Dreke fought in the Cuban revolutionary war, led by the Rebel Army, that overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in January 1959. In the early 1960s, he was a commander of the volunteer battalions that fought the U.S-organized counterrevolutionary bands in the Escambray mountains of central Cuba. In 1965 he was second in command of the column of Cuban internationalist volunteers, headed by Ernesto Che Guevara, that joined with national liberation fighters in the Congo. He subsequently carried out numerous internationalist missions in Africa.

Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, and Luis Madrid, a Pathfinder editor, conducted the first session of the interview with Dreke in Havana on Oct. 26, 1999. Pathfinder editor Michael Taber and Perspectiva Mundial editor Martín Koppel joined Waters in a second interview session on Dec. 2, 2001.

This book is scheduled to be released February 1, with simultaneous editions in English and Spanish. Copyright © 2002 by Pathfinder Press, reprinted by permission.

The Militant will be reprinting the rest of the chapter in upcoming issues.
 

What impact did this law have on the struggle against the bandits?

Dreke: The Second Agrarian Reform helped. The wealthy landowners bought off those people. Many gave them support. But that's jumping ahead.

We did a number of things in the Escambray. At one point we had to seize a lot of property. I participated in this, together with people from the Escambray. We confiscated all the cars belonging to the counterrevolutionaries, all the timbiriches--that's what we call the tiny bodegas, or stores--that belonged to those who consciously assisted the bandits. Those who helped the bandits, protecting them, hiding them, and providing them with supplies, food, and other items. Some did so because they were forced to by the bandits. It was a little of both.

One night the army went in--and when I say "army," I mean the people's militias, the armed people, made up of the peasants themselves--and we confiscated all those things. It was a lightning operation. And by daybreak the bandits had nothing. They were left without supplies. They were left without a rear guard. Later they put one back together, but we put them in that situation for several months.

It was necessary to deepen the revolution's political work in the Escambray. That required making changes there in the leadership of the party, of the armed forces, of everything. The commander in chief; the minister of defense, Raúl; and Almeida, who had been named head of the Central Army--all of them were part of this. So the political and ideological work was turned around.

Waters: The troops, the militia who were decisive in defeating the bands--were they all volunteers? I'm thinking of Nicaragua, where there were differences among the Sandinistas over whether to fight the U.S.-organized contra forces with volunteers or draftees. The Sandinista leadership eventually decided on a draft, and the revolution's enemies used that to gain support.

Dreke: In our case they were volunteers.

In the first clean-up operation 50,000 combatants participated, most of them from Havana province. The militias executed a massive encirclement of the Escambray.

Waters: When was this?

Dreke: The first cleanup operation in the Escambray ran from the end of 1960 through the first months of 1961. But we had to withdraw our troops with a few bands still remaining. And then in April came Playa Girón.

We withdrew our troops early on in 1961 because they had already been mobilized for months. They were workers and peasants who had voluntarily left their workplaces and were absent from their jobs. Since they were taking part in the cleanup operation, they weren't producing.

It's important to remember that the enemy used the counterrevolutionary bands in the Escambray to try to drain the resources of the fledgling revolution, which was fighting to resolve the country's economic problems.

Most militia volunteers weren't getting paid anything. For those who had jobs, their factories and workplaces continued to pay their wages to their families. But most were youth in their teens who had never been part of the workforce. Only some years later, as an "incentive," to use the language of today, did we start giving 25 pesos a month to young milicianos who didn't hold regular jobs.

All of them were there by their own choice. They were the volunteer forces of the people.

Tens of thousands of militiamen took part. How were we able to mobilize them? Because of acts like the murder of literacy volunteers, among them Conrado Benítez and Manuel Ascunce,1 as well as innocent peasant women and children--and all the other crimes the bandits had committed: burning down schools, rapes, robberies. The people rose up in indignation over these savage deeds.

Madrid: How important was the first cleanup operation in the Escambray to ensuring the defeat of the invasion at Girón?

Dreke: It was very important. Let me explain why.

These bandits were dependent on imperialism. We can't look at the bandits in isolation, on their own, as just some group of crazies who took up arms. No, no, no. This was organized. They were being organized as a fifth column to back an invasion by the United States. An important mission was assigned to these bandits by Washington.2

At the time of the first cleanup, the mission for which the bandits were being prepared was to attack and seize the main towns when the invasion came--Trinidad and all those little towns there--and to take the highways. In addition, within the cities it was expected that organized counterrevolutionaries would take up arms when the moment came.

In other words, all this was being directed by imperialism.

What happened?

Fidel led the process of eliminating the bands prior to Girón. The murder and harassment of peasants had to be stopped. What's more, we knew an attack was coming. There had already been various types of sabotage actions by the bandits in different regions. For example, near Trinidad they blew up fuel tanks.

We made the effort to rapidly clean up the Escambray, so we wouldn't face a fifth column already armed and trained.

When the landing came at Girón, very few of the bandits remained. They were in flight. They were in hiding. They controlled nothing. This was part of defeating the U.S. invasion plan. The invaders were left without a rear guard.

In the cities State Security immediately grabbed them all. This included some people we thought were counterrevolutionaries but weren't. Because at that time, you couldn't say anything against the revolution. You couldn't say, "Damn it's cold and we don't have shelter." You couldn't say that because it would be interpreted as counterrevolutionary. That's the way it was. The question was one of "Patria o muerte!" [Homeland or death]. Because that was the only way forward.

So there were people we considered counterrevolutionaries because of reports and opinions expressed by their neighbors or coworkers. But when the invasion came, they went out into the streets requesting arms to fight.

But the real counterrevolutionaries were neutralized. We tied their feet. They couldn't do anything. The invaders were left with no reserve forces. They believed they had an army awaiting them. But when they arrived they found they had nothing. Their "army" had been crushed.  
 
 
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