Fertile soil of the Cuban revolution
09.10.2020
On the anniversary of the death of Ernesto Che Guevara
Never argue with idiots.
You will descend to their level, where they will crush you with their experience.
Mark Twain
On October 8, 1967, near the Bolivian village of La Higuera, in a fierce battle, a unit of the 6th Infantry Ranger Division of the Bolivian Armed Forces defeated a partisan detachment of Ernesto Che Guevara . The commandant himself was wounded, taken prisoner and, after fruitless interrogations, shot. It is believed that on the personal order of the President of Bolivia, Rene Barrientos .
Che Guevara in popular culture
50 years later, in the small Bolivian city of Vallegrande, where in 1997 the remains of Che Guevara and six of his comrades were discovered under the airstrip of a local airfield, commemorative events were held to mark the anniversary of his death. Several thousand people gathered to honor the memory. Among the organizers and guests of the event was the then President of Bolivia, Evo Morales , known as one of the most consistent adherents of leftist ideology in the Latin American region. At the same time, the president himself spent the night in a tent camp, as did numerous young fans of the revolutionary, clearly showing an affinity for their views on the desired world order.
In Cuba itself, on the square near the mausoleum of Che Guevara in the city of Santa Clara, more than fifty thousand people gathered to pay tribute to the memory of the symbol of the Cuban revolution, led by the Chairman of the State Council and the Council of Ministers of Cuba, Raul Castro . This event was the final one in a whole series of others, which took place in the previous days under the general motto "Always until victory!" (Hasta la victoria siempre!)
Former Bolivian President Evo Morales ousted by far-right liberal forces
On the same day, an exhibition of photographs dedicated to different stages in Che Guevara's life was opened in Moscow at the photo center on Gogolevsky Boulevard. The opening was attended by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Cuba to Russia Emilio Losada . In his speech, he said that Ernesto Che Guevara still enjoys great prestige among Cubans as a fighter against the exploitation of man by man.
And these were only the most significant events in a large number of similar ones. The world, which in recent decades has been convincing by all available methods of the wretchedness of the communist idea as such, of the natural naturalness of inequality and the absence of any alternatives to the market economy and bourgeois "democracy", nevertheless, never ceases to remember one of the most ardent fighters against the existing world order.
But, as expected, the opponents did not stand aside either. Some of them, whether feigned, or completely sincerely cannot understand why in a "society of universal consumer good" still someone can remember "dinosaurs of an obsolete utopia . " The other part, not even for a moment doubting its own competence, takes on the role of accusers.
Raul Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara
The set of their main accusations against Che Guevara (as well as against any other revolutionary from any other country) is standard to death. Even on the occasion of a half-century date, these authors did not bother to come up with anything more original than "the collapse of the economy", "the establishment of a dictatorship" and - well, what could happen without it - "bloody revolutionary repressions".
Of course, a person who knows how not only to work with search engines, but also to think and analyze the information received, will easily disassemble all these “arguments”, without leaving a single line unanswered. In this case, it is not even necessary to be on the other side of the barricades. So, a few years ago, the liberal Mark Solonin brilliantly defeated the opus of the notorious Yulia Latynina , in which she tried to prove the progressiveness and grace for Chile during the reign of Augusto Pinochet, who, he said, not only "provided an economic miracle", but, it turns out ... "saved the country from dictatorship of Allende! "
But it makes sense to undertake a detailed analysis only when the opponent's writings claim at least some sense of assertion. However, when dealing with outright libel, it is absolutely pointless to do so.
August 22, 1960: Ernesto "Che" Guevara (second from right) and Cuban leader Fidel Castro (second from left) view a parade of peasant militias at the San Julian base in Cuba. (Author: Bettmann)
Because if they literally spit on you in a public place, you have two exits. The first is to apply to the offender, let's say, physical measures. The second, acceptable for those who for some reason cannot apply the first method, is to immediately leave, leave the scene. Perhaps no one noticed anything. However, the most unacceptable thing will be to stay in place and in full view of everyone to erase the spit - after all, it is this activity that will attract the most attention to your situation.
