THE INITIAL AIMS OF THE 26 OF JULY MOVEMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00429A001400010010-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: November 13, 1963
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2004 A~,]?4j -IA- RDR~79T00429A0Q1400010010-0 i,iA
CT: The Initial Aims of The 26 of July Movement
1. The 26 of July movement had its origins
and developed its strength as a movement of the Cuban
middle class against the Batista dictatorship and
the corrupt political system of which Batista was
a product. The Castro brothers themselves, all the
other leaders of the 26 of July Movement, as well
as the bulk of the membership were of the middle
ciassr--.medium landowners, professionals, businessmen,
and students. The ideas and principles that were
eloquently stated by Castro expressed a consensus
of Cuban middle class opinion and the middle class
in the 1950's constituted the most politically aware
and articulate public opinion. Castro could never
have succeeded, as he himself publicly admitted in
December 1961, if from the outset he had openly ex-
pressed the policies he was later to implement.
Theodore Draper, in the first chapter of his book
Castro's Revolution, very effectively explodes the
Communist myth that the Cuban revolution was a
"peasant revolution" into which the working class
erubsequently was "swept."
2. The stated aims of the 26 of July Movement.
which represoflte a genuine expression of the desires
and goals of the most articulate portion of the
Cuban public, were contained in a number of public
statements by Castro between 1953 and 1958.
3. The stated political goals: In his 1953
story Will Absolve w'speech, delivered in his
defense before a Batista court, Castro predicted
shat the first revolutionary law would be restoration
of the 1940 constitution and made an allusion to a
government of popular election." Castro's manifesto
of July 1957, his first political declaration from
the Sierra Masstra, contained what he called a
real promise" of general elections at the end of
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one year and an "absolute guarantee" of freedow of
information, press, and all individual and political
rights guaranteed by the 1940 constitution. Castro'a
letter of 14 December 1957 to the Cuban exiles uv-
held the "prime duty" of the post-Batista provisional
government to hold general elections and the right
of political parties, even during the provisional
regime, to put forward programs, organize, and part-
icipate in elections. In an article in Coronet
magazine of February 1958, Castro wrote fight tug
for a "g nuine representative government," a "truly
honest" enera election within 12 months, "full and
untrammelled" freedom of public information and all
communication media, and reestablishment of all per-
sonal and political rights. In the "unity manifesto"
of July 1958, Castro agreed "to guide our nation,
after the fall of the tyrant, to normality by insti-
tuting a brief provisional government that will lead
the country to full constitutional and democratic
procedures."
4. The stated economic goals: In his 1953
eech, Castro suppoYt_*_d_Tfi-e idea of grants of land
small farmers and peasants with indemnification
to former owners; the right of workers to share in
profits. Castro's land reform program advocated
maximum holdings for agricultural enterprises and
the distribution of unused land to farming families
--with indemnification for former owners. In
addition, the 1953 speech expressed the intention
to nationalize the electric and telephone companies.
Again, in his July 1957 manifesto, Castro defined
his agrarian program as the distribution of barren
lernds, with prri r indemnification, and the conversion
of squattre ajda sharecroppers into proprietors of
the lands worked on. Law 03 of the Sierra iiaestra
on Agrarian Reform, dated 10 October 1958, less than
two months before Castro's coming to power, was
based on the principle that those who cultivate the
land should own it. This law made no mention of
"cooperatives" or "state farms" and its stated in-
tent was to implement the hitherto neglected agrarian
reform provisions written into the 1940 constitution-
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This law was signed by Fidel Castro and by Dr.
iiuaberto Sari Karin, who participated in drafting
it. Sori MMarin, incidentally, was executed on
Castro's orders in April 1961. Re, like many---per-
haps most-of the original 26 of July members, came
to recognize too late that Castro had betrayed the
revolution that brought him to power.
5. The near unanimity with which Castro's
victory was accepted in January 1959 was not merely
the result of his heroic struggle or his chartsa-
matic qualities; it was because the ideas he had
expressed and the promises he had made embodied
the hopes and expectations of the great majority
of the Cuban people and especially of the middle
classes. This national consensus resulted from
the disappointments with the corrupt and aimless
"democratic" governments of 1944 to 1952 and the
Batista despotism of 1932 to 1958. There was broad
agreement that Cuba could never go back to corrupt
brand of democracy of Prio Socarras or Grau San
Martin, and the Cuban middle class was ready for
significant social and political reforms to make
impossible a return to the past.
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