Cuban Revolution Research Paper

First attack: Moncada Barracks and start of the Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was triggered on July 26, 1953 by a Fidel Castro and his band of rebel soldiers called “The 26th of July Movement”. They launched the first assault upon their own country out of spite of what it had become. Overall, the plan failed, and Castro was captured. Nevertheless, defeat would not keep Castro and his men down for long. This battle and the capture of Castro were the first step in the Cuban revolution. Moncada, the barracks in Santiago, was the rebels target to take over. They had a very specific plan of which they wanted to perform the attack. The date set to launch the assault, July 26, was a day after the 25th, which was a holiday called St. James Day,
in which there would be much partying for in Santiago. The rebels hoped that on the dawn of the 26th, the soldiers would be gone, hung-over, or even drunk still in the barracks. They planned to send troops on the inside in a few separate cars, seize control of the base, take weapons and ammunition, and then leave before any more troops could respond. The city of Santiago was in the Oriente province which was the poorest province and had the most civil unrest. Using this fact, Castro hoped to spark some sort of uprising, in which he planned to arm the people with the Moncada weapons. All aspects of the plan were thought over many times and planned well, but the follow-through was not as successful. In the early morning of the planned date to attack, the cars were to pick up all of the rebels scattered around Santiago. They were then to meet with Castro at the rented farm where the uniforms and ammunition was stored. Castro was to brief them specifics and send them off to make their way into the Barracks. There were 138 rebels set to attack Moncada.
Instead of everything going smoothly, problems arouse nearly immediately.
One car had a flat tire, and two other cars got lost in the streets of Santiago. The first car to arrive at the barracks was successful on getting through the gate and disarming the guards. This was good but randomly, a couple of guards patrolling outside the gate through off the plan and shooting occurred early than expect. The other rebels were not in position yet to start the fight. An alarm was sounded and barrack soldiers began counterattacking quickly. A heavy machine gun was at the top of the barrack’s tower. This kept most rebels out of the city and pinned down. The few soldiers on the inside fought but once half of them were killed, they retreated to the outside of the walls with the remaining survivors. Castro realized the attack was doomed and ordered his men to retreat and scatter. Some men were able to escape, including Fidel and Raul Castro, but many were captured.
The rebels were able to kill 19 federal soldiers during the skirmish. This did not settle well with the remaining soldiers. They tortured and massacred nearly all of the prisoners, even the ones in the hospitals. During this time, some of the police force, under Batista’s order, was rounding up all the other known rebels who had escaped. This group included Fidel and Raul. Luckily for them, they were just jailed, and not executed
yet.
Word had gotten out of the brutality against the prisoners and it started a scandal against the already criticized Batista dictatorship government. This was not good for Batista and caused him to make an error. He went ahead and made the trial against the Castro brothers and a few others open to the public. He wanted to show how the rebels were wrong and so he had journalists and civilians attend the trial. Castro used this strongly to his advantage. He did not hold back on his speech or deny anything that he had done. He took it on with certainty and explained how he planned the attack to remove Batista the tyrant from his office. He claimed to be doing his duty as a Cuban for his country and was standing up for democracy. He did not deny anything. This was a big hit to Cubans and they looked to him as a national figure. The famous line from his speech during the trial was, “Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me.”
After this trial, Batista was forced to retrial him again in private and condemn him to 15 years in prison. But in 1955, Batista made another mistake. He broke from the pressure of the people and released prisoners including some rebels and the Castro brothers. This leads to where Fidel and Raul retreat to Mexico and regroup. Even though the Moncada assault failed, Castro had left the effect he needed to, in order to be successful in years to come.