BY RAŚL CASTRO

Fifteen months of the revolutionary war, launched in December 1956, the Rebel Army was confined to a single front in the Sierra Maestra mountains of eastern Cuba. In 1958 new fronts were created in different regions of Oriente province and throughout the island. Raúl Castro was assigned to command the Second Eastern Front in that province.

The interview below, based on that experience, appeared in the March 11, 1988, issue of the Cuban magazine Bohemia. The Cuban newspaper Granma Weekly Review published an abridged version in English in its March 15, 1988, issue. The text below is taken from that Granma version.

Subheadings are by the Militant.

Bohemia: Within the general strategy outlined by the commander in chief of the Rebel Army [Fidel Castro] to take the war beyond the Sierra Maestra mountains, what were the basic missions, generally speaking, assigned to each front and invading column, not just from a military standpoint but also the political, and what were the particular ones assigned to the "Frank País" Column no. 6 and the Second Front?

Raúl Castro: I've often said that one of the things I admire most about Fidel is his foresight, and I repeat it here. It's really impressive how by late 1957 he had clearly worked out in detail exactly how he would spread the revolutionary war beyond the territory of the Sierra Maestra. Doing so was a cornerstone of his strategy, from a military standpoint, for defeating the Batista dictatorship and bringing about the triumph of the revolution.

I recall that in December 1957, at a place known as Balcón de La Habanita, we had a long talk and he explained to me that as soon as the Sierra Maestra front was consolidated, he would set up new columns and send them to different parts of the country. He mentioned at that time the Sierra Cristal area and the region east of the Sierra Maestra, near the city of Santiago de Cuba. But what surprised me most was when he said that he would also send rebel columns to the central region of the country and Pinar del Río.(1) I couldn't imagine at that time how he was going to do this.

Fidel was convinced - and this was how things turned out - that the First Front would be where the cadres and fighters would be forged and that they would gradually leave the mother column, as Che called it, to take the war to other territories, thereby multiplying the Rebel Army and forcing the enemy to divide its forces, thus becoming weaker and more vulnerable.

Uniting July 26 Movement

In addition to this essential goal, the aim was also to unite the July 26 Movement fighters who had taken up arms and coordinate operations with people belonging to other organizations. In other words, from a political standpoint, the aim was to act as a vehicle to bring together and unite the forces opposing the regime, and to implement in the new territories the revolutionary laws and measures already in force in the First Front.

Columns left the Sierra Maestra bound for other zones in the provinces of Oriente, Camaguey, Las Villas, and Pinar del Río, each carrying both general and specific assignments, depending on where they were to operate. In the case of Che's column, for example, the "Ciro Redondo" Column no. 8 had been assigned the strategic military goal of fighting the enemy in the central portion of the country and of intercepting and paralyzing all land movement by army troops from the west to the east of the country.

Column no. 4, set up in mid-1957 under Che's command, was the first to break away. Then Fidel honored Comrade [Juan] Almeida and myself by choosing us to lead two new columns: the "Santiago de Cuba" Column no. 3 and the "Frank País" Column no. 6, respectively.

Once again we were to fulfill two similar missions simultaneously - earlier when the expedition had been militarily organized just before the Granma landing, Almeida and I were appointed to lead the central and rear guard platoons, respectively. The forward detachment was led by José Smith Comas, who was murdered following Alegría de Pío.(2)

On February 27 the commander in chief signed the orders promoting us to the rank of commander, and it was on that day that we set out with our respective columns from Pata de la Mesa, the place where Che's general headquarters was located and where Fidel went to send us off.

According to the order signed by the commander in chief, my mission was to open up a new war front in northeastern Oriente province, specifically in the mountains extending from the Mayarí municipal district to the Baracoa region. Once there he ordered me to resist and then defeat the summer offensive by the dictator's army. Later, when the final battle was under way, he ordered me to capture the enemy enclaves in the zone encompassing Cueto, Mayarí, San Luis, and Guantánamo.

