A large portion of the independence forces were freed slaves. As initiator of the war in 1868, and later as president of the Republic of Cuba in Arms proclaimed the following year, Céspedes is generally considered the father of the Cuban nation.
The Ten Years' War did not win Cuba's independence nor did it put an end to slavery in Cuba, which was finally abolished only in 1886. A second war against Spain was fought from 1895 to 1898. As the independence forces were poised to defeat Spain's colonial troops, however, the United States government entered the war. In this first war of the imperialist epoch, the U.S. rulers finished off Spain and militarily occupied Cuba (as well as Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam). The aspirations of the Cuban fighters were frustrated, as wealthy U.S. families bought up vast tracts of Cuban land and industry and imposed a virtual protectorate over the island.
Sixty years later, on Jan. 1, 1959, U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista was toppled in decisive battles of the revolutionary war waged by the workers and farmers in arms, organized by the Rebel Army and July 26 Movement commanded by Fidel Castro. This victory opened the door, finally, to independence, guaranteed by the first socialist revolution in the Americas.
The Militant is reprinting Alarcón's speech as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Jan. 1, 1959, victory. Throughout the coming year, the Militant will publish other speeches and materials documenting the revolutionary acts of Cuba's workers and farmers in power.
Printed by permission of Juventud Rebelde. Translation and subheadings are by the Militant.
Compatriots:
That morning was lit up by an idea, more than by the sun:
"Citizens, up until this moment, you have been my slaves. From now on, you are as free as I am. Cuba needs all her sons and daughters to win its independence. Those who want to follow me can do so; those who want to stay here can do so. Each person will be as free as the next."
That announcement, repeated by all the property owners surrounding Céspedes on Oct. 10, 1868, would indelibly mark the character of the war.
With those words, 130 years ago today on this very spot, the Cuban nation took its first steps and our single revolution was begun, a revolution that successive generations of Cubans would later continue. For almost a century the nation would carry out extraordinary feats, withstand defeats, and endure sacrifices, until attaining victory. Born of an unlimited love for justice, equality, and human dignity, the Cuban nation was able to confront the worst adversities with stoicism, learning how to grow as it faced them, without ever abandoning its ideals. It inspired men to offer everything and to fight to the end, without anyone's help, following the example of the person who, on this date, summoned us to embark on the course. One hundred thirty years later, the same revolution confronts similar obstacles, resisting, persevering, and emerging triumphant. In doing so it recognizes that the road we have traveled is the best homage to those who took history by storm on Oct. 10, 1868.
In a society poisoned by the system of slavery, freeing the slaves and openly proclaiming this goal in the new movement's first act gave it the most deeply radical character, confronting squarely the main question of the epoch. But Céspedes did not limit himself to breaking the chains that subjugated those men. In a single stroke, he went much farther.
He converted them into citizens with the same rights as everyone else. He defined the homeland as an ideal, as a work in progress that belonged equally to whites and blacks, former masters and servants, and that summoned everyone equally to battle. The last pealing of the bell of La Demajagua was not a call to begin the working day, nor did it announce liberty alone. Above all it summoned everyone to join in the common task.
It marked the founding of the only true democracy, one that recognized no privileges, rejected prejudices, exalted virtue, placed its trust in man, and opened the door to everyone.
Here then, the Republic of Cuba was born. The struggle to conquer the homeland began.
Slavery was the decisive question that defined Cubans. This vicious exploitation of human beings was the main source of wealth of the prosperous Creoles(2) and provided the colonial regime's base of support.
Over the course of the last century, the subject of slavery was present constantly in the thinking of our intellectuals and politicians. It was always the dominant theme in proposals to reform the colonial system, in efforts to modify relations with the colonial power, and in plans to map out a future for the island. Later, during the war itself, it would weigh greatly, like a heavy burden.
In addition, at a time when Cuba was arising as a distinct entity and had to separate from Spain by force, slavery was part and parcel of the decisive question: Who is a Cuban? Who is part of this new nation?
We have to go more deeply into our history to understand the meaning of what occurred that day, to untangle the complexity of the problem. For slavery would not be abolished by a single noble act of incomparable altruism, or by a formal proclamation. Putting an end to slavery demanded a struggle requiring tenacity, firmness, and wisdom. It would be an inseparable part of the war itself, marking it indelibly, while at the same time determining the future course of our life as a people.
Blacks play key role in forging nation
The appeal issued at La Demajagua by a group of white
property owners signified a total break with the line of
thinking and conduct toward slavery and blacks that the reform-
minded sectors - including those with the most advanced
ideas - had maintained.