That is why we will not wipe out the spitting and make excuses, examining opuses similar to those that gave birth to the columnist of "Snob" Elena Kotova , blogger Ilya Varlamov and other idols of the urban liberal-intellectual public, we will not.
But leave too.
Because the main stumbling block for us is, of course, not insulting our “beloved hero” - for who, but Che Guevara, there is definitely no need to defend Che Guevara from the attacks of modern Russian Internet writers due to slightly different historical weight categories. And even a set of claims of “communist bloodthirstiness and economic illiteracy,” which has not already set the teeth on edge, although we will dwell on this a little later. The most important thing for us will be the thought that the same Kotova expressed in one of the last paragraphs of her creation:
Ernesto Che Guevara
“… But does it really matter what exactly he was, what a misfortune is that he is liked by the romantic leftists, all the more the assessments are contradictory? No, this is still a disaster, and it has the most direct relation to the state of our society. The illusions of justice and equality continue to poison their brains, people do not think that all fiery revolutionaries sooner or later come to the dream of a dictatorship.
Their mythologization cripples the consciousness of modern man. The truth that the creation of wealth is good and inequality is good, because it is a competition in success and prosperity, is dangling in loud words. That equality is possible only in poverty, and from there a stone's throw to the camp barracks and terror. It’s a pity that Che Guevara hadn’t been shot earlier ... They would have saved millions of minds from the marriage of thinking. ”
Thus, all these Kotovs and those like her - or rather, those to whom she loyally serves and whose thoughts she broadcasts - are, of course, not afraid of Che Guevara, as such.
They are not afraid of the sacrifices, over which they shed cubic meters of tears in pictures, while preferring not to remember that no revolution, including the great bourgeois revolutions, has done without sacrifices in world history. Well, and how many lives have been brought and are still being brought to the "altar of the market and democracy" ... As they say, let's not talk about sad things.
Moreover, they are not even afraid of the leaders' neglect of these sacrifices. After all, the liberals do not complex because of the words of the prominent German Social Democrat Gustav Noske , who personally sanctioned the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg :
“Perhaps someone has to be a bloody dog. I'm not afraid of responsibility. "
Leader of Chilean fascism, militarist Augusto Pinochet
And they are quite loyal to Augusto Pinochet , despite a very peculiar understanding of democracy. Which, in his words, "... in itself carries the seed of its own destruction" and therefore it "needs to be bathed in blood from time to time so that it remains a democracy." And our giants of liberal thought have already forgotten their colleague in the shop, one of the leaders of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile, Radomiro Tomic . Known in the early 1970s for his economic discoveries, concentrated in one phrase:
"All prices are determined by the market, except for the price of labor, which is set by machine guns."
And if the calls to "crush the red-brown bastard" that were openly distributed on radio and television on October 4, 1993 are now well forgotten, then the legendary "letter of forty-two", on the contrary, has already become a commonplace.
Kotova and others like her are several orders of magnitude stronger than all these things put together, it is precisely the very "illusion of justice and equality" that is terrifying.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro with Chilean left-wing President Salvador Allende. Allende was killed by the Chilean fascists, who opened the way for the fascism of Augusto Pinochet
Which really "poisons the brain" and one day can lead to a very unpleasant complication - the understanding that the wealth of some against the background of the poverty of others is precisely the most sophisticated form of dictatorship. That the wealth of the bourgeois in front of the hired worker is the wealth of a thief and robber in front of the victim. That the competition can only take place between two contenders for victory with approximately equal opportunities, and the fight between a professional boxer and yesterday's schoolboy will be called quite differently. Finally, to the understanding that such orders were not given at all from above, but were established by the same people. Those who believe that “inequality is a good”, but for some reason, in this “good”, prefer to classify themselves as the highest caste.
And when that same schoolboy realizes that he cannot cope with a boxer alone, then perhaps he will develop his thought further and come to the conclusion that it is necessary to unite. With the same as him. And with each new person entering such an association, the chances of that very "tough boxer" at one fine moment will not fail to "shoot" steadily.
Actually, this is exactly what happened in Cuba.
