{"id":228706,"date":"2020-10-08T11:52:43","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T15:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=228706"},"modified":"2020-10-08T11:52:43","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T15:52:43","slug":"a-refuge-for-the-best-of-the-cuban-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/our-life\/a-refuge-for-the-best-of-the-cuban-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"A refuge for the best of the Cuban nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started university around 1953.<\/span>1<\/b> I had no ties with anyone, with any organization, I had no antecedents. I was very young and studied in a school run by priests. I sympathized with Orthodoxy,<\/span>2<\/b> but came from the world of my school in Guanabacoa.<\/span><\/p>\n

My family sympathized with Batista. My friends at school weren\u2019t interested in politics. I was dying to make contact. At a demonstration I met <\/span>Fructuoso [Rodr\u00edguez].<\/span><\/a> He was my first acquaintance among the revolutionaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The University and the group war<\/b><\/p>\n

During the period after the revolution against Machado, the University [of Havana] suffered greatly, as it became a target for all political groups in the country. That downgraded it to really important levels. A great deal of the people who were involved in student political life looked for a kind of lever, a springboard to have a representative position, after taking advantage of the prestige given by the university tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that the 1930-33 revolution, with [Ra\u00fal] Roa\u2019s forgiveness, \u201cse fue a bolina\u201d (went downhill), but without it we would not have existed. The social conquests of the 1933 Revolution have not been justly valued. We know it was frustrated, but its seed remained. Within the walls of the university, most of the revolutionary leaders of this country were formed: [Julio Antonio] Mella, [Antonio] Guiteras, Fidel [Castro Ruz].<\/span><\/p>\n

With the coup d\u2019\u00e9tat [1952], Batista created a qualitatively different situation. He didn\u2019t realize it, but it was a watershed, for better and for worse. Many of these leaders continued during the first years playing the opposition to Batista, doing demagoguery with student demonstrations and with insurrectionary positions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The situation would start producing definitions. Many people from the so-called \u201cgroup war\u201d [<\/span>bonchismo<\/span><\/i> or <\/span>gangsterism<\/span><\/i>]<\/span>3<\/b>\u2014I don\u2019t dare to say that the majority, but a great many\u2014 went along with Batista. Very prominent people did it, including some of the smartest guys at the time, like Rolando Masferrer.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the period from 1953 to 1956 the Federation of University Students (FEU) won the fight against these old habits. It was a very difficult, muddy contest. In such a context, with the best of intentions, you can fall into a swamp and end up as many did in the 1940s, in a group war in the middle of the struggle against Batista.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was a danger we faced and it was circumvented with incredible intelligence. Representatives of corruption, group war, and politicking were removed from the University. Others pulled themselves out as they were isolated. And it was won without a shot inside the university. I insist: it was not an easy or peaceful fight. It was terrible.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Three busts located within the campus of the University of Havana. From left to right: Ramiro Vald\u00e9s Dauss\u00e1 (work by Tony L\u00f3pez), Jos\u00e9 Antonio Echeverr\u00eda (n\/info) and Manolo Castro y del Campo (n\/a). Vald\u00e9s Dauss\u00e1 and Manolo Castro died at the hands of the \u201cbonche.\u201d The first was a member of the University Student directorate (DEU) in 1930, saw two of his brothers killed by the Machado tyranny, was imprisoned in El Pr\u00edncipe and Presidio Modelo and was one of the founders of Izquierda Revolucionaria and the Partido Agrario Nacional. Castro y del Campo is a little-known figure with many legends about his death. Jorge Domingo has written a quality biographical sketch about him. In that text, Domingo quotes Alberto Baeza Flores, who placed Manolo Castro \u201cas one of the two or three leaders of the future of Cuba.\u201d In Echeverr\u00eda\u2019s time, the FEU managed to eradicate \u201cbonchismo\u201d within the University. Photos: Julio C\u00e9sar Guanche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The place of the insurrection<\/b><\/p>\n

Something that current historians greatly underestimate is the content of the central ideological discussion of that stage. What defined all the debates almost until the fall of Batista were the methods of struggle, rather than the future program.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until 1956 the leadership of the opposition against Batista was not in the hands of the insurrectionists, nor of the revolutionaries, not even of Fidel Castro. That is a key element of the scene. The insurrectionary position was typical of a minority group. We were isolated even within the oppositionists.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the assault on the Moncada [1953] there were no old politicians. All the old politicians condemned that action. All the parties condemned it\u2015<\/span>all<\/span><\/i>, without exception\u2015just as they later condemned the attack on the Presidential Palace [in 1957].<\/span>4<\/b> They treated us as madmen, gangsters, murderers, anarchists, Trotskyists.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In the Park known as \u201cde Palatino\u201d is this plaque, placed in December 1959, dedicated to the memory of Antonio L\u00f3pez Camero. According to the authors of the homage to \u201cCholo,\u201d the text of the plaque states which were the revolutionary organizations in the fight against Batista: the Revolutionary Directorate, the Authentic Organization and the July 26 Revolutionary Movement (MR 26-7). Photo: Julio C\u00e9sar Guanche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pact that entailed the Mexico Letter [1956] represented a great crisis within the FEU, one of the biggest that we experienced.<\/span>5<\/b> When the communiqu\u00e9 was known, and that it had been signed by the FEU, it was terrible, because we didn\u2019t have the majority in the organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within the University, of the nearly 13,000 students enrolled at the time, not even a third\u2015let\u2019s say\u2015was in favor of the armed struggle, or of the insurrection, or of the revolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that they were in favor of Batista. Batista, really, never had a boom among university students, nor among the Cuban people. I would say that most of the university student body was \u201capolitical.\u201d They weren\u2019t interested in politics.<\/span><\/p>\n