The attacks against the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes army
garrisons in Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo respectively, were inspired by José
Martí’s ideas, based on the valuable military and political experiences of
our heroic struggles for national independence and strengthened by a truly
revolutionary doctrine which encouraged the social liberation struggle.
A handful of youths led by Fidel Castro undertook that heroic action
against an army superior in number and weapons. The objective was to take the enemy by surprise, carry off
their weapons, give them to the people and provoke an uprising that would force Fulgencio
Batista’s dictatorship to fall.
This was a tactical setback which, nevertheless, ratified the validity of
armed struggle as the only feasible way under those circumstances to attain the
objectives of true national independence and social justice.
Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, also a participant in this action, on
analyzing its historic significance stated:
“In the first place, it began a period of armed struggle that did not
end until the tyranny’s defeat.
“In the second place, it created a new type of leadership and a new
organization that repudiated quietism
and reformism, that were militant and determined, and in the very trial raised a
program with the most important claims of the socioeconomic and political
transformations demanded by the situation in Cuba and that
consequently, rejected the support of the Platt Amendment by the old
politicians, who lost ground and influence
among the masses.
“In the third place, it brought Fidel Castro to the fore as the leader
and organizer of the armed struggle and radical political action of the Cuban
people.
“And in the fourth place,
it served as antecedent and experience for organizing the Granma expedition and
the guerrilla action in the Sierra Maestra”.
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