And for a better understanding, let's briefly recall the history. And let's see - on what soil did such bright revolutionary shoots sprout?
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and Cuban political leader Ernesto Che Guevara
***
After the end of the War of Independence in 1898 (or rather, after the US intervention in the struggle of the Cuban guerrillas against the Spaniards, the reason for which was a very mysterious explosion on the battleship Maine, which resulted in the death of more than two-thirds of the crew), Cuba threw off its colonial status. But at the same time - nothing happens for free - she received both economic and significant political and legal dependence on the "saviors". Of course, one cannot say that the island did not play any role in the world economy, especially during the First World War. So, in 1918, Cuba produced half of the world's sugar production.
However, the Americans again had to save the country from the consequences of the economic crisis that unfolded after the war. Not out of nobility, of course, but a powerful wave of strikes and uprisings against the background of socialist revolutions in Europe could not but alarm the US government. American banks and companies took control of the credit and financial system and foreign trade of Cuba, troops were immediately introduced to the island (fortunately, the Platt Amendment adopted in 1903 allowed this to be done even without the consent of the country's government) and, of course, investments flowed. Not medicine and education, of course, but plantation farming, sugar, tobacco and mining, hotels and the entertainment industry.
Cuban War of Independence (February 24, 1895 - December 10, 1898)
From the tropical climate and fertile lands, "effective managers" squeezed the maximum profit. Over 90% of Cuba's exports were cane sugar and tobacco. To a lesser extent, the island supplied the world with coffee, cocoa, tropical fruits, coconuts, and valuable species of wood. However, the created structure of the economy could not even provide food for the peasants employed in their production. Thus, the crops of edible corn, rice and wheat for domestic consumption did not meet the country's food needs, and 35% of imports were food. This circumstance, by the way, was the second, after the possibility of direct use of military force, as a lever of external control of the country - and when Cuban sugar producers tried to refuse to conclude new contracts at a lower price,
And during the years of the "Great Depression", when sugar prices fell, the American owners reduced production from 5 million tons (1929) to 2 million tons (1933) in order to reduce costs within the framework of the "Chatbourne plan". Of course, it was primarily those factories that belonged not to American, but to Cuban entrepreneurs, which were closed - even they were treated as "second-class people." For the working people, this decision resulted in a five to sixfold reduction in wages and the formation of a half-million army of unemployed with a population of 4 million people. Hunger then was not uncommon even in relatively well-supplied cities, not to mention rural areas, where thousands and thousands of peasants, tenants, livestock breeders in conditions of low prices and high taxes lived in conditions of extreme poverty.
Cuban War of Independence (February 24, 1895 - December 10, 1898)
However, those who were lucky enough to keep their jobs had a little sweeter. Cuban legislation at the time did not regulate the length of the working day, which in sugar factories usually lasted 12 hours. In this case, earnings, as a rule, were given not in money, but in "bonuses", which were accepted only in shops on the territory of the given enterprise.
Of course, all these delights led in the early 1930s to a new wave of protest movement, in which not only the peasantry and the nascent proletariat, but even the national bourgeoisie actively participated. The government of then President Gerardo Machadoresponded to it with massive repressions, reaching the point of shooting demonstrations. The situation threatened to escalate into a full-scale civil war, but this option again did not suit the United States, since in this case it would have to forget about any business on the island for a very indefinite time. The American authorities have repeatedly demanded that Machado resign. However, only after in August 1933, even some army units that were once completely loyal to him refused to support the president, the dictator realized how further stubbornness could end for him and hastened to flee to the Bahamas.