Its real precursors were not those groups, but rather the slaves themselves, who more than once had rebelled against that abominable system. The Matanzas uprisings of 1843, drowned in a sea of blood, shook colonial society.(3)
These uprisings would provoke fear among the reformers, wealthy Creoles who hoped to modify the oppressive society in which they lived, but at the same time went no farther than what an anachronistic and obscurantist system was capable of conceding. In the face of their colonial masters, the slavemasters could make no demands. The most important separatist efforts promoted by the Creoles sought to perpetuate slavery and annex the island to the United States. Significantly, their principal actions were armed expeditions, openly organized and prepared on U.S. soil, from which they sailed for Cuba unhindered - in marked contrast from what would later occur with the efforts made by émigré patriots there. Those expeditionaries, furthermore, consisted almost entirely of foreigners, with very few participants who had been born in Cuba.
The slaves, for their part, were subjected to the cruelest exploitation, isolated in their barracks, without access to education, lacking the means to transmit their demands and organize themselves. It was therefore virtually impossible for them to assume the leadership of a struggle of national dimensions. They could - and, on a number of occasions, they did - rebel against their masters, doing them harm or escaping into the mountains. But they were not in a position to transform their struggle into a movement that other forces would join to conquer equality and through it political independence, which was the guarantee of true and definitive justice.
That role could be assumed only by freed slaves, artisans, and Creole property owners who were prepared not only to abolish slavery completely, but also to incorporate newly freed slaves into the common national effort. Opposing ill treatment or criticizing the excesses of human bondage was not sufficient.
This was not a question of compassion, philanthropy, or economic calculation. If the aim was to create a nation - an objective made necessary by the evolution of colonial society - it was absolutely necessary to determine which human forces would constitute this nation, and fully integrate them as part of it.
Complete abolition of slavery in all its forms and manifestations; real emancipation; and the full exercise of citizenship, with the same civil and political rights as other men; the elimination of racism, including prejudices and discrimination - these were the steps history demanded. And they could be taken up only by a real and profound revolutionary movement.
The essence of that movement had to be justice and solidarity. This was the fundamental message of La Demajagua. As Antonio Maceo(4) proclaimed years later, on Oct. 10, 1868, "Cuba unfurled the banner of a war for justice."
That morning, Céspedes addressed some twenty-odd slaves, since this was all who were at his disposal. This was not, therefore, a decision that had measurable importance in concrete military terms. The goal was not to use these men to create a substantial detachment of the Liberation Army that would later arise and use them to march on Yara. Twenty men was nothing against a hundred thousand soldiers of colonialism, or compared with the hundreds of thousands of slaves on the island.
But it was precisely to that mass, and to their masters, that the message was directed.
A complex process began that would have its ups and downs. While sticking tenaciously to principles, this movement attracted to it the greatest possible number of forces, including even large landowners from the West. The unequal relationship of forces the patriots faced would compel them to go after this sector, but loyalty to their ideals made them keep to a radical and consistent trajectory even in that initial stage.
A channel had been opened up in La Demajagua that would permit the slaves themselves, as well as the most sincere abolitionists, to move forward over the opposition of the sugar- growing oligarchy and the fears and inconsistencies within the revolutionary camp as well. On October 28 a municipal council in Bayamo unanimously decreed immediate abolition. In April 1869 the constitution of Guáimaro decreed freedom for all Cubans and an end to slavery.(5) But a subsequent accord of the House of Representatives on July 5, the Regulation on Freed Slaves, maintained subjugation of the former slaves by compelling them to continue working.
It would fall to Céspedes to annul this act on Dec. 25, 1870. His decision put a definitive and complete end to slavery throughout the territory of the republic, including the area covered by the so-called patronato.(6) Even before that, on March 10, the Revolutionary Government had declared null and void the contracts of Chinese immigrant laborers, which were a not very disguised form of servitude.(7)
In this way, Céspedes pointed out, these people had restored to them their "natural condition of free men, fully exercising their individual will, enjoying the same civil and political rights as other citizens, with perfect equality."
Full abolitionism had won out, and it would be the norm inside the territory liberated by the Republic in Arms. Nevertheless, the republic would have to continue waging hard- fought battles against the large landowners who controlled the wealthiest part of the country in the West, and against their agents abroad who promoted disunity and conspired against the revolution, seeking to derail it from its course.
The message of La Demajagua reached all Cubans. One of the principal representatives of the reform-minded landowners even stated on Oct. 24, 1868, that "Cuba has never been closer to a true social and socialist revolution."
General Dulce,(8) for his part - in a decree issued Feb. 12, 1869, unleashing the fiercest repression against independence forces and their supporters - included among the most serious crimes, together with insurrection, conspiracy, and sedition, that of "disloyalty" by "coalitions and leagues of day laborers and workers."
On April 9 of that year some of the first martyrs for liberty were executed by garroting. These consisted of several tobacco workers, members of the so-called Laborers Guild, a secret society in Havana. One of them, Francisco de León, on the steps of the execution stand, gave a rousing speech that ended with a salute to the independence of Cuba and to Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.
