p From the first to the last day of the national-revolutionary war in Spain the Cuban people regarded the struggle of the fraternal Spanish people as their own sacred cause.

p The solidarity movement with Republican Spain had its own specific features in Cuba, which were determined both by the traditional links between the two countries and by the political situation obtaining in Cuba in the thirties. A little over a year before the beginning of the fascist revolt in Spain the Cuban revolutionary movement was dealt a severe blow. March 1935 saw the suppression of the last significant political action by the masses that followed the overthrow of the Machado regime. The reprisals inflicted on the strikers and the murder of Antonio Guiteras in May of the same year ensured a complete victory for pro- imperialist reactionary forces. Hundreds of workers were sacked and the trade-union committees were taken over by reactionaries. It was in this situation of a temporary setback in the revolutionary movement and at the same time unceasing revolutionary ferment that the solidarity movement with the Spanish people’s struggle developed.

p Certain definite conditions existed in Cuba for the public expression of this solidarity: in the first place, some semi-legal progressive organisations continued to operate, and diplomatic relations were retained with the Republican Government of Spain.

p In Cuba the movement to defend the Spanish Republic was initiated by Spaniards who lived on the island and were members of various democratic organisations such as the Circulo Republicano Espanol and the Circulo Socialista Espanol. Broad sections of the Cuban people soon began to take part in it.

p The first stage of the struggle to defend the Spanish Republic took the form of raising funds to supply Republican troops with food, clothing, cigarettes and tobacco, etc. On pay days factory workers gave up part of their wages “for Spain”. Mass meetings were held attended by representatives of the Spanish Republic— 103 Fernando de los Rios and Vicente Uribe. The meetings were organised in parks and attracted vast crowds. The usual attendance was over 100,000.

p The second stage of the struggle began when many Cubans expressed their desire to go to Spain and join the ranks of those who were defending the Republic. Their numbers increased as it became obvious that the insurgent generals were waging a war against the legal government of Spain with the help of Moroccan mercenaries and Italian and German expeditionary forces.

p At the head of the movement of militant solidarity with the Spanish people stood the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC). The Cuban Communists regarded participation in the movement of “freedom volunteers" as their internationalist duty. They also realised the importance of the anti-fascist war in Spain for the development of the revolutionary movement in Cuba.

p The reactionary Cuban Government sympathised with the insurgents, and all activities connected with giving military help to the Spanish Republic were made illegal and had to be carried on underground.

p On the initiative of the CPC a special committee was set up to select and dispatch volunteers to Spain. The committee’s membership included representatives from various political parties: the Communists—Victor Pina (now a captain in the Revolutionary Armed Forces), Doctor Luis Alvarez Tabfo and Ramon Nicolau Gonzalez; Left-wing nationalists—Officer Jose A. Martinez Mendez and Emilio Laurent; some members of the Liberal and Conservative parties, for example, Enrique Llaka Argudin, a former captain, and Ramon O’Farrill, a former major. It also included people who subsequently became members of the Partido Autentico and the Young Cuba movement.

p The development of the volunteer movement was greatly assisted by the Cuban people’s revolutionary and internationalist traditions and the memory of their own struggle for independence. In the Cuban people’s first war of national liberation, which began on October 10, 1868, under the slogan "Independence or death!”, Russians, Chinese, Poles, Dominicans, Venezuelans and other foreign volunteers fought side by side with Cubans. In this war the army was commanded by General Carlos Roloff of Polish descent, and in the second war of independence Generalissimus Maximo Gomez, born in Santo Domingo, had command of the combined forces of the liberation army.

p The first large contingent of Cuban volunteers arrived in Spain on April 15, 1937, and the last (73 people) at the end of February 1938. In all 850 Cuban volunteers fought in the Spanish Republican Army.

p The departure of Cuban volunteers for Spain was accompanied by considerable difficulties. As well as selecting volunteers, it was 104 necessary to supply them with sufficiently reliable documents and all the other essentials. Not all the volunteers left for Spain directly from Cuba. Some were already living in the United States, others in Mexico or Venezuela, and some were in Spain itself at the time of the fascist revolt. Nevertheless they all represented the Cuban people.

p The Cuban volunteers in Spain were to be found in various units of the international and Spanish brigades. Most of them fought in the 59th Battalion of the 15th International Brigade.

p The exploits of workers, intellectuals and students on the battle fields of Spain are a glorious page in the revolutionary struggle of the Cuban people. Among those who laid down their lives for the freedom of Spain were the journalist Pablo de la Torriente Brau, a fine representative of the Cuban intelligentsia, a Communist and one of the leaders of the struggle against the Machado dictatorship, who was killed during the battle of Madrid in his post as commissar of the First Shock Brigade of the Republican Army and later made a national hero of Cuba, and Policarpo Candon, a brigade commander in the Republican Army, who was also killed in action.

p An article published in the Republican press said: "Policarpo Candon, Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Alberto Sanchez and others are the most vital expression of the help of Cuban anti-fascists in the great struggle which we are waging in Spain against world fascism.... We fought side by side in dozens of battles, and Candon always remained the same—calm, firmly confident of victory, and anxious to study in any lull in action. He always inspired the respect and affection of his fellow men and officers. With the death of Comrade Candon the Spanish Army has lost one of its best leaders, and the Cuban people and the anti-fascists of the whole world a steeled fighter. ...”

