In this book, Dreke describes the revolutionary movement in Cuba, led by the Rebel Army and July 26 Movement, which overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in January 1959.

As workers and farmers and their revolutionary leadership carried out a literacy campaign, a land reform, the enforcement of laws barring racist discrimination, and other deep-going measures, the capitalists and landlords, with the encouragement and support of Washington, sought to overthrow the new government and return themselves to power.

In the cities the counterrevolutionary forces launched a campaign of arson and sabotage, setting fire to department stores and factories. In the rural areas, armed counterrevolutionary groups increasingly became centered in the Escambray mountains of central Cuba. By 1960 dozens of such bands--armed, supplied, and directed by Washington--were carrying out assassinations and sabotage, burning sugarcane fields, and attacking production facilities. In his account, Dreke describes several leaders of these bands, which included men who had at one time taken part in the anti-Batista struggle but were opportunist self-seekers who had turned against the revolution, as well as others who had supported Batista.

In response, workers and farmers organized militia mobilizations and volunteer Lucha Contra Bandidos (struggle against bandits) battalions to crush the counterrevolutionaries. By the end of 1964, the fight against the bandits had largely been won; the last groups were eliminated in a mop-up operation in 1965.

Dreke, who had fought in the revolutionary war against the Batista dictatorship, was a commander of the Lucha Contra Bandidos battalions in the Escambray.

Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, and Luis Madrid, a Pathfinder editor, conducted the first session of the interview with Dreke in Havana in 1999. Pathfinder editor Michael Taber and Militant editor Martín Koppel joined Waters in a second interview session in 2001.

This book is available in English and Spanish. Copyright © 2002 by Pathfinder Press, reprinted by permission. Subheadings are by the Militant.
 

Waters: Why did the Escambray mountains become a center for these counterrevolutionary forces? What was going on in the Escambray?

Dreke: In Cuba at the triumph of the revolution there were a half million illiterates, and there were another half million who were only semiliterate. That was the concrete situation. If one were to go to Pinar del Río or to the Escambray the situation was terrible. There was no electricity, no running water--what little water there was came from wells. There were no stores. There were few radios, since you couldn’t even receive radio signals throughout much of these mountainous areas. All this made the enemy’s job easier.

From the time of the revolutionary war, nearly all these individuals I’ve talked about--who would eventually become counterrevolutionaries--were concentrated in the Escambray. They worked on some peasants and managed to recruit a few. At the same time, they also committed abuses in the areas where they functioned. They murdered peasants, they raped peasant women. They burned down schools and homes. So the peasants were terrorized; they were deathly afraid of the counterrevolutionaries. Some peasants joined them consciously, of course, but others joined out of fear. This is how the counterrevolutionary movement was built.

One of their first actions was the attempt to take Trinidad and destroy the revolution. I’m referring to the attempted landing organized by Dominican President Trujillo.¹

There were others who didn’t commit murders--such as Luis Vargas, to give you a concrete example. Vargas had always been a bandit who devoted himself full time to robbery. He stole here; he stole there; he rustled cattle; he had five or ten wives. Luis Vargas had always been in armed rebellion in the Escambray, until finally we put an end to the notorious Luis Vargas.

In some other parts of Las Villas province, in the Sagua-Corralillos eastern region, there were persons such as Benito Campos and his son Martí, the "Campitos." These people and others like them had been characterized by the same immorality and the same unwillingness to do battle with the dictator’s army. These were people who simply wanted to become the new millionaires.

Waters: In several of Fidel’s speeches during 1962 he spoke of problems in the application and implementation of the Agrarian Reform in Matanzas and the Escambray. He pointed out that this political situation was responsible for the fact that the bandits gained some influence among layers of the peasants.

Dreke: Yes, that’s true. At the beginning no authentic agrarian reform was carried out in the Escambray. Why was this? Because those in charge of the agrarian reform in Trinidad and Sancti Spíritus weren’t in fact revolutionaries.  
 
