YOUTH led by the attorney Fidel Castro Ruz provided Cuban history and culture with a new chapter when, on July 26, 1953, they assaulted the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes garrisons in the former province of Oriente. They have been called the centenary generation, since their revolutionary action took place 100 years after the birth of Cuba’s national hero, José Martí.

On the eve of the 58th anniversary of the heroic gesture, we conversed with Pedro Trigo López, one of the 21 Moncada assailants still alive, who at 83 years of age still remembers countless anecdotes, of events which occurred before and after the action.

Like all of us who participated in the Moncada, I was and am a student of José Martí. I was a member of the Orthodox Party during those years, as well. Our leader, Eduardo Chibás, had already died and along with other compañeros, I continued to promote his ideas. It was precisely in an Orthodox Party meeting, held in Santiago de las Vegas in 1951, where I met Fidel Castro, in Dr. María Purificación García Cabello de Fina’s house. I happened to be speaking when I saw him arrive, wearing a guayabera, and I noticed the concentration with which he listened to me talk about five plantations located near El Globo and Calabazar which President Carlos Prío Socarrás had acquired in a shady operation. Prío had evicted the campesinos from the land, replacing them with soldiers working as day laborers. He paid them two pesos each, for 10 hours of work daily, exploiting them, just as the guajiros had been.

I finished my speech and there I had Fidel, at the foot of the lectern, in front of me, with his intelligent gaze, more or less saying, "My name is Fidel Castro and if everything you have said is true, what do you think of charging Prío? First we have to find the evidence, the plantation records… We have to interview the evicted campesinos, they would be the best witnesses if we file charges."

The following day, at 8:00 in the morning, he appeared at my house in Calabazar [12 kilometers from Havana], with Juan Martínez Tinguao, in order to immediately carry out the investigation of the plantations – the Gordillo, Lage, Potrerillo de Menocal, Pancho Simón and Paso Seco, named by Prío and El Rocío, covering 54 caballerías [about 1,800 acres]. Today, 48 of those are the location of Lenin Park, Lenin High School, and the National Botanical Garden.

A bit later we met Jose Luis Tasende and Gildo Fleitas who, like my brother Julio and other compañeros, would die during the assault. Fidel said to us, "The first thing we have to do is meet and photograph the campesinos, most importantly, those who have been working on these plantations for 18 years." We met at the home of La Gallega, Josefa Yáñez [an Orthodox Party member], located in the El Globo area. Some 100 campesinos attended, almost all of them tenant farmers from the former municipality of Santiago de las Vegas. That was the first time Fidel spoke of the Agrarian Reform (Act), saying that he would do away with large landholdings and the exploitation of guajiros, by awarding land ownership [to those who worked it]. He denounced the theft of these lands and the exploitation, the abuse and the eviction the campesinos had suffered. He spoke about the investigation and the struggle which was about to be undertaken.

With all the evidence, on March 3, 1952, Fidel filed charges in civil court and published the case in the newspaper Alerta.

Like the entire people, indignation. Not one week had passed after the coup before Fidel was talking to us about the immediate foundation of a revolutionary movement to oppose the dictatorship and liberate the country from tyranny and the neocolonial system in place since 1902 – that the armed struggle was the only option which remained.

Fidel asked me to organize and lead an insurrectional cell in Calabazar composed of campesinos, workers, students and intellectuals, with the only prerequisite that they be honest people, willing to take up arms to make a Revolution.

During those days, I met Abel Santamaría, an exceptional revolutionary with great sensitivity, resolve and optimism, whose father was from Orense, Galicia. Perhaps because of all of that my mother, also a Galician, admired and loved him a great deal.

We called a meeting which Abel Santamaría attended. He immediately asked everyone about their level of schooling and how many of José Martí’s works we had read. He recommended that, without exception, we needed to study Martí’s thinking, because it would be the guide to the revolutionary action we would be undertaking.

From those times, I clearly remember one afternoon, immersed in preparations for the "zero hour" armed action… Fidel and I went, in the Chevrolet that he drove, to Pedro Marrero’s house, located in La Ceiba. When we went in, we saw that the living and dining room furniture was missing. There was a mattress on the floor, making us think that there wasn’t anything in the bedroom either… Fidel exclaimed, "What have you done? Have you gone crazy?"