The acts of repression were concentrated particularly against the association of tobacco workers, the principal nucleus of the incipient Cuban workers movement, which had already carried out some strikes beginning in 1865, and whose newspapers were suppressed.
Irrational violence was unleashed against the entire population of Havana. This was on top of the terror caused by incidents like those at the Villanueva and Tacón theaters, and that of the Louvre sidewalk, and later on the murder of the medical students.(9)
The generalized repression provoked the exodus of a substantial part of the Cuban population. According to a Spanish historian, between February and September 1869 alone, over 100,000 persons left the country from the port of Havana.
These included wealthy families, but a significant number of workers also left. This emigration would have been an indispensable aid to the revolution. But the émigré population was unable to unite against the annexationist intrigues of the large landowners and the systematic opposition of the government in Washington.
The émigré workers gave generously from their wages to acquire arms and prepare expeditions, devoting their time to the defense of the Cuban cause. More than a few gave their lives in battle. Of the 156 expeditionaries aboard the Virginius, for example, 47 were workers, 23 of them tobacco workers.(10)
The question of the Cuban émigré community would have decisive importance in the course of the war. As far as the most powerful landowners who had gone abroad were concerned, their relations with the revolution would reflect the stance taken by the sector that controlled the greatest riches of the island, largely in its western part. The Council of New York was an extension of the Council of Havana,(11) and an expression of their interests, which were intimately linked to slave production. Despite numerous efforts directed toward them by those from the east and from Camaguey - efforts that began before October 10 and continued later under the Revolutionary Government - the war could not be extended to the West, where various attempts at uprisings by local patriots were frustrated by the Havana leaders.
Their conduct was opportunistic and traitorous. They pretended to support the revolution, as long as it developed far from their properties. And their support was exclusively based on the hope of obtaining concessions from Spain, or, failing that, a Yankee intervention to annex the island to the United States. This group was essentially annexationist, and their positions on social and race questions never went beyond the bounds of reforms.
This led to one of the most dramatic aspects of the war, and to one of the principal causes of its defeat. The bloodiest, most prolonged, and most devastating war in the Americas had a theater of operations limited to the poorest and least developed half of the country.
The conflict had no impact on the colony's sugar production, which continued basically at the same levels through the ten years of the war, with the exception of a few variations caused by the world market. In fact, the large landowners of the West -both Spaniards and Creoles - increased the benefits they obtained from slave labor while the rest of the country was shedding its blood for liberty.
It is an error to consider the war of 1868 as a movement of landlords and the Creole bourgeoisie, as some do, failing to look at the heart of the matter. Never in the history of Cuba was a bourgeois revolution possible, because a national bourgeoisie as a class never existed in this country. The men who initiated the revolution came from that class by birth, but they did not implement its policies or serve its interests. The initiators of the revolution, Céspedes above all, represented from the beginning the aspirations of the people, including the slave population. They fused with this population and incorporated it into the leadership of the movement at all levels.
If one wishes to classify these men from the point of view of family origin, they were our patricians. One would have to specify, however, that they were Jacobin patricians capable of radicalizing, together with the exploited masses, to the degree that the process advanced.(12)
On the other hand, the political clumsiness of the colonial power and the outrages committed by the mob of Volunteers in the cities,(13) especially Havana, put many of those large landowners in difficult situations and in some cases harm was inflicted on their properties or they became victims of the repression. From the perspective of the revolutionaries, this reality justified efforts to draw them toward the cause, look for their support, or seek to neutralize them.
In addition, the revolution desperately needed indispensable supplies from abroad. It also needed solidarity and international support for Cuba's single-handed struggle. At that time, few Cubans had been trained and prepared for a diplomatic and propaganda effort. The best people from the central and eastern parts of the country were fighting in the war. The best people from the West had left the country.
All these factors were at the root of the complex, contradictory, and difficult relationship that existed between the wealthy émigrés and the Republic in Arms. Generally, whenever the Great War and its internal conflicts are discussed, three factors are examined: the Liberation Army, the revolutionary government, and the House of Representatives. But one must add a fourth factor - the émigré community - which had close links with the other three and played an important role, by commission or omission, in the course of events.
There is not time here to go into this important topic more fully. I will limit myself to pointing out that in those years, the group of large landowners in exile, dominated by annexationists, was the major influence among the émigré community as a whole. It contained Céspedes's most bitter enemies, people who publicly opposed his policy and were later part of the conspiracy that deposed him from the presidency.(14) The majority of the émigrés were artisans and humble workers, who had recently come from a racist society, and were still immersed in the struggle to survive in a strange and hostile environment. The big majority supported Céspedes. They saw the man of La Demajagua as their liberator, admired his generous sacrifice, and understood his intransigence against the exploiters and his love for justice.
