A True Revolutionary Giant!!
This week -- on June 18th, 2007 -- Vilma Espin died. As the image above illustrates, she was a Revolutionary giant as a guerrilla fighter and, later in Revolutionary Cuba from 1959 till the day she died, she was instrumental in reshaping Cuba by creating such innovations as the still-powerful Federation of Cuban Women.
The current leader of the Federation of Cuban Women is Teresa Amarelle Boue. Today Teresa said, "Today the legacy of Vilma Espin is a major force in our fight during the COVID-19 pandemic because of all she did to reshape this island's healthcare apparatuses from scratch beginning in January of 1959 right after the triumph of the Revolution, which she fought so hard to make successful. Our pride in Cuba today is because of Vilma, Celia, Haydee and other Cuban women like them." Today Cubans across the island, like Teresa Amarelle Boue, remembered Vilma Espin.
Born in Santiago de Cuba on April 7, 1930, Vilma Espin was a revolutionary heroine till the day she died on June 18, 2007.
This famous Dickey Chapelle photo shows two revolutionary giants -- Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin -- taking a break from the Revolutionary War. During the war and afterward, Celia and Vilma were two of the TOP FOUR most important revolutionaries. Fidel Castro worshipped the ground that Celia stood on and Raul Castro married Vilma just a few days after the victory of the Revolution in January of 1959, and they remained married till Vilma died on June 18th, 2007.
In fact, in the annals of the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba, the photo above depicts the BIG FOUR: Vilma Espin, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Celia Sanchez. Cuban historians would add Che Guevara if it was a BIG FIVE but, restricted to a BIG FOUR, the photo above reveals, I think, the four most important Cuban revolutionaries.
Cuban women were at the forefront and at the finish of the Cuban Revolution that defeated the U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship on January 1, 1959. And the war would never have been won without the passion and dedication of three particular women: Vilma Espin, Celia Sanchez, and Haydee Santamaria. Cubans on the island know that fact to this day although it is not acknowledged in the United States, which six+-decades-later is trying to regain control of the pugnacious island that Vilma, Celia, and Haydee forged.
Indeed, Cuban women started the Revolution and then, after winning it, gave birth to the Federation of Cuban Women after they had reshaped their island.
How did badly out-gunned and badly out-numbered rebels on an island nation win a revolution against a brutal and powerful dictator who was supported by the Mafia, the world's strongest criminal organization, and by the United States, the world's strongest nation??? Well, the incomparable rebel Celia Sanchez provided a powerful answer with the exact quotation depicted above: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and Idiots."
Cuban historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio said: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution, and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join."
To many, it is still Celia's Cuba.
During the Revolutionary War, Celia Sanchez earned the nickname La Paloma, The Dove. To this day, many Cubans believe she still hovers above the island, protecting them.
Remembering Celia, who died Jan. 11, 1980.
During the war, Celia fought beside Fidel during the day and slept beside him at night...often planning the next day's fighting high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains.
Born in the city of Media Luna and the daughter of a doctor, Celia Sanchez's motivation to defeat the Batista dictatorship was her passionate love for Cuba's everyday, non-elite children. She believed under Batista, they were provided no education, no healthcare, and were routinely murdered as a vile warning to the peasants not to resist. And she was correct, as the following two photos attest.
Unfortunately, in the United States since 1959 the Cuban narrative has been the providence of Counter Revolutionaries who fled the Cuban Revolution. Therefore, to this day in June of 2020 Americans are not allowed to understand the meaning of the two above photos that chronicle what the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship did to the majority non-elite Cubans on the island in the 1950's. And since 1959 the superpower U. S. has supported the Batistiano effort to recapture Cuba. As you can see in the next photo-quotation, Celia Sanchez herself had the best statement to explain why and how Americans have been grossly lied to about the Cuban Revolution since 1959.
Since 1959 in the U. S., only the most extreme Counter Revolutionary Cubans -- such as Mario Diaz-Balart, Marco Rubio, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- have been allowed to write or tell the history of the Cuban Revolution, sanctifying the Batista-Mafia dictatorship while excoriating everything about Revolutionary Cuba. While, incredibly, that distorted view of history has existed, the likes of the Diaz-Balart brothers, Rubio, and Ros-Lehtinen have also been allowed to dictate in the U. S. Congress and in all Republican White Houses legal laws that severely enrich and empower a few selected Cuban-Americans in the strongholds of Miami & Newark and in the U. S. Congress while severely punishing all Cubans on the island and discriminating against the majority of Cuban-Americans who disagree with such things as terrorism against innocent Cubans, the six-decade-old economic Embargo of the island and, during the Trump administration, an economic Blockade of the island.
In 2020, to appease a handful of Miami-Newark Cubans, the ageless Embargo against Cuba has evolved into a genocidal Blockade against masses of everyday Cubans on the island. Yet, the majority of decent Americans and the majority of decent Cuban-Americans are unable to do anything about it.