Pedro Marrero answered him, "And tomorrow, I’m selling the refrigerator…" Fidel interrupted, "I’m prohibiting you from continuing to sell things, it’s enough that you’ve given up your job as a beer truck driver for the Tropical (company)."

"If I’m ready to give my life for our ideals, what could material things matter to me," he replied. Pedro Marrero was one of combatants killed at the Moncada.

I found out in Santiago de Cuba, just hours before the assault. Besides Fidel and Abel, none of us knew the meaning of the "zero hour action", that is to say, the assaults on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes garrisons. Fidel informed me just after 1:15 in the early hours of July 26, when we left the Siboney farm with Abel, heading for the Plaza de Marte.

Once there, Fidel told Abel to go on and pick up Dr. Mario Muñoz in El Esperón, while he and I walked around the Carnival area to assess the atmosphere in the city. I was also informed of my mission to take, along with other compañeros, the eastern radio network station, which would transmit the poet Raúl Gómez García’s rousing speech to Santiago’s people.

I made the return trip to Siboney with Abel, second in command of the action, while Dr. Muñoz went in the other car with Fidel. I asked Abel if everything was properly organized and he answered, "Yes, Pedrito, everything is synchronized. Right away, he asked me, "Do you have any doubts?" I told him none whatsoever, and he replied, "Look, think of the worse, that they kill us all. If that should happen, we win anyway, since we will have vindicated the relevance of Martí on the centenary of his birth." It didn’t occur to me that, within a few hours, Abel would be dead, along with my brother Julio. Both were savagely tortured and then killed.

The day before, Julio had had a coughing attack and Abel ordered him to return to Havana. But he didn’t obey and fought alongside Abel from the Civil Saturnino Lora Hospital. He fired the last shot there; the others had run out of ammunition.

For the simple reason that the drivers of various vehicles, also combatants, didn’t know the city of Santiago de Cuba and lost their way to the Moncada. I was in one of those cars. We were going along the Elevados de Quintero, when amidst the revelry of the carnival being celebrated, I saw a Santigueran man in wooden sandals dancing and I asked him where the Moncada was. Without stopping dancing, he replied, "Look, take that turn and follow the gunshots."

Anguished, the eight of us in the car arrived at the barracks, but Fidel had already given the order to retreat. We couldn’t remain together, so some of us looked for a way to escape on foot. Walking around an unknown city, I managed to get my uniform off and continued walking in the civilian clothes I was wearing underneath, as all of the combatants had been instructed.

I stopped a bus and asked the driver what route he was taking. "Get on," he said, "I’m headed to Havana, but comb your hair, straighten your guayabera … let’s see how we can get out of this."

When I got to Calabazar, the SIM agents [military intelligence] were waiting for me. They arrested me and took me to the headquarters of those repressive forces. They couldn’t prove that I had participated in the Moncada and, additionally, they had the statement of a Batista supporting taxi driver who confused me with another man he had as a passenger in Calabazar, on Sunday, July 26. They let me go with the condition that I was not to leave town. I could only go from home to work and back.

When Melba [Hernández] and Haydée [Santamaría] got out of jail, I met with them to continue collaborating with the July 26th Movement and I kept at it until Fidel was released from the Presidio Modelo prison and left for Mexico. Then I went into exile.

After the Moncada assailants were released from the Presidio Modelo, I met Raulito in his older sister Lidia’s apartment. Melba and I gave him the diminutive because he looked so young to us.

On Fidel’s request, I went to Lidia’s house so that Raúl could give me an article he was typing, since the editor of Bohemia had asked for it as soon as possible, to publish it… All of a sudden, Lidia announced that the police had surrounded the building. I quickly hid the sheets of paper in my shirt and when I got to the exit, I ran into the Martín Pérez regime police colonel, who asked me if I lived there. I responded "Yes," firmly and he went on his way, saying "I’m going to check on you apartment by apartment."

I arrived at the magazine Bohemia, told Fidel what happened and took out the sheets of paper I had hidden in my shirt. Fidel joyously picked me up off the ground… The article was published signed by him, entitled "Chaviano Lies."