Agrarian reform
One of those in charge of the agrarian reform there, for example, was the counterrevolutionary Evelio Duque who I just mentioned. Duque headed up INRA in Sancti Spíritus, and he removed the compañeros who were revolutionaries from the agrarian reform and its leadership. He removed people like Commander Julio Castillo, a revolutionary who was highly regarded in Sancti Spíritus. Then Duque recruited others who, like himself, weren’t revolutionaries.

What did Duque do? He committed a series of injustices. He expropriated land that shouldn’t have been taken. Or else he extorted money in exchange for not expropriating someone’s land.

So the agrarian reform wasn’t implemented as the commander in chief and the revolutionary leadership had laid out in the Agrarian Reform Law. Nor as Che and the compañeros of the Directorate had done during the war.²

One of those in charge of the agrarian reform there was William Morgan, who devised a plan called Rana Toro [bullfrog]. Rana Toro was a scheme to bring in weapons and hide them in Charco Azul, in order to prepare an uprising by the bandits. This same William Morgan, who had murdered peasants and raped women during the war in the zone where the Second National Front of the Escambray operated, was preparing the conditions for an uprising.

Another one of these individuals was the notorious Jesús Carreras, who had also been a leader of the Second Front.

In fairness, it’s important to state that while the Second Front was dominated by a group of criminals and traitors, some young revolutionaries also found their way into its ranks. They were victims of those people, and they’re here with the revolution today. The revolution hasn’t tossed them off, because not everybody in the Second Front was the same. To say otherwise would be illogical and untrue. There were exceptions. There were also peasants who took up arms and later put them back down and left the bandits, after realizing they had made a mistake.

But the leadership of the Second Front did have characteristics that made them act this way. And later they united with others who were traitors, embezzlers, and rapists. All those of that ilk got together. Some came from the Directorate, others from the July 26 Movement, some from other places, and they all joined together with the worst elements of the Second Front.

It’s also true that at first the necessary attention wasn’t paid to the Escambray. The most qualified persons were not utilized there, and we didn’t stay on top of things. We should have designated those in charge of major responsibilities. That’s my personal opinion.

Already in 1959 there were bandits there. I was in a position to know, since, along with other compañeros, I participated in various operations in the Escambray.

The enemies of the revolution had already studied the situation, and they realized the Escambray would be the best spot for them. There were problems within the revolutionary ranks, and our work there was the weakest.

Some bandits had posts initially.

Osvaldo Ramírez, the murderer and traitor, was squadron chief of the Caracusey garrison in Trinidad. And the first thing he did was to run the peasants off their farms and take away their land. You must know what that meant. Captain San Luis, who was squadron chief in Trinidad and later became a combatant in Che’s unit in Bolivia, had to go there and kick him out. That’s why Osvaldo was dismissed. But it was an error to let Osvaldo take the position there as squadron chief in the first place.

Sinesio Walsh--the same person I talked of earlier--was named squadron chief in Cruces.

Benito Campos --"Campito"--was chief in the Corralillo zone, where he committed atrocities.

The conscious revolutionaries at that time were not yet Marxists or Leninists--and I’m not just speaking about myself--but at least we wanted a revolution. We wanted to prevent the bourgeoisie from returning to power. We wanted the poor to be in charge. We wanted racial equality. That’s what we were then.

But the fact is we gave the Escambray to the bandits as a gift during the first stage. That has to be said.

When the first clean-up operation began in 1960, when the army arrived, when Fidel arrived, the peasants responded, and entire battalions of peasant militias from the Escambray were formed. The peasants asked for weapons and they defended the Escambray. So what the enemy thought was going to be a den of thieves was, by determined revolutionary combat, turned into a bulwark of the revolution.

Madrid: In October 1963 the Second Agrarian Reform was decreed and implemented, eliminating one of the key social bases of the counterrevolutionary bands, that of the remaining capitalist farmers.

What impact did this law have on the struggle against the bandits?