Their opinions were expressed in publications that denounced the annexationist and proslavery maneuvers of the wealthy members of the Council of New York. Their sentiments were shown by the women workers of that city who gave Céspedes the gift of a saber. The latter, out of modesty, declined to accept it.
Their support was expressed in the noble gesture of the artisans who offered to provide economic support for the wife and small children of the Father of the Country [NOTE: In Spanish: "Padre de la Patria"]. This act led to an even grander gesture by Céspedes and to a clarification of his ideas: on declining the offer, he stated that he wanted his family to follow in the artisans' example of "working to survive, contributing their savings if possible to increase the funds of the Republic."
The Society of Cuban Artisans of New York, representative of the nascent Cuban proletariat, issued a protest over the ouster of the president of the Republic in Arms. They denounced and repudiated this act, even before it was committed.
This mass of poor men and women would be the source of support of the revolutionary effort throughout the Ten Years War, when the large landowners had already pulled back to await the Yankee intervention. And these poor men and women continued doing so in subsequent efforts, supporting Martí's party(15) and continuing the struggle until 1898. The truth is that throughout these 30 years, as Máximo Gómez recognized, "the combatants' last recourse was always the tobacco worker's knife."(16)
Colonial repression was unleashed with particular fury against the defenseless population, trying to eliminate all forms of collaboration with the Liberation Army. Among the measures adopted by General Dulce in 1869, and denounced by Céspedes before the world, was "the confiscation of the possessions of members of the republican army and of those suspected of sympathizing with the revolution; the forced requisitioning of horses on farms throughout the districts in arms; ... the forced concentration of the inhabitants of the rural areas and the consequent abandonment of their farms; and the destruction of all crops and cultivatable land to deny food to the patriots; the capture and immediate execution of all Cubans found in the rural areas, unarmed as well as armed."
An Irish journalist who visited the island during the war left testimony of the devastating portrait he encountered in the villages of Las Villas: "The majority of the inhabitants were in a state of dire poverty owing to the brutal orders dictated by the Spaniards to concentrate persons in the cities and villages, a concentration that has resulted in families decimated by hunger and illness." On arriving at Sancti Spíritus the author wrote: "One could see rows of women going door to door asking for a bit of rice, their faces displaying the indelible signs of hunger. One could also read in many of their faces sad histories of suffering and privation."
Extending the war to the entire country, effectively integrating all the territories, and obtaining necessary military supplies from abroad were strategic requirements that the revolution had to resolve in order to consolidate its forces and win.
These objectives came up against not only the power of the colonialists, but also the antinational oligarchy and the government of the United States.
U.S. gov't: foe of Cuban independence
Official U.S. documents show that between March and
November 1869, the entire machinery of the federal government
was mobilized in 16 states, from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico
to the Canadian border, with the active participation of the
navy, to turn back expeditions, stop ships, capture arms, and
pursue, arrest, and sentence patriots.
The hostility of the authorities toward the Cuban cause contrasted with the displays of sympathy and support it received from the U.S. people. For example, the Commission of International Relations of the House of Representatives included in its report of June 14, 1870, numerous appendices consisting of petitions by groups of citizens demanding recognition of the independence of Cuba and its belligerent status. These came from different parts of the United States with the signatures of tens of thousands of persons. A single one of these was signed by 72,384 citizens of New York.
The official attitude, contrary to the feelings of so many North Americans, would be expressed that same day, in a message to Congress by President Ulysses Grant, where he rejected giving any aid to the Cuban patriots, describing them in the most vile and slanderous language.
Beginning in July 1870, Céspedes had warned that the U.S. government "aspires to take possession of Cuba without any dangerous complications to itself, and in the meantime it doesn't want Cuba to free itself of Spanish domination, going so far as to oppose its constitution as an independent power. That is the secret of its policy."
In a message to Benito Juárez(17) on Dec. 13, 1870, Céspedes stated: "You certainly know well how intense is the effort we are involved in to assure our national rights, and how great are the difficulties we must overcome, since you are aware that our enemies are numerous and well disciplined. That we have to fight in a very narrow island; that the coastlines are carefully watched by a numerous fleet; and that we are left to our own resources despite being in the center of independent America."
Two days later, in a letter to the editor of a New York daily, Céspedes denounced the fact that while Spain could easily acquire all it needed to continue the war, Cuban patriots were being persecuted, and "ships and arms were being captured that had been purchased through the patriotism of our women's tears and the blood of our brave soldiers." The persecution of émigrés in the United States and the actions of the authorities to prevent the sending of support to the revolutionary movement reached its highest expression with the proclamation issued Oct. 12, 1871, by President Grant himself. Alleging that the activities of the revolutionaries violated U.S. laws, he threatened them with these words: "For this reason they are subject to arrest. They will be prosecuted vigorously, without any hope of clemency on the part of the executive power to save themselves from the consequences of their crimes at sentencing time. And I order and urge all the authorities of this government, civil as well as military or naval, to use every means in their power to capture, try, and sentence each and every one of the criminals who violate the laws, which impose on us sacred obligations to all the friendly powers."
