On January 27, 1953, in the evening hours, from its pedestal, the Alma Mater would see hundreds of Cubans descend the steps in a demonstration organized by the FEU, wielding a lighted torch and heading towards the Forge Martiana.
At the head of the parade, a Cuban flag carried by university and high school classmates; behind the National Flag, the full executive of the FEU. The Martian women were all arm in arm; it was a large group, but the sensation, the impact of the parade, was the group of more than five hundred women,
was the group of more than five hundred perfectly formed young people who followed Fidel.
Their discipline was impeccable. Some of these young men would participate in July in the heroic assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks in Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo.
On October 16, 1953, at the penultimate hearing of the trial for the Moncada assault Fidel Castro expressed:
"It seemed that the Apostle was going to die in the year of his centenary, that his memory would be extinguished forever, such was the affront! But he lives, he has not died, his people are rebellious, his people are worthy, his people are faithful to his memory; there are Cubans who have fallen defending his doctrines, there are young people who in magnificent atonement came to die by his tomb, to give him their blood and their life so that he continues living in the soul of the homeland. Cuba, what would become of you if you had let your Apostle die!" (1).
About the group that paraded that night Fidel Castro recalls:
When the March of the Torches, our Movement sent 300 organized men. I also remember that we wanted them to let us take the car bombs and all the equipment they used to break up demonstrations, but at that time there was emulation and competition among the young people, and those of the FEU wanted to be the ones to carry out that task, something very logical and an expression of courage of our young people who fought for the places of greatest risk and greatest danger.(2)
Notes:
1- Fidel Castro Ruz. History Will Absolve Me (digital edition)
2- Speech delivered by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz at the central ceremony for the XL Anniversary of the assault on the Presidential Palace and the seizure of Radio Reloj, held at the Palace of the Revolution on March 13, 1997.