Cuba celebrates today the 63rd anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of its Revolution.
This declaration took place during the funeral honors of the victims of the U.S. bombing of different points of the national territory, as a prelude to the mercenary invasion of Playa Giron, Matanzas province, in 1961.
Before the crowd gathered near the Cristobal Colon Cemetery, in Havana, Cuba's maximum leader, Fidel Castro, expressed: this is the socialist and democratic revolution of the humble, with the humble and for the humble.
And for this revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble, we are ready to give our lives, he added.
The attendants with rifles raised, expressed their decision to defend the homeland, for which reason the date went down in national history as Militiamen's Day.
The day before, on April 15, enemy planes camouflaged with the insignia of the Revolutionary Armed Forces attacked the airport of Ciudad Libertad, the air base of San Antonio de los Baños and the airport of Santiago de Cuba.
On the 17th, an armed brigade, trained and transported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, disembarked at the Zapata Swamp.
After 60 hours of hard fighting, the mercenaries were defeated and surrendered at dusk on the 19th, and this action represented, according to Fidel Castro, the first great defeat of imperialism in Latin America.