Now the northern neighbor urgently needed "his own man" at the head of Cuba. This is the new president, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes., who was well known in the United States, first as the Cuban ambassador, and later as the devoted foreign minister of the previous government. However, despite some symbolic concessions (mainly related to the removal from office of congressmen, members of the Supreme Court and other elected persons who received their posts under Machado), and significant political support of the "patrons", Cespedes was unable to contain the growing revolutionary movement, where the emerging working class and the communist party began to play an increasingly important role. It was no longer limited to simple protests and demonstrations - in a number of places, workers seized sugar factories and distributed allotments that belonged to Machado's former servants to the landless peasants. The most unpleasant precedent occurred in the city of Cienfuegos,
Carlos Manuel de Cespedes - one of the leaders of the Ten Years War of Cuba against the Spanish colonialists (1868-1878). For his patriotic activities, the Cubans call him the father of the Motherland (Spanish: Padre de la Patria)
Under these conditions, the local conservative-bourgeois forces were already seriously alarmed, whose representatives were well aware that in the event of the victory of the socialist revolution, not only the Americans, hated by everyone, but also themselves would get their share of "popular love". It was urgent to seize the initiative.
And on September 5, 1933 on the night of power in their own hands he took the military junta, headed by Pablo Rodriguez , Fulgencio Batista and several junior army officers. A few days later, the former professor of the University of Havana, Ramon Grau, became the head of the Cuban government, and Batista formally assumed the post of chief of the general staff of the army, while actually controlling the power in the country.
Fulgencio Batista, the ultra-right Cuban dictator
In an effort to secure the support of the widest possible strata of the population, the Cuban bourgeoisie carried out a coup under the anti-American slogans of the development of national capitalism. However, it had neither a strong political organization, nor, most importantly, a solid economic base. And if it was relatively easy to seize power with the help of sergeants, then very quickly the question arose of how to keep it.
At first, several reforms were carried out, the most important of which were the introduction of an eight-hour working day, the establishment of an official minimum wage for sugarcane cutters, and the establishment of the Ministry of Labor. Electricity tariffs were reduced, and some steps were taken towards agrarian reform.
But the position of the new government continued to remain unenviable. In the working and peasant environment, the influence of the communists expanded, demanding the further development of social transformations, while from the other flank the government was attacked by the "rightists", who were gladly supported by the United States. With the help of the army, Batista deftly suppressed both the "left" demonstrations and the officers' revolts, but he understood that this could not go on indefinitely. And the only way out that made it possible not only to stop the revolutionary movement, but also to preserve and even expand personal power was to bow to the Americans again.
Executions of Fulgencio Batista who did not sympathize with the fascist system
Who and what set the conditions in these negotiations, I think, is clear without explanation. As a result, the concluded new trade agreement still doomed the island to the position of an agrarian and raw materials appendage of the United States. In response, the Americans once again turned a blind eye to the violent suppression of the democratic and labor movement, helped create a powerful military apparatus and re-equip the army with the latest American weapons. And, of course, not without their help, Batista's political capabilities expanded to a level that allowed him, even at his own discretion, to change presidents, none of whom managed to hold out in office for a full term until 1936.
Finally, in 1940, Batista himself took over as President of Cuba. It should be admitted that during his reign there was some democratization of public life on the island, but not a single economic problem was solved. Despite the constitutional restriction of monopolies and foreign capital, the most important sector of the economy - the sugar industry - actually continued to remain in the hands of American owners, who owned 118 centrals (a sugar factory with adjacent plantations) out of 174.
American companies controlled practically the entire mining industry in Cuba, power generation enterprises, communications, 50% of services in the service sector. About 80% of the fuel consumed in the country was also supplied by the US oil monopolies.
Fulgencio Batista, the ultra-right Cuban dictator
The leakage of profits naturally led to the impoverishment of the working people. Almost a third of the working population was unemployed. However, at the same time statistics claimed that the annual per capita income in Cuba in the 40s was one of the highest in Latin America. And the point here is not at all a falsification - this "average temperature in the hospital" was obtained exclusively due to the extremely high income of the exploiters. However, the national bourgeoisie also had problems, which could not overcome the monocultural nature of agriculture and achieve the development of industries not associated with sugar production.
Due to all these circumstances, the 1944 election Batista lost to his longtime rival Ramon Grau . Which, like his predecessor, also began with some social reforms - the wages of certain categories of workers were increased, the eviction of peasants from the land and the eviction of tenants from their apartments, and an increase in rent were prohibited. Many officers, previously closely associated with Batista in service, were deprived of their positions in the army - both in order to appease the population, and simply "out of harm's way."
