Fidel Idolized Mariana Grajales
Mariana Grajales is remembered today as "The Black Progenitress of Cuban Independence." No one loved Cuban independence more than she did, although she never lived to see her beloved island attain the sovereignty she craved. Mariana was born on June 26, 1800. She died November 23, 1893 in Kingston, Jamaica. She had dedicated her long life to helping Cuba gain independence from Spain. Within three years after her death, Mariana's two legendary sons -- Jose and Antonio -- both died on Cuban battlefields fighting Spanish soldiers. Despite the efforts of Mariana and her sons, Cuban rebels never defeated Spain's imperial domination although they were instrumental in weakening Spain and making it easy prey for the United States in the 1898 Spanish-American War. Also, it is worth mentioning that Mariana's lifelong dream was not in vain. During the Cuban Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship on January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro named an all-female fighting unit "The Mariana Grajales Brigade." Those female warriors played a vital role in Cuba's revolutionary triumph to create Cuban independence.
Jose Maceo, the son of Mariana Grajales, was born on February 2, 1849 in Oriente Province, Cuba. He died on July 5th, 1896 leading his rebel army against the Spanish at the Battle of Lomo del Gato.
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Antonio Maceo, the most famous son of Mariana Grajales, was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1845. He died on December 7th, 1896, leading his rebel unit against the Spanish in the battle of Punta Brava. Cuban lore still remembers the dashing Antonio Maceo as "The Bronze Titan" and "The Son of Mariana Grajales."
"La Patria ante todo" means "The Homeland first and foremost."
After the deaths of Mariana Grajales and her two famed sons in the 1890s just prior to the Spanish-American War, it was the Cuban Revolution that crowned their eternal fame as great Cuban patriots. The rebel uprising against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in the 1950s was, from its outset, a female-powered revolution. Thus, it was fitting that Fidel Castro named an all-female fighting unit "The Mariana Grajales Platoon." With do-or-die warriors such as the teenage Tete Puebla, the Mariana Grajales unit was nonpareil in its determination to defeat every force the dreaded Batista dictatorship threw against it.
By the time Tete Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon had fought their way from the eastern end of Cuba to the western end, Tete admitted she was disappointed that, when they arrived in Havana {above}, the Batistiano leaders had all fled to safer havens, such as Miami. In the above photo, that is Tete Puebla on the left. She, Eloisa Ballester, Lilia Rielo and the other Mariana Grajales warriors had hoped to have "the sweet chance to sight Batista, Lansky, and Masferrer at the end of our gun barrels," as Tete would later say. She considered Fulgencio Batista and Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky the "decision makers" and Rolando Masferrer their "hired killer." As a teenager, Tete had witnessed the infamous Masferrer Tigers come to her village and burn helpless victims to death in gas-soaked gunny-sacks. Instead of staying in Havana to fight her, Masferrer fled with a reported $10 million in cash and quickly formed an anti-Castro paramilitary unit, one of many well-funded anti-Castro armies in South Florida.
This photo shows Rolando Masferrer -- Batista's most famous enforcer-killer -- safely on U. S. soil in 1961 as a multi-millionaire determined to recapture Cuba. His quickly formed paramilitary unit in South Florida was his opening salvo. Wikipedia states: "In December of 1960 the Miami Herald reported that Masferrer's paramilitary unit was 'polishing their killing skills at a ranch in Florida owned by billionaire Howard Hugues. In the 1960s Masferrer plotted and accumulated weapons to invade Haiti to have a base, free of U. S. law, to attack the Castro government of Cuba, which had foiled direct attempts by Masferrer boats to land." But Masferrer and other vicious exiles had support, not restrictions, from the U. S. government. Into the 1970s, after many massive efforts to recapture Cuba, Masferrer still believed it would happen and he was primed to return to the island, with the U. S. government's blessing, as Cuba's new dictator. But he had a few even richer and more powerful Cuban-exiles competing for that honor...including Jorge Mas Canosa and Rafael Diaz-Balart, both of whom have been depicted as Miami billionaires. Rolando Masferrer was born in Holguin, Cuba in 1918. He died in Miami on October 31st, 1975, when he turned the ignition in his car and it exploded because of a bomb apparently planted because of the internecine warfare about who would be the next Cuban leader...as soon as the U. S. helped overthrow Fidel Castro. Rolando Masferrer's army unit in Cuba -- the army that turned the teenage Tete Puebla into a do-or-die guerrilla fighter -- is known to history as "The Masferrer Tigers" in English and "Los Tigres de Masferrer" in Spanish. Since 1959 Americans have been given a sanitized version of Batista's Cuba but history registers the truth tied to what Batistianos like Masferrer did in Cuba and what they did, or tried hard to do, in the U. S. after 1959.
This photo was taken in 1958 at a political rally supporting the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. On the left is Rodolfo Masferrer and on the right is his more infamous brother Rolando Masferrer. In the middle with the holstered pistol is Rafael Diaz-Balart. All three fled the triumphant Cuban Revolution in January of 1959 and all three soon had powerful paramilitary units in nearby South Florida lashing ferociously back at Cuba. Tete Puebla, the teenage guerrilla fighter who helped defeat Batista and his U.S.-backed henchmen, has remained on the island since 1959 defending Cuba against a return of the Batistianos. {NOTE: Two of Rafael Diaz-Balart's sons, Lincoln and Mario, have been elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami as vicious anti-Castro zealots, a reminder that two generations of massively motivated and very powerful forces on U. S. soil have remained determined to defeat Fidel Castro and his very stubborn revolution}.