Thirty years later I can say that the missions assigned to the "Frank País" Second Eastern Front by the commander in chief were fulfilled. This required dedication, courage, and even the sacrifice of many lives - comrades who generously shed their blood to make victory possible.

Batista's offensive smashed

Bohemia: It has been said that the dictatorship's "summer offensive" turned out to be one of the most dramatic moments in the whole Second Front campaign. Can you elaborate on this? What did it mean for the rebel forces' subsequent military successes?

Castro: The time we spent fending off the summer offensive was indeed one of the most critical, not just for the Second Front but for the Rebel Army generally. Fidel once said that if we had not defeated that offensive, the war would have lasted longer.

But it must be pointed out that it was also one of the moments when Fidel's military thinking shone with particular brilliance. He guessed, with great precision, that the dictatorship would try to take advantage of the setback the revolutionary movement had suffered with the failed April strike,(3) and he immediately began to take steps to counter the blow. With the dictatorship thinking that we were spread out in several territories, Fidel ordered that we strategically regroup and even brought back Almeida and Camilo [Cienfuegos]-the former was already operating in the "Mario Muñoz" Third Front territory and the latter was waging his campaign on the Oriente plains. Thus the enemy, which had been trained and organized in battalions to fight guerrilla warfare, was suddenly forced to wage mainly a war of positions that it had not anticipated.

This brought to an end the offensive that the dictatorship boastfully called FF (Final Phase or Finishing off Fidel). It was indeed a final phase - but for the dictatorship, since, as Che put it, the Batista army emerged from those clashes with its back broken.

In the case of the Second Front, as I said before, Fidel ordered me to defend the territory in which we were operating, because although the enemy would launch its main blow in the direction of the First Front, another offensive, although not as large, would be directed against our zone.

A difficult time

Ours was actually a difficult task, for we had virtually just arrived, we were barely organized, and we were extremely short of ammunition, a situation that became worse because of the battles we waged in support of the April 9 strike.

We had to be very flexible in directing the operations we carried out in May and June 1958 to be able to confront the onslaught successfully. In those days we fought very hard battles like, for instance, the battle at La Lima, which lasted three days under torrential downpours. The resistance we put up while waging a war of positions was vitally important in throwing back the enemy offensive in the Second Front. Although we didn't see it this way in the beginning, when seen together with the battles we fought after that, it amounted to a big victory.

Combining guerrilla warfare with a war of positions, tactical withdrawals with constant harassment of the enemy's rear guard, we were able to prevent the enemy from entering our territory despite its attempts to do so in different places. In particular we managed to protect the zone of our general headquarters and certain rudimentary but very important installations we had there.

By the second half of June, the army was forced to withdraw, having been unable to achieve its goals, and from that time on we entered a new stage of development. We consolidated and expanded our territory. Our forces grew during this period and we got some new weapons. This enabled us to swell the five rebel companies we had at the beginning of the offensive into five columns. From that time on until the end of the war, the initiative passed into our hands.

By the last months of the war we set up a new column and so in December 1958 we had six: the "Juan M. Ameijeiras" Column no. 6, led by Efigenio Ameijeiras, who was also second in command of the Second Front; the "José Tey" Column no. 19, led by Belarmino Castilla; the "Abel Santamaría" Column no. 17, headed by Antonio E. Lussón; the "Ñico López" Column no. 18, commanded by Félix Pena; the "Gustavo Fraga" Column no. 20, led by Demetrio Montseny; and the "Enrique Hart" Column no. 16, led by Carlos Iglesias.

By then the Second Front covered an area of about 12,000 square kilometers in the rural municipalities of Mayarí, Sagua de Tánamo, Baracoa, Yateras, Guantánamo, Alto Songo, and San Luis, and by the end of the war, Banes and Antilla as well. During the nine months that our campaign there lasted, we flew the flag of the Free Territory of Cuba all over the region.