The threats of Mr. Grant were dramatically concretized when the Yankee authorities seized the ship Pioneer and confiscated all the weapons it was carrying destined for Cuba. On Nov. 30, 1872, the Father of the Country ordered the withdrawal of the unofficial diplomatic representatives the revolution had established with the aim of seeking at least recognition of our status as belligerents. In doing so, he left history these words that have lasting relevance: "It was not possible to endure any longer the scorn with which the government of the United States treats us, scorn that has been growing to the same extent as our suffering. For a long time we have played the role of a beggar who is repeatedly denied alms, and in whose face the door is at last insolently slammed shut. The case of the Pioneer has taken our patience over the limit. However weak and unfortunate we may be, we must never cease having dignity."
While it prevented acts of solidarity by the Cuban émigré community, the United States helped the colonialists continue the war by giving them the use of U.S. territory and industry. With this support, Spain sent 83 warships to blockade the Cuban coasts, including 30 steam gunships built, armed, and equipped in the United States.
In an Aug. 10, 1871, message to the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a document that constitutes a profound analysis of the development of the war, Céspedes held up Washington's policy in all its nakedness: "The government of that republic [in Washington] ... is no longer just an indifferent spectator to barbarities and cruelties committed before its very eyes...but is giving indirect moral and material support to the oppressor against the oppressed, to the powerful against the weak, to the monarchy against the republic, to the European colonial power against the American colony, to the recalcitrant slaveowner against the liberator of hundreds of thousands of slaves."
Answering fatalist myths
Compańeras and compańeros:
After 1898, when the Yankee intervention brutally interrupted the heroic struggle of our forebears, an attempt was also made to erase the struggle from our people's memory, distort the meaning of the people's fight, and hide the true nature of their problems, how they had confronted them, and the solutions they had found.
Stress was put on the differences that the central leaders had with each other at certain moments over how to confront various problems. Any analysis of the evolution of those views and the contexts in which they were expressed was eliminated. Everything was reduced to supposed inevitable differences between personalities. In short, human passions were cited to explain the failure of the Ten Years' War. They wanted us to believe that at bottom it was our own characteristics as a people that caused the defeats we suffered. An attempt was made to introduce fatalism into the collective psychology, a fatalism that the annexationists of every type have always used to justify docility before their masters.
In 1868 the nation did not exist, nor did we possess a national consciousness. We were an amorphous, heterogeneous mass, out of which the people would emerge in the midst of struggle, and through that struggle they would identify themselves with the nation and acquire their definitive identity. Those men created the nation, forged the people, and made the Cuban national identity a reality. Would it have been possible to do this without debate, without a passionate exchange of ideas?
On many occasions, we heard repetitions of concepts that echoed the distortions and slanders that the colonialist propaganda and later, the U.S. government, gave of the events and of the participants in them.
Supposedly an "authoritarian," Céspedes nevertheless accepted the view of the majority in Guáimaro and later respected the deeply unjust and erroneous decision of the house to depose him. The person who was presented as a "militarist" nevertheless did everything possible to regularize and humanize the war. A staunch abolitionist, he made tactical concessions in the initial stage, trying to attract or neutralize the wealthy landowners of the West.
But he did not vacillate in fully exercising his authority when principles were at stake, or when it was necessary to assure the revolution's advance. He did so on Oct. 10, 1869, on the first anniversary of the insurrection, ordering the Liberation Army to put the canefields and coffee trees to the torch. During the invasion of Las Villas, he not only ordered the burning of properties, but called upon the slaves to rise up and join the patriotic ranks. Or when he sent these freed slaves to Camaguey to protect them from their former masters. Or when he annulled the House decision that put restrictions on freed slaves, thus eliminating the system of servitude once and for all. Or when he named two blacks as regents of Bayamo, the first liberated city of Cuba and seat of the revolutionary government. Or when he promoted Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez to the rank of general and promoted to high rank blacks and mulattos who had emerged from slavery as well as the poorest sectors of the people. Or when he decreed on Feb. 15, 1871, that whoever intervened in negotiations and did not respect the absolute independence of Cuba and the complete abolition of slavery would be considered a traitor.
Céspedes sought to eliminate regionalism, to carry out the invasion of the West, and extend support to the most radical sectors of the exile community in their opposition to the annexationist maneuvers of the large landowners. These positions and the course that he followed all establish him as the initiator of a consistent revolutionary approach that would later have its continuity in the Baraguá Protest,(18) the revolutionary work of José Martí, and the continuous struggle of our people up to the victory of January 1 and these 40 glorious years in which, under the Cespedista leadership of Fidel Castro, the people finally realized the dream of La Demajagua.