Dreke: The Second Agrarian Reform helped. The wealthy landowners bought off those people. Many gave them support. But that’s jumping ahead.

We did a number of things in the Escambray. At one point we had to seize a lot of property. I participated in this, together with people from the Escambray. We confiscated all the cars belonging to the counterrevolutionaries, all the timbiriches--that’s what we call the tiny bodegas, or stores--that belonged to those who consciously assisted the bandits. Those who helped the bandits, protecting them, hiding them, and providing them with supplies, food, and other items. Some did so because they were forced to by the bandits. It was a little of both.

One night the army went in--and when I say "army," I mean the people’s militias, the armed people, made up of the peasants themselves--and we confiscated all those things. It was a lightning operation. And by daybreak the bandits had nothing. They were left without supplies. They were left without a rear guard. Later they put one back together, but we put them in that situation for several months.

It was necessary to deepen the revolution’s political work in the Escambray. That required making changes there in the leadership of the party, of the armed forces, of everything. The commander in chief; the minister of defense, Raúl; and Almeida, who had been named head of the Central Army--all of them were part of this. So the political and ideological work was turned around.

Waters: The troops, the militia who were decisive in defeating the bands--were they all volunteers? I’m thinking of Nicaragua, where there were differences among the Sandinistas over whether to fight the U.S.-organized contra forces with volunteers or draftees. The Sandinista leadership eventually decided on a draft, and the revolution’s enemies used that to gain support.

Dreke: In our case they were volunteers.

In the first clean-up operation 50,000 combatants participated, most of them from Havana province. The militias executed a massive encirclement of the Escambray.

Waters: When was this?

Dreke: The first clean-up operation in the Escambray ran from the end of 1960 through the first months of 1961. But we had to withdraw our troops with a few bands still remaining. And then in April came Playa Girón.

We withdrew our troops early on in 1961 because they had already been mobilized for months. They were workers and peasants who had voluntarily left their workplaces and were absent from their jobs. Since they were taking part in the cleanup operation, they weren’t producing. It’s important to remember that the enemy used the counterrevolutionary bands in the Escambray to try to drain the resources of the fledgling revolution, which was fighting to resolve the country’s economic problems.

Most militia volunteers weren’t getting paid anything. For those who had jobs, their factories and workplaces continued to pay their wages to their families. But most were youth in their teens who had never been part of the work force. Only some years later, as an "incentive," to use the language of today, did we start giving 25 pesos a month to young milicianos who didn’t hold regular jobs.

All of them were there by their own choice. They were the volunteer forces of the people.

Tens of thousands of militiamen took part. How were we able to mobilize them? Because of acts like the murder of literacy volunteers, among them Conrado Benítez and Manuel Ascunce,³ as well as innocent peasant women and children--and all the other crimes the bandits had committed: burning down schools, rapes, robberies. The people rose up in indignation over these savage deeds.

² See Guevara’s "Military Order number 1" in Las Villas, printed in Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, pp. 380–81.

³ Conrado Benítez, a nineteen-year-old literacy volunteer, was murdered by a counterrevolutionary band in the Escambray January 5, 1961, along with a peasant, Eliodoro Rodríguez Linares. Manuel Ascunce, a sixteen-year-old literacy volunteer, was murdered by counterrevolutionaries in the Escambray November 26, 1961, together with Pedro Lantigua, a peasant he was teaching to read and write. Prior to the revolution, 23.6 percent of the Cuban population was illiterate. In the countryside illiteracy reached 41 percent, and if those who were semiliterate are included, the figure was over 80 percent. From late 1960 through the end of 1961 the revolutionary government organized a national campaign to teach one million Cubans to read and write. Central to this effort was the mobilization of 100,000 young people to go to the countryside, where they lived with peasants they were teaching. As a result of this drive, Cuba eliminated illiteracy. The residual illiteracy rate--those with learning disabilities and mental or physical impairments that prevented them from being taught--was 3.9 percent at the end of the successful campaign.  
 
 
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