M-26 by Robert Taber

M-26 by Robert Taber

Author:Robert Taber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Burtyrki Books
Published: 2020-01-29T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter Nine

NO VICTORY CELEBRATION in Havana marked the end of the Cienfuegos uprising, no grin of triumph illuminated the saturnine features of Batista in the newsreels. The naval mutiny had revealed a crack in the dictator’s armor, and a chill wind was blowing through the chink.

The government vainly tried to disguise the nature of the insurrection, denying that naval personnel had mutinied at Cienfuegos. The only result was to lay the dictatorship open to the grave new charge of having used the weapons of total war, tanks, aircraft, high explosives, to crush a mere civil disorder. For the first time, U.S. Congressmen began to question the nature of diplomatic arrangements that put the United States in the position of providing a dictator with bombs to be hurled upon a defenseless civilian population.

The Washington Post, summing up with fair accuracy in an editorial published on September 9th, five days after the Cienfuegos insurrection, declared:

Although the uprising of rebel and naval forces at the Cuban port of Cienfuegos may now be under control, it is an ominous portent for the dictatorship and General Fulgencio Batista. The main source of Batista’s power is the military forces, but despite government denials there is good evidence that naval troops defected at Cienfuegos and aided rebel forces. The Cienfuegos uprising affords a sign of internal weakness that cannot be shrugged off as easily as the ragtag guerrilla army of Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra.

In the past few months, Cuba has witnessed an assassination attempt on the presidential palace, an abortive general strike, police terror in Santiago, midnight bombings and shootings in Havana, and a blackout of the Cuban press.

General Batista deceives no one by blaming the unrest on the Communists. He has pledged a free election in June of 1958, but his repressive policies weaken faith in his promise. It seems clear that if Batista does not accede to an orderly transfer of power, trouble and revolt will continue to plague the freedom-hungry island of Cuba.

The “ominous portent” seen by the Washington Post failed to hearten the leaders of the 26th of July movement. If a general strike, a serious defection of the armed forces, and the pitched battle of an entire city against the army could not shake down the dictator, the question was—what could?

The revolutionary leaders had relied from the beginning on various forms of psychological warfare against the dictatorship, with but little apparent success. Fidel himself had “struck the spark,” but the fire refused to spread to the desired quarter, nor had repeated “sparks”—the assault on the palace, the general strike, Cienfuegos—seemed to make any difference. The foundations of the government had no doubt been weakened. But the dramatic collapse anticipated had failed to come.

It was plain that a new and more powerful and concerted effort was required. On October 10th and 11th, Resistencia Cívica and M-26 underground leaders from every province but those of Pinar del Río and Matanzas met at “Chantilly,” the summer cottage of the Santos Buch family outside of Santiago, to reorganize the entire top echelon of the movement.



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