BY RÓGER CALERO

PLAYA GIRÓ'N, Cuba - Two Young Socialists from the United States participated in the commemoration of the 35th anniversary of one of the first big defeats of U.S. imperialism in the Americas, held here April 19. Diana Newberry and this writer had been invited to tour Cuba by the Union of Young Communists (UJC) to speak about the resistance of workers and youth in the United States to the mounting attacks on their working and living conditions by the bosses and their political parties.

Thirty-five years ago, in less than 72 hours, Cuban workers and farmers - organized in the popular militias and the Cuban armed forces - defeated a U.S.-led counterrevolutionary invasion at Playa Girón (also known as the Bay of Pigs). The mercenaries hoped the invasion would spark a popular revolt in Cuba that would justify direct military intervention by the U.S. government aimed at crushing the socialist revolution.

"They tried to plant fear in us about communism, even though we did not know what socialism was," said one of the participants in that battle at an event organized by the UJC, called "A Meeting of the Generations."

"We embraced the revolutionary cause because we knew our lives had changed."

Nearly 2,000 youth had the chance to hear stories by veteran combatants who fought in Playa Girón. Among the veterans at the meeting were Lester Rodríguez, Oscar Fernández Mell, Ramón Salinas, retired Revolutionary Armed Forces general Enrique Carrera, and others like them who were also combatants in the Cuban revolutionary war that overthrew the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship.

Victoria Velázquez, UJC first secretary, and Luis González Nieto, UJC second secretary, attended the event along with other members of the provincial and national leadership of the UJC and the Cuban Communist Party. The Young Socialists were introduced during the program to a cheering crowd of Cuban youth.

General Carrera described the conditions in which they fought and how they defeated the enemy planes that launched attacks from bases in Nicaragua and the United States. "[Now] we practice the strategy of `war of the entire people,' but at the time we went through one of the most difficult moments in the history of the revolution," he said.

One youth asked the combatants if they had ever thought about the possibility of defeat. "It was impossible to think of defeat," replied Abraham Macíquez, who was among the first to join in combat against the mercenary invasion. "People came with and without weapons, and demonstrated that there was an entire people determined to defend the conquests of the revolution. That is why the victory at Girón is the victory for the entire people."

About 1,500 of the participants were soldiers, teachers, farmers, and workers who rode in a bicycle caravan in a symbolic reenactment of the 162-kilometer march that militias from Havana undertook to get to the battlefield in Girón. Along the road to Playa Girón, members of the mass organizations and Territorial Troop Militias stood guard at sites where militia members had fallen.

Fernández Mell, a captain and doctor in the Rebel Army during the revolutionary war, had been second in charge of the command post at the Australia sugar center, site of fierce battles between the mercenary aviation and Cuban anti-aircraft machine gunners. He described how young combatants kept advancing along the road despite the number of casualties.

The meeting of the generations was one in a series of events organized around the country by the mass organizations and other institutions in Cuba. On the weekend of April 14, units of the Territorial Troop Militias were mobilized in a national Defense Day in which the population conducted exercises in military defense and production around the country. In Havana, the mobilization was organized by the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC).  
 
 
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