Vol. 75/No. 17      May 2, 2011

Below is an excerpt from the book From the Escambray to the Congo: In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution by Víctor Dreke, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for May. In the 1960s Dreke commanded special units in Cuba’s Escambray mountains cleaning out armed counterrevolutionary bands. Organized by Washington, the bandits were killing peasants, burning sugarcane fields, and attacking centers of production. Severely weakened by April 1961, the bandits were unable to aid the U.S.-organized mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs as Washington had planned—an invasion that was defeated in less than 72 hours. Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, interviewed Dreke. Copyright © 2002 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

WATERS: Outside Cuba, the fight against the counterrevolutionary bands in the Escambray in the first half of the 1960s is a little-known chapter of the revolution. Yet it’s one of the decisive battles that molded the revolution. Knowing something about that struggle also helps explain why for more than forty years Washington has underestimated the strength of the revolution. And why, in spite of their concerted military, economic, and political efforts, the U.S. rulers have been unable to crush it.

Who were the bandits? Where did they come from?

DREKE: When we were talking about the war of liberation, I mentioned a number of individuals who had participated in the revolutionary struggle who were in fact adventurers. There were others who were simply opportunist self-seekers, individuals out to grab power, who believed when the revolution triumphed they would trade places with the thieves who had been in control. They would trade places with the brothel owners and become the new owners of the brothels, prostitutes and all….

When the first clean-up operation began in 1960, when the army arrived, when Fidel arrived, the peasants responded, and entire battalions of peasant militias from the Escambray were formed. The peasants asked for weapons and they defended the Escambray. So what the enemy thought was going to be a den of thieves was, by determined revolutionary combat, turned into a bulwark of the revolution… .

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… .

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 clean-up, 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?

The commander in chief, 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.

Prior to the revolution, 23.6 percent of the Cuban population was illiterate. In the countryside illiteracy reached 41 percent, and if those who were semiliterate are included, the figure was over 80 percent. From late 1960 through the end of 1961 the revolutionary government organized a national campaign to teach one million Cubans to read and write. Central to this effort was the mobilization of 100,000 young people to go to the countryside, where they lived with peasants they were teaching. As a result of this drive, Cuba eliminated illiteracy.

2. This mission was described in a presidential briefing paper from August 1960, quoted by then CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick in a balance sheet of the defeated Bay of Pigs invasion written in October 1961, but released only in 1998. The August 1960 Eisenhower administration memo said: “The initial phase of paramilitary operations envisages the development, support and guidance of dissident groups in three areas of Cuba: Pinar del Rio, Escambray and Sierra Maestra. These groups will be organized for concerted guerrilla action against the regime.”

Kirkpatrick also cites a secret White House memo from March 11, 1961—four days prior to the Kennedy administration’s decision to switch the proposed invasion from the Escambray region to Playa Girón. The memo reported that the revolutionary government “is making good use of the militia against guerrilla activities.”