Graphic testimony is not even needed to know what exactly was the sad and desolate photograph of this Island back in 1953: misery, unpunished crimes, hunger, games, prostitution, drugs and a permanent "yes, sir" to each order of the empire .
Since the previous calendar, with the full support of the "owners of Cuba," a tyrant gloated in the presidential chair, after having trampled on any hint of constitutionalism.
Making rivers of blood flow, they prepared to extinguish our rebellion and, with it, the hope of embracing the historically cherished independence dream.
They tried to ignore that through the veins of the Cuban people ran the mambí courage, the military genius of Gómez, Maceo, Agramonte; they forgot the open wound that was still bleeding from Mella, from Guiteras; they ignored the force of Villena's thought; but his worst mistake was believing that the most universal of Cuban ideologues and patriots had remained in the past. And Martí lived.
At the height of his centenary, the Master rose with young blood, beating strongly in the chest of an entire generation, and another infinite, unrepeatable man grew, another natural leader: Fidel.
That brilliant young lawyer found in the ideas of the Apostle the source that shaped his impetus and his desire for justice; The principles and moral values of the revolutionary were consolidated, the inevitable feeling of contempt for the overwhelming and arrogant imperialism, and the full certainty that in the people, in the youth, was the necessary force to definitively change the course of history.
Glorious that morning of Santa Ana, glorious the moment that brought before the walls of the Moncada an entire avalanche of patriotism and will that could no longer be stopped, a cry for freedom that would never again be silenced, the first great step towards our right sovereign to shake off colonialism and the monstrosity of the "republic" that hastened after him.
And again they were wrong. They embraced the erroneous idea of a setback, bathed the country in blood, ripped out Abel's eyes, and tried to enclose within the walls and bars of the Isle of Pines what nothing and no one has ever been able to capture, thought.
A thought that inevitably pointed to victory, which multiplied from the dedicated hands of Haydée and Melba, after being exposed with such political courage and conviction, from the figure of the already immense man who went from accused to accuser, that there was no not the slightest possibility of replica.
Not only was the Moncada Program erected, but much more: the imperishable guideline of a Revolution; because July 26, 1953 was the beginning of the end of opprobrium and injustice for Cuba.
To the 26 we owe the 1st. From January to the 26th we owe our ability to overcome setbacks and draw from them the most resounding victories, the full certainty that it is enough, to be great, to try great.
And immense is already the legacy of this work, which has proudly followed the course of a tenacious posture when sovereignty and the pillars that support it are at stake. A work that is not afraid of perishing because it is reborn under deep principles of continuity. A work that is known to be solid, because there is nothing stronger and more lasting than what the people love and defend.
Author: Leidys María Labrador Herrera | leidys@granma.cu July 26, 2022