The goals of independence and justice of the Cuban revolution initiated on October 10 could not be won in that first stage. They required a national consciousness, a party that would lead and integrate the political and military struggle, and a combat strategy that would be extended to the entire island. Those conditions would later be achieved through the genius and the tireless work of Martí. But the work of the Apostle would have been impossible without the Ten Years' War, because that event was what forged the nationality, radically transformed colonial society, and turned the exploited masses of the people into protagonists of their history.
Before October 10 there were differing opinions on the timing for initiating the war. Beginning on that day and up until April 1869, differing views existed on the strategy to follow and on how the revolutionary power should be organized. There were two main poles located in Oriente and Camaguey, with two leaderships, two armies, and even two flags. It's true that in Guáimaro they had deep debates. Clearly the debates were heated, since they were trying to determine what the homeland was and to specify the road to achieving it. But the most important thing is that, with unanimous agreement, out of Guáimaro came one single revolutionary government with one single program, one single army, and one single flag. In Guáimaro the indispensable sense of unity prevailed over everything, as well as the common desire to put aside differences and combine the energies of all for the common battle.
Céspedes and Ignacio Agramonte, the principal leaders of that stage, were initially the proponents of two opposing conceptions of how to organize the revolutionary power. But after his views triumphed in Guáimaro, the very same Agramonte, in the midst of his brilliant military campaign, would criticize the interference of the House of Representatives in running the war, and he would demand a single command structure to lead it. On Jan. 14, 1871, after stating that "there are differing opinions, but there are no divisions or dissensions," the distinguished Camagueyan [Agramonte] added, "I am one of those who believes most firmly in the need to replace any official who is a hindrance to the rapid and energetic conduct of military operations." There are numerous examples of how, as the war progressed, a relationship of mutual understanding developed between Agramonte and Céspedes. In his letters, the Father of the Country made clear his happiness over this fact, and addressed to the Bayardo(19) exclusively words of admiration and affection.
As Fidel has correctly explained, if Agramonte had lived he would have opposed and probably prevented the ouster of Céspedes by the House of Representatives. The historic truth is that when Agramonte was killed in the fields of Jimaguayú,(20) the Father of the Country lost a decisive pillar of support, his most eminent disciple, one who would have been his continuator.
The imperialist usurpation of 1898 frustrated the movement that began here 30 years earlier. They took over the country and its resources, imposing corrupt and servile regimes that exploited and divided the people. In that debased republic, the worst vices of the colonial society were maintained. The old servitude no longer existed, but millions of Cubans suffered under capitalist slavery, and with it extreme poverty, homelessness, racism, and racial discrimination.
These six ignominious decades were a radical negation of the ideals of 1868. The republic that existed in those years was the opposite of La Demajagua. It had nothing to do with the dreams of Céspedes and Agramonte, nor with the heroism, sacrifices, and the blood shed by hundreds of thousands of Cubans over three decades.
The youth of today, who learn to love and respect our glorious founders, will have difficulty imagining that it was not always so. Under the system of Yankee domination, an attempt was made to rob the people of their memory, to distort their history, to consign to oblivion the example of these heroes and the lessons of their struggles.
The neocolony and its masters were especially implacable toward Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. Inasmuch as they were completely opposed to patriotism, they had to assure the eternal death of the Father of the Country, make him disappear completely from history, and bury his message for good.
The facts can be found in the archives and libraries. The ideas of Céspedes, his political documents, his extensive correspondence, his literary works were published and distributed more widely during the thirty years of war than they were after the Yankee intervention in Cuba. Over the course of sixty years, in the so-called Republic of Cuba, the only thing by Céspedes published was a tiny portion of his political writings in a single, limited-edition book -which included items by other authors -entitled Brief Anthology of October 10, published in 1938. In sixty years, three books were published about Céspedes, together with three pamphlets and 24 newspaper articles, which were not always fair in dealing with him.
In contrast, countless biographies, studies, and texts about the old annexationists and autonomists were cranked out by Cuban printshops in that same period. In addition, they built statues and monuments to these individuals, and named streets and plazas after them.
But not Céspedes. It's true that Manzanillo jealously watched after the bell, and that Bayamo and Santiago, witnesses to his death, attached his glorious name to some places. But in over sixty years, the rulers of the period erected no tributes to his memory other than his tomb.
It's good for young people today to give thought to this. Because it illustrates the meaning of our century-old struggle and our single revolution, a revolution initiated by the man whom the enemies of the homeland wanted to destroy and make disappear. It reminds us too how he continued fighting, even after his death in San Lorenzo.(21)
The person who from the beginning foresaw that his death would come prior to the triumph, and who had warned us that he would rise up from his grave as many times as necessary to remind Cubans of their patriotic duty, continued summoning young people and true patriots to return to the road of La Demajagua.