An agrarian reform was announced. However, in the process of governing the country, both Grau himself and his party very quickly became allied with the bourgeoisie connected with American capital. Thus, they were unable to fulfill even their own slogans of "national capitalism". The new government of President Carlos Prio, which came to replace in 1948, surpassed the previous one in only one indicator - the level of corruption. Moreover, the new president did not even try to create the appearance of the "progressiveness" of his policy.
Fulgencio Batista congratulates Ramon Grau on victory in the presidential election
Under these conditions, Batista, being an intelligent person and an experienced political player, decided to take part in the 1948 Cuban Senate elections and won a seat in the Senate for the next 4 years. As his senatorial term came to an end, the Prio government discredited itself even more, including finally undermining public confidence by trying to join the US war in Korea and send 25,000 soldiers to the war zone. Even the army objected to this adventure, which was supposed to turn into not only inevitable human losses, but required about $ 100 million for its implementation. However, there was no chance of winning the election against Batista, whose previous rule on the island was still very well remembered. And then he decided to turn again to the experience of his fighting youth.
The coup took place three months before the scheduled presidential elections. On March 10, 1952, Batista seized power, relying on a part of the army loyal to him, removed President Carlos Prio from power and declared himself "interim president" for the next 2 years. Many in Cuba, upon learning of the coup, set out to overthrow Batista and restore a democratic regime and civilian government. However, on March 27, 1952, US President Harry Truman recognized the Batista government as legitimate - unlike other likely contenders capable of unexpected and not very pleasant steps, it was already known from this man what to expect. And the American authorities were quite happy with this.
Ultra-right Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista with soldiers
Thus, having come to power for the first time on the wave of the national movement, Batista realized his "second coming" as a loyal servant of the American masters. And, of course, he was not slow to pay them generously. During this period, American monopolies already controlled 70 percent of the entire Cuban economy, including 90% of the mining industry, 90% of electricity and telephone companies, 80% of utilities, 80% of fuel consumption, 40% of raw sugar production and 50% of all sugar crops. ...
A number of agreements concluded with the United States opened up opportunities for the transfer of profits from Cuba to American companies that received the most profitable concessions in mining, oil exploration, and the sale of gasoline on the island. In the first year of Batista's rule, about 100 new American companies began their activities in the country, and the Cuban branches of American banks ended up with a quarter of all bank deposits in the country. About $ 800 million in profits of American companies during the years of his rule. At the same time, Cuba itself, being an agrarian country with excellent climatic conditions, continued to import food from the United States, and more and more.
Land in Cuba continued to belong to landowners-latifundists: 7.5% of landowners owned 46% of the cultivated area, while 36.1% of the area belonged to 0.5% of landowners! But 70% of farms owned only 12% of the land. And 200 thousand peasant families did not have any allotments at all and were forced to work as hired workers for the same latifundists. But the situation of such workers was unenviable: about 60% of their families lived in huts with earthen floors, there was often no lighting, 44% of their children did not go to school, 43% could neither read nor write. Note that Madame Kotova was just learning how to pronounce the word "mother" by syllables and simply was not able to explain to them that "Inequality is a blessing, because this is a competition in success and prosperity!" Unhappy people - how unlucky they are!
American gangsters attracted to Cuba by Batista
There was no need to talk about any kind of education or health care for the broad masses of the population at that time. Medical services were based on private practitioners. Formally, in terms of their number per capita, the country was at the level of France, but for ordinary people their help was completely inaccessible. 14% of agricultural workers were sick with tuberculosis alone; less severe diseases were even more common. However, the high incidence rate is not at all surprising if we remember that only 4% of those employed had the opportunity to regularly consume meat, and only 11% - milk.
But at the peak of the second period of Batista's rule, a completely different industry flourished. Which, like any other, required staffing. Therefore, on the island, gangs were practically openly working, engaged in abducting girls and forcing them into prostitution. In Havana alone, there were 8,550 brothels, in which, according to official data, more than 22 thousand people were "employed". At least one fact speaks about the conditions of such "work" - the average life span of a prostitute after the start of "labor activity" did not exceed seven years.