Yes, after chasing Rolando Masferrer to Miami, the still massively motivated Tete Puebla remained a prime defender of the Cuban revolutionary victory. Today Tete is a General in the Cuban Army. The above photo was taken earlier this year when Cuban journalist Arleen Rodriguez was preparing to interview General Puebla on the nightly Round Table news show. Ms. Rodriguez prepped for the interview by reading a biography and autobiography about Tete, the books she is holding in her left hand. The female-powered aspect of the Cuban Revolution is generally unknown to Americans who have been force-fed the villainy of Fidel Castro and force-fed the sanitizing of Batista, Lansky, and their primary enforcer -- Rolando Masferrer. In 2015, with President Obama orchestrating the first real thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations since 1959, you might finally have a chance to visit Cuba. If so, ask General Tete Puebla what she thought of Rolando Masferrer and the Batistianos. Tete is a sweet, gentle lady but don't anticipate a sweet, gentle reply when she's asked about Rolando Masferrer. If you research their history, you'll understand that.
And so, there you have the unvarnished and unabashed reasons Fidel Castro did the impossible by beating Fulgencio Batista although Batista was backed by the strongest criminal organization in the world, the Mafia, and by the strongest nation in the world, the United States. He defied history and out-smarted his enemies by fully utilizing the most maligned, the most neglected, and the most motivated half of the Cuban population, the female half. The stratagem resulted from Fidel's remembrance of Mariana Grajales, the mother of the fighting Maceo brothers whom Fidel idolized. The rest is history...and topicality! As a teenage guerrilla fighter in the 1950s, Tete Puebla helped carve out that history. As a General in the Cuban Army today, she is also topical. In the ceremony depicted above that honored her, Tete reached across the table to shake Fidel Castro's hand right after he said, "There is no greater Cuban, past or present, than Tete." Still holding his hand, she replied, "I am what I am because of my love for Cuba, you, and Mariana Grajales." And Tete is a Cuban legend...not quite as renowned as Fidel, but close. In fact, real close!! In September of 2015, General Tete Puebla continues as a living symbol of how Fidel Castro did the impossible -- first, defeating the U.S.-and-Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship and then living to celebrate his 89th birthday on August 13, 2015. Fidel Castro managed to accomplish those two feats because, way back in the 1950s, as an admirer of the patriotic Mariana Grajales, he utilized the most maligned half of the Cuban population, the female half, in his underdog but successful David vs. Goliath fight against Batista.
Linda Pressly is a top documentary producer/reporter for the BBC. A couple of years ago Ms. Pressly called me from London because she was doing a documentary on Celia Sanchez. Ms. Pressly had read my 2004 biography on Celia as well as the all-time most-read post on my Cubaninsider, the one entitled: "Celia Sanchez & Fidel Castro: At Work & Relaxation." Ms. Pressly ended up calling me five times from London and when she told me she was flying to Cuba to finish her documentary on Celia Sanchez, I immediately said, "Make real sure you talk to General Tete Puebla. She fought tenaciously with Celia in the Sierra Maestra. After the revolutionary victory, Tete and Celia remained close till Celia died of cancer on January 11, 1980."
Linda Pressly indeed talked at length with General Tete Puebla about Celia Sanchez. In the BBC documentary, Ms. Pressly used the above photo that shows Tete Puebla with her dear friend Nidia Sarabia.
The best decision Fidel Castro ever made once he decided to fight the Batista dictatorship was to let Celia Sanchez be the prime decision-maker in both the Revolutionary War and Revolutionary Cuba. Americans are not supposed to believe that, but those still interested in the truth do believe it.
From 1953 till her death from cancer in 1980, no one -- including Fidel -- was as important as Celia Sanchez was in winning the war against Batista and in defending the island against the counter-revolutionaries who regrouped, more powerful than ever, on U. S. soil. Not to believe that is to fall victim to the fact that the counter-revolutionaries have dictated the Cuban narrative in the U. S. since 1959.
So now you know............
.....................three vital things about the Cuban Revolution: {1} How Fidel Castro beat Fulgencio Batista; {2} why the transplanted Batistianos have failed since 1959 to recapture the island; and {3} what allowed Fidel Castro to celebrate his 89th birthday this summer in Cuba. Such important Hows, Whys, and Whats all relate to Fidel's admiration of Mariana Grajales, who urged her two famous sons to fight to the death against imperialist Spain. That knowledge of Cuban history induced Fidel to form the all-female Mariana Grajales Platoon to fight and defeat Batista's vastly superior armies because of superior motivations -- such as the teenage Tete watching some friends being burned alive and the doctor's daughter Celia blaming Batista for the legal rape-murder of 10-year-old Maria Ochoa in a casino-hotel upstairs bedroom. It turned out, as Fidel astutely calculated, that Batista's soldiers were not nearly as motivated as Cuba's much-maligned females such as...Celia Sanchez and Tete Puebla.
And by the way...............
................meet this modern-day Cuban revolutionary. The photo is courtesy of AP/PETA. The young rebel's name is Lydia Guevara. She is the granddaughter of Che Guevara, the Argentine doctor who, you may recall, played a key role in the Cuban Revolution. Lydia's revolution, unlike her granddad's, is not against Batista or the Batistianos. On her strategically placed ammunition belt, those are carrots, not bullets. Lydia's revolution is to promote vegetarianism. Check out those carrots!
This photo, by the way, shows Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in the early days of Revolutionary Cuba. The baby girl Fidel is holding is Aleida Guevara, the first of four children Che had with his second wife Aleida March, who was a guerrilla fighter in the Cuban Revolution. Che had divorced his Argentine wife, the notable Hilda Gadea, in 1959 to marry Aleida March, who forever remains loyal to the revolution.
This AFP photo shows Dr. Aleida Guevara, the daughter of Aleida March and Che Guevara. Born in Cuba in 1960, she is now 54-years-old and a highly respected medical doctor on the island and she also speaks at international forums, including recent ones in London, Paris, Moscow, and Vancouver.
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