For that reason, the first monument in Havana, a humble plaster bust, was created and erected in 1949 at the entrance to the secondary school of Víbora, paid for by the students, professors, and staff members themselves, cent by cent. For that reason in 1947, Fidel Castro and the Federation of University Students brought the glorious bell to the university steps, and rescued it from maneuvers by politicians whom he denounced in memorable rallies in the capital and in Manzanillo.(22) For that reason, in 1956 the exemplary mentor Emilio Roig(23) removed the autocratic king from the site in which the spurious republic still honored him, and put there instead the creator of the homeland.
Only after 1959 with the triumph of the revolution that he initiated, have Céspedes's works and his ideas finally been rescued and disseminated on a massive scale. Today his exemplary life and his ideas are for the Cuban people an inexhaustible wellspring through which the pure waters of patriotism and the virtues and values of the Cuban national identity will always flow.
On this very spot thirty years ago, the commander in chief [Fidel Castro] gave a very important speech. He spelled out the great truth of our history, which many have tried to hide in various ways, that in Cuba there has been a single revolution, beginning with the movement Céspedes launched on October 10, 1868. Fidel summarized the indissoluble continuity of our historic process with this admirable idea: "In those days, we would have been like them. Today, they would be like us."
To be like them today - when the homeland faces powerful enemies that threaten it just like then, when we must face the dangers of confusion and vacillations promoted from abroad - means, above all, to revive the message of La Demajagua and turn it into a norm of conduct, into a guide for revolutionary action.
It means intransigent defense of the absolute independence of the homeland, without concessions of any type that might inflict harm to national dignity. It means true, real, and tight unity among all Cubans. It means the elimination of even the last vestige of discrimination or prejudice that separates us. It means a tireless struggle for equality and solidarity among men, based on the ethical foundation of sacrifice, selflessness, and virtue.
That is the legacy left to us by our common father, the founder, the eternal president of the homeland.
He was the one who told us that "those who are not prepared to sacrifice everything for the freedom of the homeland are not revolutionaries." He was the one, a wealthy landowner, who abandoned his wealth and gave even his personal belongings to the revolutionary cause. He was the one who sacrificed his family and promised to leave them "an inheritance poor in money but rich in civic virtues." He was the illustrious man, the poet who, until the eve of his death, used rustic writing tools that he got from the forest. He was the inspirer of the Manzanillo and Bayamo symphonies who in his last base in the Sierra Maestra admired the dances that the former slaves practiced for him. He was the one who called blacks his brothers and workers his compańeros. He was the one who maintained an unwavering loyalty to the revolution despite the injustice, abandonment, and ingratitude he received. He was the one who fought to the last instant, completely alone, almost blind and surrounded by enemy soldiers.
Today, an attempt is being made to uproot from the hearts of men and women the sense of justice, to impose the dogma of selfishness and greed. In this world the Cuban revolution remains the only road forward for our people, and, at the same time, the bearer of indispensable values for humanity. In the midst of the war, Céspedes defined the fundamental differences between Cuba and colonialism, and he traced the unbridgeable divide that separates us today, even more sharply, from the imperialists: The enemy "fights to maintain the slavery of blacks, to propagate obscurantism, to perpetuate injustice. The Cuban patriots fight for the liberty of all men, for the triumph of justice, for the forward march of civilization. Over there, speculation, dishonor, and darkness; over here, reason, truth, and light."
The Cubans of today and tomorrow will continue defending the homeland established on this spot, the revolution initiated on October 10. We will continue defending our socialism, which in this sacred earth established its firmest roots. We will continue fighting, ever onward to victory.
Long live free Cuba! Independence or death!
FOOTNOTES
1. Juan Almeida was a founder of the July 26 Movement and a
central leader of Cuba's Rebel Army during the revolutionary
war of 1956-58. He is currently a vice president of the Council
of State and president of the Association of Combatants of the
Cuban Revolution.
2. Creoles are native-born Cubans of Spanish descent.
3. A number of slave rebellions occurred in 1843 in Matanzas in central Cuba. Hundreds of slaves were killed during these uprisings. In the period of severe repression that followed, 1,000 slaves and free blacks were garroted, hanged, or drawn and quartered.
4. Antonio Maceo, a black Cuban known as the Bronze Titan, was a leader of the 1868-78 and 1895-98 wars of independence. He was killed in battle on Dec. 7, 1896.
5. In April 1869 a constituent assembly was held by Cuban rebel forces in the town of Guáimaro who declared the country's independence from Spain and created the Republic of Cuba in Arms. A constitution was declared, decreeing the abolition of slavery. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes was elected president.
