On a program intended to commemorate the event, Castro ended up saying publicly that he should have skipped it and gone “straight to the Sierra Maestra.”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, July 17, 2024 — During a taping of the “Roundtable” program in 2000, Fidel Castro showed up unexpectedly at the television studio. “The problem is that I was listening to the program on television like everyone else,” he said on camera, “but I didn’t know that you were going to address these topics. And suddenly I see you asking a question. Someone interprets it one way, someone else another. And then I’m left thinking, ’Wow… I’m still here!’”
Needless to say, the panic on the faces of the panelists was immediately obvious. You could tell that everyone was trying to figure out where the hell they had screwed up. One of them, the most obsequious, nervously blurted out, “Who better than you, commander?” so they handed him the microphone. No one knows what brand of whiskey the dictator was drinking that day but it threw him for such a loop that it resulted in a stream of gibberish of biblical proportions.
The entire liturgy of the Castro regime is basically a celebration of failure. Mountains of books have been written on this topic but, if you ask any average Cuban student about it, the only thing he has been taught to say is: “It was the small engine that drove the big engine.” An example of how common it is in our classrooms to confuse history with mechanics.
No one knows what brand of whiskey the dictator was drinking that day but it threw him for such a loop that it resulted in a stream of gibberish of biblical proportions
The young Castro’s plan seemed simple enough: dress up some boys to look like sergeants, walk into the second largest military barracks in the country, take it over in ten minutes, give orders to the soldiers, grab the weapons Black-Friday-style and mobilize the entire party-going population of Santiago de Cuba. Such was Fidel’s confidence in the town that he decided not to recruit anyone from the area except for one person who, out of obligation, had previously cased the surroundings. In short, if the town turned out to be too hungover to follow the beat, the fallback plan was to flee to the mountains. Piece of cake! The strategy dreamed up by this “genius” was primarily based on the assumption that the barracks’ soldiers were all as dumb as rocks.
It is not my intention in this article to rehash what happened at Moncada. Readers themselves can find thousands of accounts circulating online. Much better than listening to opponents demystify the event is being able to appreciate the personal frustration of its protagonist. Castro himself had already said in other interviews how, as a child, he became a ringworm killer. From his own mouth we found out that he learned at university it was better to bring a gun to the classroom than a book. But the Roundtable interview to which I refer is a real gem. In it, he confesses to a lot of unusual things. For example, we learn that Raúl Castro never led his battalion but that historians had just assumed he had been its leader. Or that he literally recruited a bunch of young people to support him so that he could become “the first professional revolutionary.”
In his usual smug tone, he started out characterizing the plan as “perfect,” then immediately added, “If I had to do it over again, I would do exactly the same thing. But then things got out of hand. As he was recalling the events, he began realizing how crazy it all sounded and his body language started to give him away.
“That’s why I say it. . . what I’m not going to say. . . but I’m not going to say it because, once I’ve said it, some people might, you know. . . somewhat disagree.”
The old tyrant began to doubt his own words on camera. A few seconds later, he was already admitting to a huge disappointment. I quote: “That’s why I say it. . . what I’m not going to say. . . but I’m not going to say it because, once I’ve said it, some people might, you know. . . somewhat disagree.”
The Roundtable propagandists went into full Shakira mode: deaf, dumb and blind*. The program they had prepared was supposed to celebrate the achievements at Moncada, not dismiss them. Finally, the khaki-clad fossil had had enough and categorically disavowed the whole Moncada affair. He admitted in front of everyone that he should have skipped it and gone “straight to the Sierra Maestra.” He looked at his subjects as though he had just relieved himself of a heavy burden and said: “There, I’ve said it!”
That is how Fidel Castro himself upended the whole Moncada myth.
*Video…. and Lyrics in English
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