In Revolutionary Cuba, this photo shows Celia Sanchez the day Vilma Espin became a mother.
Throughout it all...military attacks, terrorist attacks, the Embargo, the Blockade, etc...it can honestly be said in June of 2020 that the legacies of Cuba's revolutionary women such as Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin have drastically improved the lives of Cuban children on the island, such as the ones above. As a democracy-loving American who has been to Cuba, it pains me that Americans are not allowed to know the difference between children in today's Cuba as opposed to the children in Batista's Cuba back in the 1950's.
Indeed, this was a typical image of non-elite Cuban children in Batista's Cuba. In June, 2020, I believe that Americans in a democracy should be allowed to know such history.
Prior to the Cuban Revolution's victory in 1959, top Mafia kingpins such as Lucky Luciano teamed with dictator Batista and rich American businessmen to both plunder and brutalize the island of Cuba. As correctly referenced above, the 1946 Organized Crime Conference in 1946 at the Hotel Nacional in Havana paved the way for a second Batista dictatorship on the island, this time in partnership with the Mafia and American businessmen.
The first Batista dictatorship in Cuba evolved in the 1930's, after which the obscenely rich Fulgencio Batista retired to a life of luxury in South Florida.
When Batista had a mansion in Florida, his neighbors included Mafia kingpins like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. It was Lansky who famously told his best buddy Batista, "You know, I have always wanted the Mob to own its own country." That comment led to the second Batista dictatorship in Cuba starting in 1952, fulfilling Lansky's wish for the Mafia's ownership of its own country...at least until it was ended by the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
Even as late in 1958, when Cuban rebels were marching toward the key city of Santa Clara south of Havana, Meyer Lansky was busy opening his own splendid hotel in Havana in the island nation that Lansky's Mob owned. In New York Lansky had earned the reputation as the Mafia's financial genius, but he was not smart enough...while raping and robbing Cuba blind...to at least throw a few crumbs to the majority peasants, which he didn't believe was necessary so powerful and invincible the Mafia-backed and USA-backed Batista dictatorship was.
But at the end of December-1958, while Fidel was capturing the crucial former capital city of Santiago de Cuba, Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara captured Santa Clara, the gateway to Havana...and in the wee hours of January 1-1959 with the Santa Clara rebels racing to Havana, the Mafia-Batista dictators were racing to their loot-filled getaway boats, ships, and airplanes.
The photo above shows the legendary Tete Puebla and other famed female guerrilla fighters arriving in newly recaptured Havana on the back of a truck. Tete, on the far left above, was very disappointed that "the Batistianos and Mafiosi had decided not to stay around and fight us." Tete, while still a teenager, had become a legendary guerrilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra Mountains and its foothills.
Today Tete Puebla is a General in the Cuban army.
This image commemorates Che's Aleida March, Fidel's Celia Sanchez, and Raul's Vilma Espin as revolutionary legends.
And make no mistake about it, in Revolutionary Cuba the prime decision-maker was Celia Sanchez, and even when he disagreed with her Fidel Castro ALWAYS supported Celia's decisions 100%. And because Celia & Fidel never officially married, they officially made Vilma Espin Cuba's First Lady.
During the revolution, women like Haydee Santamaria and Celia Sanchez were not only prime guerrilla fighters but also major decision-makers. Celia and Haydee also were the two most important recruiters of the rebels, money, and weapons that fueled the vital early months of the war.
Posters and billboards such as this abound in Cuba today, remembering 23-year-old teacher Frank Pais and the doctor's daughter Celia Sanchez as the prime early recruiters of rebels, weapons, and supplies that made the Revolution viable. Frank and his 17-year-old brother Jesus were captured and brutally executed but the largest Batista bounty was on Celia's head...and she was never captured.
As noted by the three photos directly above, some of the most notable statues in Cuba today are of Celia Sanchez...although she was painfully shy and shunned publicity during his lifetime.
In the middle of the war, as in still-targeted Revolutionary Cuba, even confronted with problems such as her truck getting stuck in the mud, Celia Sanchez was known to be quick with smiles and optimistic hope. She once told famed New York Times journalist Herbert L. Matthews, "When I smile it shows I am still alive...and that shows that I still have time to do what I must do for Cuba. That's worth a smile."
During the war and then in Revolutionary Cuba, Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, and Vilma Espin were instrumental in the victory of the Revolution and their legacies have contributed immeasurably to the extraordinary longevity of Revolutionary Cuba. Celia and Haydee both died in 1980; when Celia died of cancer at age 59 on January 11, 1980, the heartbroken Haydee shortly thereafter committed suicide. Vilma died from cancer 13 years ago -- on June 18th, 2007.
And by the way, my favorite photo of Celia Sanchez is the one depicted below that was taken by the great photographer Roberto Salas. This photo was taken in the early days of Revolutionary Cuba, Celia's Cuba. I believe, come hell or high water, it should remain Celia's Cuba, not Rubio's Cuba.
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