6. The patronato system was a form of servitude imposed on ex-slaves, in which the former slavemaster still retained the right to exploit the labor of blacks. No wages would be paid the former slave before he or she was 18, and then they would be entitled only to "half the wages of a free man."
7. Beginning in 1847, Chinese immigrants were brought to Cuba as indentured laborers. Over the next century, some 300,000 Chinese entered Cuba.
8. Spanish Gen. Don Domingo Dulce was sent to Cuba as governor in 1869 to help defeat the independence forces.
9. On Jan. 21, 1869, a pro-Spanish paramilitary unit attacked the Villanueva theater in Havana, a popular location for Cubans. Three days later, these forces opened fire on the Louvre sidewalk café and other locations in the center of Havana. Fourteen Cubans were killed in these attacks, and several dozen were wounded.
On Nov. 27, 1871, eight medical students at the University of Havana were executed by the Spanish colonial authorities, charged with desecration of the grave of a supporter of colonial rule. On that same day five black men, two of whom were members of Abakuá societies - secret organizations formed originally by freed slaves - made a daring raid in an attempt to rescue them. All five were killed.
10. The Virginius, carrying an armed expedition to join the independence struggle, set sail for Cuba in 1873 from the United States. The ship was captured and 52 of the 150 men on board were shot by Spanish authorities.
11. The Revolutionary Council of Havana, formed by reform- minded figures and those linked to Cuban landlords, sought to put a brake on the revolutionary struggle.
12. The Jacobins were the dominant political force during the period when the most far-reaching gains of the French Revolution (1793-94) were consolidated. Led by revolutionary- minded bourgeois figures, such as Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat, the Jacobins' mass base was among the urban petty bourgeoisie and artisans of Paris and other major cities. At their high point, there were more than 5,000 Jacobin clubs across France. The Jacobins raised supplies for the revolutionary army; advocated universal male suffrage, public education, and separation of church and state; policed price- gougers in local markets; and purged corrupt and reactionary government officials.
13. The Volunteers were Cubans who joined the fight of the Spanish colonial authorities against the independence forces. Up to 73,000 served and they played a prominent role in the war. They were notorious for the atrocities they committed.
14. Céspedes was ousted from the presidency of the Republic of Cuba in Arms by its House of Representatives on Oct. 27, 1873.
15. José Martí, a poet and writer known as the Apostle of Cuba's Independence, was the founder of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. He launched Cuba's second war of independence in 1895 and was killed in battle the same year.
16. Máximo Gómez, born in the Dominican Republic, was a military leader of the Cuban independence forces in the Ten Years War and the 1895-98 war. Following the defeat of Spain in 1898, he was dismissed as commander in chief of the Cuban army by the proimperialist regime imposed by the U.S. occupation army. He died in 1905.
17. Benito Juárez was a leader of the Mexican republic in the 19th century and led the fight against the French occupation in the 1860s. He was Mexico's president in the late 1860s and early 1870s.
18. In the Baraguá Protest, issued in 1878, Antonio Maceo declared his refusal to abide by the Zanjón Agreement between the Spanish government and the majority of the independence forces, which ended the Ten Years' War without Cuban independence. Baraguá was the town in which Maceo communicated to the Spaniards his decision to continue the struggle.
19. Agramonte was nicknamed the "Bayardo of the Cuban Revolution." Pedro du Terrail Bayardo was a 16th-century French captain known for his courage and generosity.
20. Ignacio Agramonte was killed in battle in 1873.
21. Céspedes was killed by Spanish troops on Feb. 27, 1874.
22. In November 1947 Fidel Castro emerged as a national political figure in Cuba through a campaign involving the La Demajagua bell. In preparation for his planned reelection campaign the following year, Cuban president Ramón Grau - a bourgeois politician who cultivated a reputation based on the fact that he served briefly as the country's leader coming out of the revolutionary upsurge of 1933 - planned to bring the La Demajagua bell from Manzanillo to Havana. The Manzanillo municipal council, which had jurisdiction over the bell, refused to take part in these maneuvers and rejected Grau's request. Castro and the Federation of University Students then obtained the council's permission to bring the bell to the University of Havana, and to put it on display there as a symbol of Cuba's trampled national sovereignty. Castro and other student leaders went to Manzanillo and brought the bell to Havana by train. Thousands greeted its arrival, but the following day it disappeared mysteriously. Rallies of thousands of students were held at the University of Havana, addressed by Castro, holding the government responsible for the theft of the bell. The campus was closed by its chancellor for 72 hours to prevent "disturbances." The bell turned up several days later in the hands of the government, and it was returned to Manzanillo.
23. Emilio Roig (1889-1964) was a leading Cuban historian of the independence struggle and the subsequent struggle against U.S. domination.