Protest demonstrations in Cuba during the reign of Batista
Along with the number of brothels, the number of casinos and other similar establishments grew. Naturally, the ideological basis for the formation of their clientele also developed - the Cuban reader was stuffed with comics, pornographic literature, and works praising the "American way of life."
Against this background, about 40% unemployment by 1958 need not even be mentioned. Just think - "failed to fit into the market" ? The same applies to the incessant repression of the workers 'and peasants' movement, the raids of mafia militants and the police on the premises of opposition parties, and regularly practiced dismissals for political reasons. After all, by doing so, the country was saved from falling under the "Soviet influence" and "the final collapse of the economy", right?
Was Cuba at that time, as Kotova imagines, "a spiritual non-poor country with a tourist industry and a Caribbean aura, with beaches and casinos, with mulatto women, bars, music and happy people dancing in the evenings on the streets?" Of course, it was - for foreign tourists and some privileged part of the population. For the overwhelming majority, it was a country of exhausting labor under the tropical sun or, on the contrary, in the darkness of mines, a country of poverty, want, lawlessness and life's hopelessness.
On the right is Fidel Castro. Episodes of the struggle of the Cuban people against the Batista dictatorship
However, at least one undoubted merit for Batista should be recognized. Over the years of his reign, he very professionally created an atmosphere in Cuba in which almost everyone was ready to become a fighter of the revolutionary army - as soon as the leader appeared and the first successes were indicated.
The soil carefully cultivated by the dictator sprouted - such a leader appeared, and not even one. On the territory of Cuba, since 1956, a full-scale guerrilla war unfolded. You can talk about the development and course of this war for a very long time. But it ended with the entry of rebel troops on January 1, 1959 in Santiago de Cuba and on January 2, in Havana.
The results of the activities of the post-revolutionary leadership of the country, headed by the most prominent rebel leaders - Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and others - were not long in coming.
One of the leaders of the Cuban revolution, Camilo Cienfuegos
Immediately after the Revolution, already at the beginning of 1959, housing, electricity, gas, telephone and medical bills were reduced.
In May of the same year, a law on agrarian reform was adopted, in accordance with which the nationalization of lands that were in foreign ownership was carried out, the maximum amount of private land ownership was established - 1350 acres for livestock farms and 1000 acres (30 caballerias, or 402 hectares) - for all other categories of farms. As a result of the reform, over 100 thousand peasants received land plots, a redistribution of agricultural land was carried out, of which 60% were received by peasants, and the remaining 40% passed to the state sector. In agriculture itself, two sectors were created - the socialist sector proper, which included state estates and cooperatives, and the private sector, which united small and large estates.
In the second half of 1959, the Minerals Control Act was passed, establishing a 25% tax on metals and minerals exported by American companies.
Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto Che Guevara
In September 1959, new customs tariffs were approved setting a levy of 100% of the value on imports of luxury goods (cars, jewelry, yachts).
The management of foreign companies and the US government responded with sanctions. The Cuban government responded by nationalizing the property of foreign companies and reorienting sales markets to the USSR and the socialist countries. However - this was not the end of it. In October 1960, the state expropriated railways, sugar factories, factories and other large industrial and commercial enterprises, as well as banks. At the same time, it passed a law on urban reform, eliminating the institution of large homeowners and transferring the living space to the ownership of tenants. The domination of foreign monopolies and associated Cuban capitalists and landlords was brought to an end.
Then there were events well-known to contemporaries - an air raid by American bombers on April 15, 1961, the intervention on Playa Giron and Playa Larga on April 17, the beginning of a total naval blockade on October 24, 1962, shot down by U-2 Rudolf Andersen on October 27, 1962, the world on the verge of a nuclear war. It was only thanks to the intervention of the USSR that President Kennedy lifted the "quarantine" and assured that the United States would not carry out an armed intervention in Cuba, for which, at last, a period of relatively peaceful development began.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and US President John F. Kennedy discuss ways to resolve the "Cuban crisis", 1962
***
But back to the activities of Che Guevara. You say he headed numerous tribunals and shot former police officers and officials of Batista? Madame Kotova, who at that moment in the first grade of the Soviet school just learned to write in block letters about how “my mother washed the frame,” today sheds her tears over them as an elderly lady. But I think that many Cuban rebels, especially those who in their early youth managed to visit police stations, this process was greeted with glee. Moreover, they were still lucky - because according to some sources, under Batista, about 20,000 people simply “disappeared”.
