The Triumph of the Revolution under the leadership of two giants of the Rebel Army, brothers Fidel and Raul Castro Ruz, meant many things for Cubans within a libertarian environment, achieved by a group of young dreamers led by them.
One of them, and perhaps not deepened, is that it initiated a psychology of victory and heroism. What we can consider as a new type of epic in the collective representations that would prevail in a great part of the Cuban society for many years, where the writer Alejo Carpentier would reflect his impression in one of his novels: "I look and look again at these men of the Sierra (Maestra mountains) and they seem to me like people of another race? Perhaps a new race capable of doing something new". 1
Fidel Castro ordered Raul: "Look, go to the East and I will take charge of the Ministry of the Armed Forces with the Chief of Staff, go there, go and organize the Eastern Army, if we save the East, we save the Revolution''. 2
In this regard, Raul said: "Fidel sent me to the East and told me: If we save the East, we save the Revolution. Go there, I will take charge of MINFAR with Sergio del Valle (Commander, then Chief of the General Staff). Devote yourself to organizing the Eastern Army; its territory, its mountains and the presence of the Guantanamo naval base are very important". 3
Precisely about Fidel, the Army General said "Fidel is here because he is needed, because the ship of the Revolution needs a helmsman like him, so that the traitors cannot stop the machinery of his Revolution, so that the traitors cannot deviate the course of the ship of his Revolution. To fulfill the mission of our Revolution, we need Fidel". 4
To pay homage to his brother in blood and combat, Raul did not miss any of his appearances in any of them: "Fidel is wherever one is working, Fidel is spiritually wherever the Revolution moves forward. Fidel is wherever an intrigue is destroyed, wherever a Cuban is working honestly, wherever a Cuban, whoever he may be, is doing good. Wherever a Cuban, whoever he may be, is defending the Revolution, Fidel will be there". 5
"If Fidel Castro is today the most popular leader, the best known and the one who arouses most enthusiasm and adhesions throughout Latin America, it is due not only to the armed struggle of years, but also and mainly to the fact that the revolutionary power instituted under his leadership resolutely and firmly vindicated national sovereignty. He severely punished torturers, murderers and war criminals. He disqualified the venal and treacherous politicians, the corrupt trade union leaders, accomplices of tyranny, and confiscated their property stolen from the people. He dissolved the organs of reactionary power, immediately undertook radical measures of popular benefits and above all and above all the radical Agrarian Reform Law". 6
Certainly that sense of victory and heroism belonged to a relatively small group of fighters of the Rebel Army and the underground. They had argued in ambushes and urban actions the collective opposition to the dictatorship. They were the heroes and were regarded as such.
The projection of Raul Castro's thought in the trajectory of the Cuban Revolution could not be more eloquent, more credible and more categorical, endorsed by his firm and loyal conduct, which was corroborated on several occasions by Commander Fidel, when he publicly expressed his opinion and the qualities of the Army General.
In the middle of the newy born Cuban Revolution, on January 21, 1959, in a public act in front of the Presidential Palace, the undisputed leader of the revolution expressed:
"I am going to propose to the leadership of the 26th of July Movement to designate comrade Raul Castro as second in command. I do it not because he is my brother, which everybody knows, but because I consider him to have enough qualities to replace me in case I should die in this struggle. Because, in addition, he is a comrade of firm revolutionary convictions who has demonstrated his capacity in the struggle; he was one of those who led the attack on the Moncada and the II Frank País Front, demonstrating his capacity as an organizer and as a military man".
On another occasion, he commented: "And Raul is a comrade who has his criteria, his opinions, his character and his way of being and, by the way, he is a very different individual from the Raul that the enemy propaganda has tried to portray. Everyone who gets to know him, to be intimate with him, realizes his humanism, his great quality and his feelings; they are surprised by a Raul who has been portrayed as belligerent, aggressive, hard, when they see the feelings of friendship, love and affection that he is capable of having for the people. And he has been a great trainer and a great educator, because I believe that the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces has been the best school for the training of cadres that we have had, with great rigor and with great demands".
As an interesting colophon on this instructive subject, Fidel, in the interview he gave in 1992 to the Sandinista Commander and excellent poet Tomás Borges, summarized that "Raúl has really been the second in command of the Revolution throughout this revolutionary period. I say that Raul has not stood out more because he has had my shadow, that is my opinion; because for people to stand out more it is necessary for them to have a place where they can show all their capacities or all their qualities".
Men of the stature of Fidel and Raul fill our people with infinite pride, who are increasingly grouped around the figure of both leaders, even though they are no longer at the helm of the nation.
Our people are increasingly rallying around the leaders who knew how to lead us in the dark moments towards victory, and thanks to whom our people will reach, quite simply, wherever the Cuban people want to go. Not where the imperialists are interested in.
As an irrefutable fact, our population of grateful people distinguish with a deep look that in Fidel and Raul converge the features and virtues that a leader of peoples must have and that in synthesis are the absolute identification with the social and progressive interests by showing deep political knowledge, high culture, given not only by a vast professional preparation, but by its more comprehensive dimension, in the military and ideological framework; modesty and simplicity in the treatment, ability to formulate with precision their ideas and ability to transmit them.
Together with them and under the influence of their unique personalities, numerous revolutionary cadres have been formed, as is well known.
For all this and much more, we dedicate our eternal recognition to the leaders of the Cuban Revolution and, especially, for our Army General on his ninetieth birthday.
Source:
Alejo Carpentier, La consagración de la primavera, Editorial Letras Cubana, Havana, 2001, p. 417. Tomás Borges:
Interview conducted with the President of the Councils of State and Ministers of the Republic of Cuba, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, by journalist Talía González Pérez, of the Cuban Television Information System, December 31, 2008, "Year 50 of the Revolution."
Un grano de maíz, pp. 248 and 249, Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, Havana, 1992.
Speech at the peasant rally to commemorate the 6th anniversary of the assault on the barracks.
Speech at the commemorative act for the uprising of September 5, 1957, September 5, 1959, in Revolución newspaper, 2nd ed.]
[Conference "El mensaje revolucionario de Cuba", Casa de las Américas, September 11, 1959, in Hoy newspaper, September 16, 1959, p. 2.]
(7) Tomás Borges: Un grano de maíz, pp. 248 and 249, Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, Havana, 1992.
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