page_title: Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution
section_title: Guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra: 1956–58
hierarchical_section_title: Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution / Guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra: 1956–58
caption_attribution_description: English: Sierra Maestra (Turquino National Park), Cuba Deutsch: Sierra Maestra (Turquino Nationalpark), Kuba Español: Sierra Maestra (Parque Nacional Turquino), Cuba Русский: Сьерра-Маэстра (Туркино национальный парк), Куба
context_page_description: The Cuban communist revolutionary and politician Fidel Castro took part in the Cuban Revolution from 1953 to 1959. Following on from his early life, Castro decided to fight for the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's military junta by founding a paramilitary organisation, "The Movement". In July 1953, they launched a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, during which many militants were killed and Castro was arrested. Placed on trial, he defended his actions and provided his famous "History Will Absolve Me" speech, before being sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in the Model Prison on the Isla de Pinos. Renaming his group the "26th of July Movement", Castro was pardoned by Batista's government in May 1955, who no longer considered him a political threat. Restructuring the MR-26-7, he fled to Mexico with his brother Raul Castro, where he met with Argentine Marxist-Leninist Che Guevara, and together they put together a small revolutionary force intent on overthrowing Batista.
  In November 1956, Castro and 81 revolutionaries sailed from Mexico aboard the Granma, crash-landing near to Los Cayuelos.
context_section_description: The Granma crash-landed in a mangrove swamp at Playa Las Coloradas, close to Los Cayuelos, on 2 December 1956. Within a few hours a naval vessel started bombarding the invaders – fleeing inland, they headed for the forested mountain range of Oriente's Sierra Maestra.  At daybreak on 5 December, a detachment of Batista's Rural Guard attacked them; the rebels scattered, making their journey to the Sierra Maestra in small groups. Upon arrival, Castro discovered that of the 82 rebels who had arrived on the Granma, only 19 had made it to their destination, the rest having been killed or captured.
  Setting up an encampment in the jungle, the survivors, including the Castros, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos, began launching raids on small army-posts to obtain weaponry. In January 1957 they overran the outpost near to the beach at La Plata; Guevara treated the soldiers for any injuries, but the revolutionaries executed the local mayoral (land-company overseer) Chicho Osorio, whom the local peasants despised and who boasted of killing one of the MR-26-7 rebels several weeks previously. Osorio's execution aided the rebels in gaining the trust of locals, who typically hated the mayorals as enforcers of the wealthy landowners, although they largely remained unenthusiastic and suspicious of the revolutionaries. As trust grew, some locals joined the rebels, although most new recruits came from urban areas. With increasing numbers of volunteers, who now numbered over 200, in July 1957 Castro divided his army into three columns, keeping charge of one and giving control of the others to his brother and Guevara. The MR-26-7 members operating in urban areas continued agitation, sending supplies to Castro, and on 16 February 1957 he met with other senior members to discuss tactics; here he met Celia Sánchez, who would become a close friend.
  Across Cuba, militant groups rose up against Batista, carrying out bombings and acts of sabotage. Police responded with mass arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings, with corpses hung on trees to intimidate dissidents. In March 1957, Antonio's DR launched a failed attack on the presidential palace, with Antonio being shot dead; his death removed a charismatic rival to Castro's leadership of the revolution. Frank Pais was also killed, leaving Castro the unchallenged leader of the MR-26-7. Castro hid his Marxist-Leninist beliefs, in contrast to Guevara and Raúl, whose beliefs were well known; in doing so, he hoped to gain the support of less radical dissenters, and in 1957 he met with leading members of the Partido Ortodoxo. Castro and Ortodoxo leaders Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos drafted and signed the Sierra Maestra Manifesto, in which they laid out their plans for a post-Batista Cuba. Rejecting the rule of a provisional military junta, it demanded the setting up of a provisional civilian government "supported by all" which would implement moderate agrarian reform, industrialization and a literacy campaign before introducing "truly fair, democratic, impartial, elections".
  Batista's government censored the Cuban press, and so Castro contacted foreign media to spread his message. Herbert Matthews, a journalist from The New York Times, interviewed Castro, attracting international interest to the rebel's cause and turning Castro into a celebrity. Under the disguise of a wealthy American sugar owner, Matthews and Castro’s men were able to slip by Batista’s men posted near the Sierra Maestra mountain. Upon meeting with Castro, he detailed the events that occurred since December 2nd, 1956. Months beforehand, the US media spread news that Castro had died in the midst of the failed Granma landing in Oriente Province on December 2, 1956. Instead, Castro and the rest of the survivors retreated to the Sierra Mountains and had since been engaged in guerilla warfare with Batista military. The New York Times published the article on February 24, 1957, letting the rest of the world, including US embassy officials, know for the first time that Castro was indeed alive.
  Other reporters followed, sent by such news age
caption: The thickly forested mountain range of the Sierra Maestra, from where Castro and his revolutionaries led guerrilla attacks against Batista's forces for two years. Castro biographer Robert E. Quirk noted that there was "no better place to hide" in all the island.[47]
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