Incidentally, Che Guevara himself, in his book Episodes of the Revolutionary War, does not deny executions. But Batista's liberal advocates, of course, hardly opened this book. Otherwise, they would have noticed that in the course of their partisan war, the rebels tried and executed, first of all, traitors and rapists who, under the guise of revolutionaries, robbed, tortured and killed peasants. Of course, after the victory of the revolution, it also got to the revealed informants and former members of the secret police - but this public is not liked under any regime.
Besides ... Let's fast forward a few years. And let's see how Batista's soldiers behaved during the defeat of the partisan detachment that stormed the Moncada barracks. Here are the words of the forensic doctor Manuel Prieto of Aragon, who examined the corpses of those killed.
Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro
“The examination of corpses by a forensic doctor was a terrible thing ... All the fidelists were dressed in uniforms of yellowish khaki, under which were shirts and trousers, and some only had trousers. All uniforms were intact. No traces of bullets were found on them. Some of the corpses were wearing their uniforms inside out. When they were undressed, all the cruelty, sadism, of which they became a victim, became visible. One under his uniform had the pajamas of a civilian hospital patient. They were dressed in uniforms after their arrest.
A large number of corpses had their heads crushed by a burst of machine-gun fire, fired at close range. Many had their genitals mutilated. Others had their teeth knocked out. Three had their eyes ripped out. There was not one who was not subjected to terrible torture before being killed. "
It is possible that, along with the names of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, the world today would be just as widely known the name of Abel Santamaria , who, together with Fidel, developed a plan to storm the barracks, and in the event of the death of the leader, he was to replace him. But history decreed otherwise - most of his group was taken prisoner with him. During interrogation, 25-year-old Santamario had his eyes ripped out and then presented to his sister Aida, seeking information from her about where the rest of the attackers had gone.
Abel Santamaria and Fidel Castro
However, in this episode, Batista's soldiers nevertheless showed a certain humanism, since a few hours later Abel Santamaria was killed. But their creativity and creativity were not limited to this - after the eyes of her brother, Aida was shown the severed penis of her fiance, who was also captured.
Blogger Varlamov, when he decided to title his opus about Che Guevara with the phrase “how they made a hero out of a maniac” , obviously did not bother to get acquainted with these memories. Otherwise, perhaps, he would have been able, at least for himself, to answer a well-known question from a well-known anecdote - "so who is a maniac here?" As well as figuring out why, years later, Cuban revolutionaries did not feel the slightest compassion for Batista's soldiers.
As for the officials, isn't it not the first year that you can hear promises of lustration in relation to the officials of modern Russia from our liberals? And aren't their most outspoken representatives actually justifying the burning of people in the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, as “a painful, but the only possible way to stop pro-Russian separatism and save young democracy” ?
Colorized photo of Ernesto Che Guevara
Here it is appropriate to recall how Fidel Castro in 1989 shot the group of divisional General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, which was supposed to carry out a change of power in Cuba under the leadership of “curators” from the Gorbachev Soviet Union. Hard? Certainly. But if he had not done this, then "perestroika" would have poured into his country, which turned into innumerable sacrifices and sufferings both in the USSR and in Eastern Europe. Therefore, it is safe to say that this act was historically justified. In the same way, the rebels, who fought along with Che Guevara, perfectly understood what awaits them themselves, their families and friends in the event of the defeat of the Revolution and the victory of enemies - not so many years have passed since the massacre of the participants in the assault on the Moncada barracks. Therefore, they acted in accordance with the situation,
***
Yes, today in Cuba, "democracy" is not very good - after all, they do not gather in squares with posters, do not make films about corruption, do not build "Batista Centers" and "Walls of Sorrow" after his murdered associates, and do not even make films about "The Cuba We Lost."
