THE 26 OF JULY MOVEMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00429A000600040009-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 23, 2004
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: November 13, 1963
• Content Type: MEMO

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MEMORANDUM j i iAt ~I!`'S 0
SUBJECT : The 26 of July Movement
13 November 1963
nafi5~~ C LA ,PS
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1. The 26 of July Movement had its origins and developed its strength as
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a movement of the Cuban middle class 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 class-medium landowners, professionals, businessmen, and
students. The ideas and principles that were eloquently lotated by Castro qMalmad
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 expressed 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 su bsequently was "swept."
2. The stated aims of the 26 of July Movement, which represented 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 vol.tical goals: In hffis 1953 "History Will Absolve Me" speech,
delivered in his own defense before a Batista court, Castro predicted that the
first revolutionary law would be restoration of the 19)+0 constitution and made an
allusion to a "government of popular election." Castro's manifesto of July 1957,
his first political declaration from the Sierra Maestra, contained what he called
a "formal promise" of general elections at the end of one year and an "absolute
guarantee" of freedon of information, press, and all individual and political
rights guaranteed by the 1940 constitution. Castro's :Letter of 14 December 1957
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to the Cuban exiles upheld the "prime duty" of the post-Batista provisional govern-
J
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ment to hold general elections and the bight of political parties, even during
the provisional regime, to put forward programs, organize, and parrdeipate in
elections. In an article in Coronet magaz&me of February 1958, Castro wrote of
fighting for a "genuine representative government," a "'truly honest" egeneral
election within 12 months, "full and untrammelled" freedom of public information
and all corm unication media, and reestablishment of all. personal 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 instituting a brief pro-
visional government that will lead the country to full constitutional and
democratic procedures."
4. The stated economic goals: In his 1953 speech, Castro supported the
idea of grants of land to small farmers and peasants with indemnification to
former owners; the right of workers to share in profits. Castro's land reform
program advdcated maximum holdings for agricultural enterprises and the distribution
of unused land to farming families with indemnification for former owners. In
addifion, the 1953 speech expressed the intention to nationalize the electric and
telephone companies. Again, in his July 1957 manifesto, Castro dzss zr?bxd defined
his agrarian program as the distribution
arren lands, with prior indemnification,
and the conversion of squatters and sharecroppers into proprietors of the lands
worked on. Law #3 of the Sierra Maestra 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 intent was to implement the hitherto
neglected agrarian reform provisions written into the 1940 constitution. This law
was signed by Fidel Castro and by Dr. Humberto Sori Marin, who participated in draftim
it. Sori Marin, incidentally, was executed on Castro"s orders in April 1961. He,
like many-perhaps most-ofthe original 26 of July memmbersr, came to recognize
too la epthat Castreo had bepptrayed theli RDlu ion4 hat ebrougOti~ t~~mr~1 to power.
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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 charismatic 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 zzt national consensus resulted from the disappoint-
ments with the corrupt and aimless "democratid governments of 1944 to 1952 and the
Batista despotism of 1952 to 1958. There was broad agreement that Cuba could never
go back to to corrupt brand of democracy of Prio Socarras or Grau San Martin, and
political
the Cuban middle class was ready for significant social and tzzxo= reforms
to make impossible a return to the past.
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