Strong fighting tradition

Bohemia: What specific conditions contributed to the rapid development of the Second Eastern Front and made it possible for all representatives and functions of the Batista government within its limits to be replaced in a short time by Rebel Army forces under your command?

Castro: The region covered by the Second Front had a series of characteristics that helped the Rebel Army do its revolutionary work better. Unquestionably, in many ways better conditions existed there than in the Sierra Maestra.

In the territories under our control or heavy influence there were 18 sugar mills; fertile lands planted with sugarcane, coffee, and other crops; large cattle herds; and the soil was rich in minerals. Those were, in the main, the most important economic resources in the region and most of them were U.S.-owned. The United Fruit Co., for example, was the largest owner of land planted with sugarcane.

Another vitally important point to be considered is that the population there had a strong fighting tradition. Located there, for instance, was Realengo 18, where a memorable battle was waged [in 1934] against the eviction of peasants, and the place became a worthy symbol of the Cuban peasants' rebelliousness. Moreover, from Hatuey(4) to Fidel, that is, throughout our history, few other territories in the country can boast of so much rebelliousness and so many struggles of all kinds.

All those factors, naturally, contributed to our revolutionary efforts, much more than even our military activity did.

From the time we arrived, we began to tackle many political and social problems. We set up an administrative apparatus under our general headquarters to take charge of civilian affairs.

An important step in the process of organizing the Front, particularly in connection with civilian administration, was taken in October, when we issued Military Order no. 49 putting in force the organic law whereby the Front was officially established with its own military and administrative structure.

The order described the existence and functions of seven departments: the War Department, under my direct supervision, made up of the six columns and the Rebel Air Force; plus the Justice, Public Health, Propaganda, Education, Finances, and Construction and Communications Departments. Later on, the Industrial Department was established.

We'd also set up two intermediate leadership bodies: Personnel and Inspection, and Interdepartmental; in addition there were the Agrarian and Workers Bureaus.

In our territory we levied taxes on large landowners; we gradually solved conflicts between employers and workers; we built roads and administered justice; and we even performed marriages.

Peasant Congress in Arms

I think two events are particularly illustrative of our work with the population and both had major political repercussions. One was the Peasant Congress in Arms held on September 21, 1958; the other was the Workers' Congress in Arms, which began in the afternoon on December 8 of the same year, in the midst of the Rebel Army's final offensive that led to the complete collapse of the dictatorship.

I should stress that we did very useful and necessary work there, above all because we supplanted the old authority of the regime in that territory and made the new authority prevail. Our authority emanated from the revolutionary power represented by the Rebel Army, which exercised it on the basis of the revolution's purest principles.

It is true that the incipient, rural administrative organization we created as we went along had many flaws, not to mention our youth and lack of experience. Yet looking back on it almost 30 years later, I might say that one of the biggest obstacles was posed by the rapidly unfolding events and the dynamics of the struggle itself, which gave rise to new problems, so that we would just start to implement some organizational scheme and it would become obsolete a few weeks later. Nevertheless, I believe that at all times we did the right thing in line with our possibilities, that we always concentrated on the most important questions that often arose simultaneously and with very different characteristics.

Bohemia: The mountain population has its own special characteristics. The fact that the military leaders under your command were familiar with them proved to be a decisive factor in attaining your goals. What social changes did the opening and consolidation of the Second Front represent for the population in the northern and eastern mountains of Oriente?

Castro: I believe that during the nine months the Second Front operated, we succeeded as much as we could in improving the living conditions of the population with whom we shared the hardships of war in that area. As I see it, one of the biggest benefits received by the local peasants, in the social arena, was the work we did there in health and education.

In the course of a few months we made big efforts to reopen a number of schools that the dictatorship had closed down and we built many others. By the time the war ended, we had some 400 teachers and over 450 schools.

First literacy campaign

The first literacy campaign carried out in that area was directed by our Department of Education. It was a mass campaign involving both Rebel Army fighters and local men and women who until then had lived in complete ignorance. The department was headed by Comrade Asela de los Santos, current deputy minister of education.

