5. Revolutionary Struggle Against Batista¶
Core Argument¶
In the revolutionary struggle against Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship, Fidel Castro’s 26 July Movement (M-26J) emerged as the decisive force, though its origins and ideology were far from socialist. On 26 July 1953, Castro led approximately 130 people, mostly from the Ortodoxo Party, in an assault on the Moncada Army Barracks. The attack failed catastrophically; eighty prisoners were murdered after capture. At his trial, Castro delivered the ‘History Will Absolve Me’ speech, a reformist manifesto demanding reinstatement of the 1940 constitution, agrarian reform, profit-sharing, and confiscation of fraudulent holdings, but crucially not questioning private property or capitalism. After an amnesty in 1955, Castro and his brother Raúl departed for Mexico, where they met Che Guevara and prepared a new expedition. The M-26J was formally founded, with Frank País building a network of workers’ cells in Cuba.
The Granma landed on 2 December 1956, two days late, and was met by Batista’s troops; only sixteen guerrillas with twelve guns reached the Sierra Maestra. There they linked with Crescencio Pérez, a peasant leader recruited by Celia Sánchez. A New York Times interview with Castro in February 1957 disproved Batista’s claim that he was dead, damaging the dictator’s prestige. Frank País argued the guerrillas were unprepared, but a compromise saw Castro remain while País selected and Celia Sánchez trained new fighters; on 23 April 1957, she became the Rebel Army’s first woman member.
The M-26J built support through front organisations like the Civic Resistance Movement. The July 1957 Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra promised free elections and democratic government. The US ambassador, seeing Batista’s weakness, signed a letter calling for his resignation and halted arms sales; Castro denounced this pact for not rejecting foreign intervention or military junta rule. Workers struck for better conditions in early 1957, met with state terror. After Frank País’s murder, a general shutdown spread across Cuba. The PSP, initially hostile, agreed to a general strike on 9 April 1958, which failed because M-26J excluded Communists in Havana, treated the strike as armed action rather than mass mobilisation, and kept the date secret. Castro used the failure to emphasise rural guerrilla strategy. Batista launched an offensive with 12,000 troops against 300 guerrillas, but his army was poorly led; the guerrillas won key battles. US-supplied napalm was used against civilians; Castro swore future war against the US.
By late 1958, the economy collapsed, Batista lost control of roads and railways, and workers favoured the revolution. Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos led columns westward, recruiting heavily. The Mariana Grajales Women’s platoon was formed. The judiciary was left largely untouched; only known Batista supporters and all Supreme Court judges were removed, replaced by magistrates whose sole qualification was not having backed Batista. M-26J’s three-year guerrilla struggle won overwhelming Cuban support, except from those tied to the regime, landlords, and US imperialism. The movement’s initial base was the urban underground, but it shifted to peasants, workers, and small rural producers. By origin, aims, and social composition, M-26J was an extremely radical petty-bourgeois formation. What distinguished the Castro team was its principle of no compromise with the dictatorship, carrying armed struggle through to the end via a peasant guerrilla movement. From Castro’s ‘History Will Absolve Me’ through the 1957 ‘Manifesto From the Sierra’, there was no suggestion of socialist steps; Castro later stated he was a revolutionary but not a Marxist-Leninist.