Of course, there are enough quite objective economic problems there. A small country living under sanctions and a trade embargo cannot but have them. But there is also something else. Including - that which is very much lacking in modern Russia.
Cuban internationalist doctors
And in this regard, we should dwell on Cuban medicine in more detail. Because in 2012, even the World Health Association recognized Cuba as the country with the best healthcare system on the planet. WHO Deputy Director General Dr. Anarfi Asamoah-Baa then even expressed the opinion that the high standards of medicine in this country should be adopted by other states, using them as a model for the development of the industry. It should be noted that this has not been achieved by a "private initiative" - all medicine on the island is state-owned, supervised by a specially created Ministry of Health. But at the same time, the health of the nation is one of the state priorities of Cuba, and annually more funds are allocated from the treasury to the medical industry than to provide for the army.
Moreover, in contrast to European countries, the United States and Russia, followed by them, where medicine is a very profitable branch of business and therefore the presence of sick people is an economic necessity for it, socialist Cuba took the path of reorienting medicine from curative to preventive. And the entire healthcare system is organized in such a way as to prevent diseases before they go into an advanced stage and require expensive treatment.
The main problem of Cuban medicine is the provision of consumables: syringes, gloves, some types of antibiotics. But, firstly, this question should be addressed already to the United States authorities, who are not abandoning their attempts to crush Cuba with economic sanctions, which even prohibit the supply of medicines and medical equipment. As well as the government of Russia, after 1991, for a long time trying to simply ignore the existence of Cuba on the map. Secondly, even in such conditions, in fact, patients value doctors not only for their high degree of literacy, but also for their attentive attitude to each patient, regardless of the degree and complexity of the disease.
Cuban and Italian doctors with a portrait of Fidel Castro
Actually, the result is obvious - the average life expectancy for men in Cuba is 77.4 years for men and 81.4 years for women. For comparison, in the United States this indicator is 77.4 and 82.2 years, respectively, in Russia - 62 and 76.3 (WHO data for 2012). And this with a much weaker economy as a whole!
Of course, all this became possible only thanks to the presence of a large number of highly qualified specialists trained by the national education system. Cuba spends about 10% of the state budget on it (for comparison - in the USA and Great Britain, according to UNESCO data, these figures are respectively 2 and 4%). The student-to-teacher ratio is roughly 12 to 1 - as in elite European colleges. Recall that according to the 1953 census, about 550 thousand children aged 6 to 14 years (almost half of the child population) did not attend general education schools at all, while 10 thousand teachers were unemployed. And by the time of the revolution, 30% of the population was completely illiterate.
Cuban doctors with the flag of Cuba
As for the "tourism industry, the Caribbean aura, beaches, mulatto women, bars, music and people dancing in the evenings in the streets" - then, according to stories returning from Cuba, all this is there today. Apparently, Che and Fidel tried badly - they could not destroy it!
And finally, about two historical grimaces.
The first is that it is the image of Che Guevara, who with all his soul hated not only exploitation, but the whole soulless and mercantile world built on it, and in the future dreamed of the abolition of monetary relations, as such, today brings millions of profits to merchants of goods with his image.
And the second ... In 2006, Cuban doctors, as part of a charitable medical program of free ophthalmologic treatment, restored the sight of a former Bolivian military sergeant of the 6th Infantry Ranger Division of the Bolivian Armed Forces, Mario Teran, who had become blind in old age . It was he who, on October 9, 1967, at 13:10 local time, fired nine bullets from the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle, which cut short the bright life of the legendary revolutionary.
Che Guevara's killer Mario Teran
By the way, the program of treatment of Bolivians by Cuban doctors became possible only after the victory of the already mentioned Eva Morales in the presidential elections in Bolivia. In his study, until last year, when the right-wing coup was victorious in the country, there was a portrait of Che Guevara.
Alexey Serpokrylov
https://www.rotfront.su/plodorodnaya-po ... revolyuts/
Bravo!
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