The rebel teachers played a vitally important role, not just in improving the education of the fighters and the peasantry but also in helping them understand more clearly why we were fighting and the urgent need for deep-going political, economic, and social changes.

As was the case with our doctors, many teachers participated frequently in military operations after school hours. The image of the future conveyed by our fighting teachers and doctors, with a rifle in one hand and textbooks or medicines in the other, proved highly encouraging for our peasants.

Right from the start, the medical personnel who took care of our troops in the Second Front also treated the peasant population that, as a rule, lacked any kind of health care and lived in areas where epidemics, malnutrition, and endemic illnesses prevailed. The death rate was extremely high, to the extent that just before our arrival, in the Mayarí Arriba area 70 to 80 percent of the children under a year of age had died as a result of an outbreak of gastroenteritis.

Our Health Department didn't skimp on material and human resources to care for the civilian population who confidently went to the rebel hospitals to see the doctors, previously unavailable in the area.

This department was made up of 160 comrades, including 19 doctors and five dentists. We also had pharmacists, X-ray and lab technicians, medical students, nurses, and helpers. We even had operating rooms, radiology services, laboratories, sterilizing units, blood transfusion and classification centers, hospital beds, and other services and facilities. This department was headed from the start by Comrade José Ramón Machado Ventura, now a Political Bureau and Secretariat member of the Central Committee of our party.

The prestige won in public health and education among the civilian population served as an incentive to collaborate with the Rebel Army and greatly contributed to increasing their respect for it. I've always thought that the overall effort made resulted in extremely valuable large- scale political and social work, which showed the population in that territory very graphically what the triumph of the revolution would signify.

`New pines'

Bohemia: You were in your twenties when the commander in chief conferred on you the enormous responsibility of constituting the Second Eastern Front. Does the Armed Forces today entrust important missions and tasks to young officers?

Castro: In the first place, to understand the circumstances in which we were given the great responsibility of constituting a front, it's necessary to put oneself in the concrete situation the revolutionary struggle found itself in, and particularly the Rebel Army, which had only a few hundred combatants.

While it's true that we were young, some of us had already been through certain experiences and some degree of tempering, acquired from the first clandestine efforts, the Moncada, prison, exile, the Granma, and the difficult first fifteen months in the Sierra Maestra. By midnight on March 10, 1958, as we were crossing the Oriente plains en route to the mountains of what would become the Second Front, exactly six years had passed since Batista's coup d'état. In that time we had learned some things; for example in prison we studied and read intensively; in Mexico we continued preparing ourselves. But to be truthful, looking back on it after so much time, I now conclude that faced with the gigantic task in front of us, we were mere novices as political and military leaders.

But the fact is that we were the only ones Fidel had at that concrete time. He had already set aside other more difficult and important missions for Che and Camilo, even at the time when Almeida and I were selected to head the Third and Second Fronts respectively. He could have chosen others from among those of more or less the same age and similar experience. But what he could not do was wait patiently for us to grow older and gain more maturity.

I'm sure that the great bulk of our young officers in the FAR today, of the same age as we were then, under similar circumstances in the Sierra Maestra in that concrete situation at the beginning of 1958, would have been capable of fulfilling the mission assigned to me, and even do it better....

Personally, I am convinced of the correctness of the policy of opening the way for the "new pines" in all spheres of society. I am absolutely certain that our young officers, sergeants, and soldiers are up to the high task of belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces at this historic and difficult moment of building a new society.

1. Cuba's westernmost province.

2. The first battle of the revolutionary war in December 1956, in which the rebels were taken by surprised and dispersed.

3. The July 26 Movement called a general strike on April 9, 1958. Lacking political preparation, the strike failed.

4. Chief of the indigenous population in Cuba who led resistance to the Spanish colonial invaders. He was captured and burned at the stake in 1513.  
 
 
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