On July 7, 1955, Fidel Castro went into exile in Mexico. It took him less than 60 days after his amnesty on May 15 to realize that the doors of the civic struggle in Cuba were closed to him.
Hours before leaving, that Thursday, August 8, 1955, he had declared: «After six weeks on the streets, I am convinced more than ever that the Dictatorship intends to remain in power for twenty years disguised in different ways, governing as Until now on terror and crime, ignoring that the patience of the people has limits. As a Martian, I think that the time has come to take rights and not ask for them, to uproot them instead of begging for them. I will reside somewhere in the Caribbean. You do not return from trips like these or you return with headless tyranny at your feet.
A month later, from Aztec lands, Fidel Castro, on behalf of the July 26 Movement, released Manifesto no. 1 to the People of Cuba. A call to fight against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and a document that exposed the Program of the Revolution synthesized in 15 points; At the same time, it called for reflection and the conscience of the people.
Within Cuba, the members of the M-26-7 received the mission of publishing some 50,000 copies that should have been on the streets on August 16, the fourth anniversary of the death of the leader of the Orthodox Party, Eduardo Chibás, for, as specified Fidel in the instructions: «You will see how we break the curtain of silence and we are opening the way to a new stage».
From the first lines of the Manifesto, Fidel uses a direct language of a frontal attack on tyranny, without fear or cowardice: «(…) I do not hesitate to assume the responsibility that implies putting our signature on these proclamations that will be a constant harangue to the people, an unambiguous call to revolution, and a frontal attack on the clique of criminals that tramples on the honor of the nation and governs its destinies against the grain of its history and the sovereign will of the people».
Then he goes on to enumerate all the actions carried out against him to silence him, to silence his voice, which was that of the oppressed people: «We are left without being able to speak, write, or give public acts, or exercise civic rights of any kind. nature. As if we were not Cubans, as if we had no rights in our homeland, as if we had been born outcasts and slaves in the glorious land of our immortal liberators.
In the Manifesto to the People of Cuba, its author takes the opportunity to call for conscience, to awaken souls and unite wills in the fight against the dictator Fulgencio Batista, who came to power through the coup of March 10, 1952.
This is how Fidel proclaims: “Those who doubt the firmness with which we will carry out our promise, those who believe we are reduced to impotence because we have no private fortune to put at the disposal of our cause, nor millions stolen from the people, remember July 26 ; remember that a handful of men who were not counted on at all, without economic resources of any kind, and with only their dignity and ideals, confronting Cuba’s second-largest military fortress, once did what others with immense resources have not yet done.
Fidel Castro denies the electoral path, that of the ballot box, that many wanted to impose on him, and questions: “What has politicking given to the country in the last fifty years? Speeches, chambelonas, congas, lies, compromises, deceptions, betrayals, undue enrichment of a bunch of crooks, empty talk, corruption, infamy. We don’t see politics the way politicians see it. (…) Nobody offers us those electoral crumbs with which Batista buys his small-time enemies; the pride with which we know how to despise them is worth more than all the electoral positions put together».
Similar to the denunciation set forth in the self-defense plea History Will Absolve Me, the Manifesto served to engage the humble sectors of Cuban society in the 1950s, making them see that the path was that of the Revolution and sacrifice: «Peace What Batista wants is what Spain wanted; The peace that we want is the peace that Martí wanted. To speak of peace under tyranny is to insult the memory of all those who have fallen for the freedom and happiness of Cuba.
The leader of the Revolution -who has already lived and suffered the crimes of the dictatorship in the days after July 26, 1953 and the horrors of the prison-, is convinced of the justness of his cause, just as José Martí he was of his own, and affirms: “All the efforts of the regime will be useless. On July 26, he will send his revolutionary word to the last corner of Cuba. Our manifestos by the tens of thousands will circulate clandestinely throughout the country, invading factories, fields and towns; men and women, eager to help our cause, will reproduce them by hand or by machine everywhere, knowing that with this they contribute a grain of sand in this heroic struggle of the nation against its oppressors; they will penetrate to the barracks, the warships, the police stations and the military camps».
Fidel and the July 26 Movement open their arms to those who want to join them, without sectarianism or exclusions of any kind: To all Cubans of good will, paraphrasing the Apostle in his Bases of the Cuban Revolutionary Party of 1892: “The July 26 is integrated without hatred against anyone. It is not a political party, but a revolutionary movement; its ranks will be open to all Cubans who sincerely wish to restore political democracy in Cuba and establish social justice. Its management is collegiate and secret, made up of new and strong-willed men who have no complicity with the past; its structure is functional; in its combat groups, in its youth cadres, in its secret workers’ cells, in its women’s organization, in its economic sections and in its clandestine propaganda distribution apparatus throughout the country, young and old, men and women, workers and peasants, students and professionals».
Based on what was stated in Historia me Absolverá, as a program of the Revolution, the Manifesto summarizes the economic, political, and social transformations that would take place in the country: the banning of large estates; vindication of all the workers’ conquests snatched by the dictatorship; immediate industrialization of the country; vertical reduction of all rents; nationalization of public services: telephones, electricity and gas; Construction of ten children’s cities to fully house and educate two hundred thousand children of workers and peasants who cannot currently feed and clothe them, and extension of culture, after reforming all teaching methods to the last corner of the country.
The transformations would also include a general reform of the fiscal system and the implementation of modern methods in the collection of taxes; reorganization of public administration; generous and dignified compensation to all public officials: teachers, employees and members of the armed forces, retired civilians and military; put an end to all vestiges of discrimination for reasons of race or sex that unfortunately exist in the field of social and economic life; social and state insurance against unemployment and restructuring of the judiciary and abolition of the Emergency Courts.
Finally, among the changes to be made in the country was the confiscation of assets from all embezzlers of all governments without exclusion of any kind so that the Republic recovers the hundreds of millions that have been taken from it with impunity and can be invested in carrying out of some of the previous initiatives.
The last paragraph of Manifesto No. 1 of the July 26 Movement to the People of Cuba is a declaration of principles: “By adopting the line of sacrifice again, we assume responsibility for our actions before history. And when making our profession of faith in a happier world for the Cuban people, we think like Martí that “the true man does not look on which side lives better, but on which side is duty”, and that this is the only man practical whose dream of today will be the law of tomorrow…».
Months of arduous preparation and the commitment to Be Free or Martyrs would come later in 1956. The people had a leader, a vanguard organization and a program of struggle. Along with this, there was a youth willing to give their lives for the transformations that the country needed.
67 years after that historic Manifesto, the Cuban Revolution continues its march.