p We should like to recall other, less celebrated men, who performed their internationalist and revolutionary duty to the bitter end on Spanish soil (unfortunately many of whose names have not come down to us).

p There was Julio Valdes Cofino, a member of the Young Cuba democratic organisation and artillery lieutenant in the Cuban Army, who arrived in Spain with the first group of volunteers. Here he was promoted to the rank of major and put in command of a sector of the front of the 101st Brigade. He died in the battle of Brunete together with the staff of his unit during an artillery raid.

p The courageous Cuban army officers Enrique Montalban and Fernandez Marthen also lost their lives in Spain, the former at Brunete and the latter at Belchite.

p Homero Meruelos Bartarrain, an active fighter against the Machado dictatorship and commissar of a unit in the Abraham 105 Lincoln International Battalion, was killed while resisting an enemy counter-attack on the Zaragoza Front.

p Lino Garcia, an airman, Major Alberto Sanchez, commissars Efalio Goach Leon, Armando Torres, Manuel Alonso Barroso, Roberto Bruzon Neira and many others perished in heavy fighting with the fascists.

p Side by side with the other defenders of the Republic Cuban volunteers fought bravely: artillery captain Pedro Dalmau Naranjo, commissars Oscar Hernandez and Pablo Porras, Major Maidagan, captains Andres Gonzalez Lanuza, Miguel de la Llera Gafas, Viciedo and Joseito Rodriguez Valdes, lieutenants Leopoldo Lanier Sobrado and Roberto Casals, sailors Waldo Martinez and Jose Agostini, doctors Rafael de la Vega and Luis Diaz Soto, medical corps officers Jose Campos Cuina and Mario Sanchez Diaz, nurse Pia Martelar, men and officers Humberto Alvarez, Carlos M. Parra Sarmiento, Julio Guevas, Grenet, Palacios, Manuel, Madariaga, Manolo Cueira, Landeta, Primo, Evelio Aneirps Subirat, Luis Peraza, Orlando del Real, Rodriguito, Brito, Mario Morales, Manuel Gonzalez and many other “freedom volunteers".

p When they were leaving Spain during the withdrawal of foreign volunteers from the Republican Army, the Cuban antifascists held a meeting at which it was resolved to address the following letter of farewell to the Spanish people:

p “Spanish brothers,

p As we depart, we are taking with us the most precious treasure, of which all true anti-fascists must be proud: a sense of unity, a readiness to sacrifice oneself and the will to victory. Three unforgettable and invaluable lessons. From now onwards they shall be our motto.

p Manuel des Peso (Chairman) J. Agostini (Secretary).”  [105•1 

p The widespread movement of solidarity with the Spanish Republic also affected the course of events in Cuba and helped the Cuban revolutionary movement to recover from the setbacks which it had suffered as a result of the defeat of the working people in March 1935. Under pressure from the masses the Cuban Government was forced to make concessions, in particular, the dismissal of the ultra-reactionary General Montalvo.

p In spite of the resistance of the reactionaries, the Communist Party of Cuba managed to secure the legalisation of party and trade-union organisations, turning the latter into bases for its revolutionary activities. The establishment of a powerful tradeunion centre, the Confederation of Cuban Workers, was a great victory for the working people. Publication began in Cuba of 106 communist and democratic newspapers and the works of the founders of Marxism-Leninism. The programme of the Communist Revolutionary Union was promulgated at the Constituent Assembly of 1939, Communists were permitted to take part in drafting the Constitution of 1940.

p The defeat of the Spanish people’s national-revolutionary war in March 1939 did not weaken the solidarity movement in Cuba. The fraternal links between the Spanish and Cuban peoples became even stronger. Hundreds of Spanish fighters found refuge in Cuba and took part in its revolutionary movement. Volunteers who returned from Spain immediately joined in the fight against fascism and imperialism on their native soil. Many of them played an active role in the struggle against the Batista dictatorship.

p Jose Agostini, Cuervo, Humberto Alvarez and the Communist leader Cardenas, who had all distinguished themselves in Spain, were executed by the Batista police. Noberto H. Nodal lost his life during the storming of Batista’s palace on March 13, 1957.

p Inspired by the heroic example of Spain, the Cuban people carried on the cause of the Spanish revolution. Cuba was the first of the Spanish-speaking countries to have a victorious socialist revolution. The first but, as Fidel Castro said, not the last. It is highly symbolic that Alberto Bayo, the Spanish war veteran, went on to become the military instructor of Fidel Castro and his heroic band from the Granma. The events in Spain moulded the political consciousness of the young Ernesto Che Guevara. The slogans of the heroic battle of Madrid "They shall not pass!" and "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees!" became the symbol of revolutionary Cuba’s confidence in victory during the days of the Bay of Pigs.

p Today the Cuban people, separated from the main imperialist power by only ninety miles of sea, are building a new society.

The Cubans, who are so greatly indebted to the heroic struggle of the Spanish people, firmly believe that they too will win their struggle for freedom.