How did the cold war of cuba start?
On July 26, 1953, a group of approximately one hundred poorly
armed guerrillas attacked the Moncada Barracks. Many of them were
killed in the battles after the attack. The survivors, among them
Fidel Castro Ruz and his brother Raul Castro, were captured shortly
afterwards. In a highly political trial, they were sentenced to
long prison terms. Castro was sentenced 15 years in the presidio
modelo located on Isla de Pinos.
In 1955, due to pressure from civil leaders, the general
opposition, and the Jesuits who had helped educate Fidel Castro,
and perhaps because he had known the Castro brothers in their
youth, Batista freed all political prisoners, including the Moncada
attackers. The Castro brothers went into exile in Mexico, where
they gathered more exiled Cubans to fight in the Cuban revolution
for the overthrow of Batista. During that period, Castro also met
the Argentine doctor Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who joined their
forces. They were trained by Alberto Bayo, a former military leader
of the failed "loyalists" in the Spanish Civil War.
The group training in Mexico under the leadership of Fidel
Castro left for Cuba in November 1956, in a small yacht named,
"Granma." They hoped their landing in Eastern Cuba would coincide
with planned uprisings in the cities and a general strike,
coordinated by the llano wing of the 26th of July Movement. It was
their intention to launch an armed offensive and swiftly topple the
Batista government.
The Granma was delayed en route to Cuba, arriving late and at a
location further east than was planned. This dashed any hopes for a
coordinated attack with the llano wing of the movement. After
arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make
their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in
Southeastern Cuba. Shortly after their trek began, they were
attacked by men from the army. Most of the Granma participants were
killed in this attack, but a small number, between one and two
dozen, escaped. The survivors were separated from one another, and
alone or in small groups, wandered through the mountains, looking
for other survivors. Eventually, this small group of persons, would
find one another with the help of peasant sympathizers. This small
group of people, which included Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara,
Camilo Cienfuegos, and Raul Castro would form the core leadership
of the guerrilla army.
From 1956 through the middle of 1958, Castro with the aid of the
Frank Pais and Ramos Latour, Huber Matos, and many others, staged
successful attacks on small Batista garrisons in the Sierra Maestra
mountains. Batista forces tried bloody repression to retain control
and the cities in Cuba remained under Batista's control until the
end. Che Guevara and Ra�l Castro helped consolidate political
control in the mountains through executions of Batista Loyalists
and potential rivals to Castro. The irregular poorly armed
escopeteros harassed the Batista forces through the foot hills and
the plains of Oriente Province; in addition these much maligned
forces provided Castro's main forces with moderate military
support, intelligence, and protected supply lines. Thus Castro
achieved military control of these mountains.
During this time, Castro's forces were quite small, at times
less than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force numbered
between 30,000 and 40,000 in strength (Bockman, Chapter 2). Yet
nearly every time the army fought against the revolutionaries, they
were the ones who retreated from the fight. The Cuban military was
remarkably ineffective. A growing problem for the Batista forces
was an arms embargo imposed on the Cuban government by the United
States government on March 14, 1958. The Cuban air force rapidly
lost its power as planes could not be repaired without spare parts
from the U.S.
Batista forces finally responded with an attack on the mountains
called Operation Verano (the rebels called it "la Ofensiva"). Some
12,000 soldiers (more than half new, untrained recruits) attacked
into the mountains. In a series of small scale fights, the Cuban
army was defeated by Castro's determined fighters. In one battle
(the Battle of La Plata) which lasted from July 11 till July 21,
Castro's forces defeated an entire battalion, capturing 240 men,
while losing just 3 of their own. The tide nearly turned on July 29
when Castro's small army (some 300 men) was nearly destroyed at the
Battle of Las Mercedes. The Cuban army under General Cantillo lured
Castro's forces into a trap. After two days of fighting, Castro's
forces lost 70 men, nearly one third of his men. With his forces
pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and was granted,
a temporary cease-fire (August 1st). Over the next seven days,
while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually
escaped from the trap. By August 8th, Castro's entire army had
escaped back into the mountains. Operation Verano had been a
failure for the Batista government.
August 1958 to Victory
On August 21 1958, after the defeat of the Batista "ofensiva",
Castro's forces began their offensive. There were four fronts in
the "Oriente" province (now divided into Santiago de Cuba, Granma,
Guant�namo and Holgu�n) directed by Fidel Castro, Ra�l Castro and
Juan Almeida. Descending from the mountains, with weapons captured
during the ofensiva and smuggled in by plane, Castro's forces won a
series of victories. The major Castro victory at Guisa, and the
succeeding capture of several towns (Maffo, Contramaestre, Central
Oriente, etc.) consolidated victory on the Cauto plains.
Meanwhile, three columns under the command of Che Guevara,
Camilo Cienfuegos and Jaime Vega proceeded westward toward the
provincial capital of Santa Clara. Jaime Vega's column was ambushed
and destroyed. The surviving two columns reached the central
provinces, where they joined efforts with several other resistance
groups not under the command of Castro. Cienfuegos won a key
victory in the Battle of Yaguajay on December 30, 1958 (earning him
the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay"). The next day (the 31st), in a
scene of great confusion, the city of Santa Clara was captured by
the combined forces of Che Guevara, Cienfuegos, and William
Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He
fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic just hours later on January 1,
1959.
Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning and he
immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba. On
January 2nd, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido,
ordered his soldiers not to fight and Castro's forces took over the
city. The forces of Guevara and Cienfuegos entered Havana at about
the same time. They had met no opposition on their journey from
Santa Clara to Cuba's capital. Castro himself arrived in Havana on
January 6th after a long victory march. Officially, the leader of
Cuba was the new President Urrutia, in reality, Castro was in
control.