My neighbor Armando Samper recently asked me to read him this writing made by me several years before. He knew that I was updating it to publish it. Pain and surprise: several months later, COVID-19 would cause the death of my colleague from the nucleus of zone 10 of San Miguel del Padrón. Now, as I share the text with you, I feel it very close.
The calm or furious sea lovingly gazing at our mountains. From generation to generation, we rescue and create, based on poetry and living from those links. Anguish … Spanish ships arrive. Discovery? Crime. The aborigines do not give more. Ships to human trade. The blacks hunted like wild beasts. Heredia, Varela, Agüero, Aponte … The maroon will ascend to Cubanness. Carlos Manuel! Individual freedom. Invitation to fight for the full. From breasts as generous as they were so offended, the almost unanimous yes to the call. Independence or death!
Deposed the president. The felony of those who do not want so much revolution grows. Disjoin. They lead to the ignominious pact. Since then, before each zanjonera infamy, Maceo and the Baraguá Protest. To the foreigner without abandoning the patriotic love. Hope will come in other ships. The fires again. The enemy suffocates them. Battles, heroes, martyrs; they lack unity, organization. Martí gathers new oaks and pines. Mission of ideas based on passion for the human being. Speeches, even well-intentioned parties, the newspaper Homeland to beautifully speak useful truths and thus reach souls sooner.
From the clubs to the Cuban Revolutionary Party. A single Party so as not to disperse forces, democratic without avoiding the necessary centralization. It is not class-based, although its Delegate prefers the poor of the earth, and affirms that a better world will come kneaded by the hands of the workers. Presence of support for Puerto Rico for the same dream. Duaba, Playitas: the necessary war lands. In it, Martí, the Maceo, many glorious people, the vast majority anonymous, will fall.
Extreme civilism injures royal nobles: arisen from below, many reached degrees, with bullets and machetes, while there were those who came to office due to wealthy origins. Without fighting in the front row, they fear that the ants will grow wings, when they do look like insects. The dominion is already possessed by the revolted and brutal North: it falls with that more force, the same one they use throughout the continent. Republic, then, for the good of the few, at the expense of the majority: the worst step for those who used the machete in the conflagration or at work. The Generation of 30! His grappling is not going downhill at all. Leave footprints. Julio Antonio, Guiteras, Rubén, Pablo… they cannot die.
The extraordinary support for the war of the Hispanic people against fascism strengthens. Baliño is reborn with the force of socialism in his native land, despite external and internal errors by the avant-garde. Treacherous bullets do not leave us without Jesús Menéndez, Aracelio, Margarito …: they accompany the best of their country. Coup of March 10, 1952. The Yankees prop up. A young man, Fidel Castro, evokes Mella, Trejo and Guiteras. Martiano, dominates that the walls are too powerful to fall with the wailing, but they are weak before the bullets.
That trio next to the Centennial Generation when they turn Chibás’s broom into a rifle to defeat the pro-imperialist government. The Apostle is armed and rejuvenated on his hundredth birthday. Assault on the Moncada and Céspedes barracks. Both are on the side of the attackers and against the criminal orgy. At the trial, Fidel places the accusers on the dock. Many of the survivors, imprisoned. Mariana revives in Haydée and Melba. The prison will further shape everyone. Speech, History will absolve me, comes out from behind bars.
So much mambí flavor in this kind of prologue to socialism with a Cuban voice that will come in due time. The combatants are released from prison due to popular action leading to an amnesty. The July 26 Movement takes action. Abel’s gaze drives, protects. Effective exile. From Mexico, the expedition as Julio Antonio and Tony dreamed and were going to prepare, each in his own time. They will be added to the 82 aboard the small yacht. La Fernandina’s lash is repeated. The leader responds to perfidy, nothing like a wet back to the US to get resources; its use will strip them of stains. Life will condemn the one who embraced opportunism.
The sea stares back at the mountains of the indomitable eastern land. Beats Pablo’s sublime chronicle on Realengo 18 in which he highlights the strategic and tactical importance of the Sierra Maestra. The Granma is already sailing! Dizziness, vomiting, lack of food, thirst. They are all one. Man to water! Fidel orders the rescue. Saved! Will fight. Bad weather delays. The arrival does not coincide with the uprising organized by Frank País, that colossus of the underground. Santiago de Cuba once again shows that it is the capital of heroism.
December two. The landing. Pio’s joy, sadness. There’s no giving up here! Again the harassment, the torture, the crimes, the jail. The survivors reunite. A handful of men and a few rifles. Fidel, as the Father of the Nation taught him, knows that they are enough to achieve freedom. Incorporation, contest, advance. Maceo and Gómez are Camilo and Che in the invasion. Thousands of valuable beings from various organizations die in the struggle in the cities. How can we forget that March 13 in which we physically lost José Antonio! January first! Things will be more difficult from then on, warns the Commander.
The empire reaches the most terrible infamies. In front of them, always the Rebel Army, later converted into the Revolutionary Armed Forces: it is the uniformed people, as Camilo said. In Girón we demonstrated our moral and military strength by defeating the mercenaries and their gringo puppeteers, also a victorious baptism of fire of the Militias and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. We are socialists. Antihumans do not abandon terrorism. The No one gives up here! de Almeida remains. We know that the planet has to pay off the great debt it owes to Africa, there we gave our efforts, even our blood. Without limiting ourselves to that continent.
The resistance, courage and intelligence of Cuba forced the US government to establish relations. Their cruelty, their ends have not changed, although they disguise the form. They maintain the blockage that isolates them; only followed by a submissive power as beastly as our main opponent. The cudgel hidden in the poisonous candies. They blatantly brandish it again. Sense of the historical moment. Essential transformations slowly but surely. Continuity that includes essential, never hurtful breaks from the principles.
We fortify the unit. We fight to sow goodness and love in souls, to be able to overcome internal and external forces that want to lead us to ignominy. We have to turn the heroism demonstrated in extreme situations into everyday heroism. At the forefront of the battles, the Communist Party of Cuba. Here we know how to defeat the zanjoneros: The Granma sails firmly.
