I believe it would be highly positive to establish a revolutionary government presided over by Raúl Chibás, but, after initial attempts, I consider it very difficult to overcome his personal scruples, given the fear that in that case his trip to the Sierra would be interpreted as motivated by personal interest. The best arguments come up against that feeling of his.
Letter from Fidel Castro to Celia Sánchez, July 5, 1957
A visit to Eduardo and MariCris seemed inappropriate to me. Kairos had failed me. Eduardo looked sad, depressed.
The greeting turned into “What’s wrong?”
“Alejandro died.”
I felt that I was out of place, that I was interrupting a newly begun mourning, and all I could manage was a hurried “I’m sorry.”
Although broken, a sudden turn in the conversation clarified that Alejandro was Alexander the Great, who had just died in the book Eduardo was reading.
My condolences, anachronistic by more than two thousand years, turned into laughter. Eduardo also had to laugh at his intense mourning.
From that day on, he, MariCris, and I would die laughing at the anecdote. And yet, that laughter could not hide what was revealed. Eduardo’s fervor for Wagner was evident, pointing to the cult of heroes as its origin, an understandable cult, since he had them in his family. Among them were Eddy, his uncle, the unfulfilled hope of so many Cubans, and Raúl, his father, also my hero, who was like a father to me.
In these lines, which I add like musical staves, I allude to events of a bloodline that has spoken for Cuba for centuries.
Arrested during the Machado dictatorship while still a minor, Raúl hid his young age when questioned so that he could remain behind bars with his comrades. This early display of dignity and courage would mark his life. It is not surprising that through his maternal grandmother, Luisa Agramonte y Piña, he shares genes with none other than Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz. Nor is it surprising, despite his characteristic humility, that when referring to the “brave men who died to bequeath us an independent nation,” he first mentions his own blood: “The Agramontes, Céspedes, Maceo brothers, José Martí…” He does so in his letter from Raúl to Fidel, without surnames, dated July 14, 1991, delivered to Castro personally by the apostolic nunciature; an unpublished letter that was intended to be another final wake-up call.
Raúl was trying to awaken the conscience of others on the eve of the fortieth anniversary of his brother’s suicide by gunshot on August 5, 1951. The only difference between these efforts to redirect a history bent on its unforgivable tardiness was the recipient of the message: the people, that pipe dream, in 1951, and Fidel Castro, its haughty, more than sovereign embodiment, in 1991. In strict privacy, the difference between a man of words and a man of his word is recorded.
A frequent topic of conversation among us was the difficult continuity of Cuban history from the early 19th century to our endless present. Then, as if in a rearview mirror, the currents that separated us inside and outside Cuba appeared, isolating the island—yes, with pleonasm—from sufficient agreement to join, for example, the failed Soles y Rayos de Bolívar conspiracy in the first third of the 19th century, in which the poet José María Heredia, a pioneer of our exiles who died in Mexico in 1839, participated.
The fundamentalists aspired to be part of Spain; the autonomists wanted a less deep-rooted link between the ever-loyal island of Cuba and the mother country; the annexationists were betting on a profitable union with the United States; and for the independence supporters, the only possible destination was sovereignty.
The fear of another Haiti meant disadvantages for independence; given the monoculture of sugar, the economy could not do without slavery and the consequent high percentage of black population. Hence the annexationist longing to join the north as another state that also depended on a monoculture. Blacks were condemned to harvest whiteness, in cane or cotton.
Annexationism disappeared when the Confederacy lost the Civil War in 1865. From then on, the independence movement incorporated blacks, beginning with the liberation of slaves granted by Céspedes in October 1868 and then with successive demands for the abolition of slavery; achievements that mitigated but did not eliminate racial discrimination, which unfortunately remained all too prevalent in the failed republics of 1902 and 1940, and in the no less failed revolutions of 1933 and 1959.
Inconceivable but true: during those years of extremely high black participation in the independence struggle, the mambrú dance music was introduced, whose lyrics, as insolent as they were insolvent, read: “You are a big-mouthed black man / and I am better than you, / if I slap you / I will make you dance the mambrú.” Another thing: although Martí had assured that there would never be a race war in Cuba, there was one in 1912.
To talk to Raúl again, I will piece together episodes of continuity concerning the Agramontes and the Chibás, which would have interested him greatly, both because of the connections, scarce since the last century, and because of the vitality of their blood in them.
One of Agramonte’s most daring feats, the rescue of Manuel Sanguily, caused astonishment even in the defeated enemy. And rage. Led by the Camagüey native, thirty-five Creoles rescued the prisoner who, dressed as a Spanish soldier, was being led by one hundred and twenty enemies. When he identified himself by shouting “Long live free Cuba!”, Sanguily was shot in the hand by the soldier guarding him. As he was about to finish him off, the soldier was beheaded by a mambí.
That October 8, 1871, is linked to a little-known noble episode: on November 27 of that year, five slaves tried to rescue their masters, eight medical students. The slaves were killed and their bodies scattered throughout Havana as a warning; the masters were shot shortly thereafter that same day. The names of the eight students are known and remembered; only one of the names of the five slaves is known and barely remembered.
The attempt was devised by Manuel Cañamazo, alias “Manita en el suelo” (Little Hand on the Ground). I have always sensed a correspondence between Sanguily’s rescue and that of the students, between October 8 and November 27, between Agramonte and Manita. The fortuitous relationship between two hands, the wounded one and Cañamazo’s, had to do with my premonition and with the generous attempt of the Abakuá: it is good for the master to free the slaves; the slaves must also free the master.
Another fortuitous convergence: Martí’s last speech and Eduardo Chibás’ last knock.
When Martí was wounded in Dos Ríos, he was recognized by Antonio Oliva, a Cuban mulatto who worked for the Spanish. Before finishing him off, Oliva asked him mockingly:
“You here, Martí?”
In response, the apostle bit his tongue, leaving “his teeth literally stuck in it,” according to the testimony of Corporal Juan Trujillo.
That was in 1895. In 1951, Eddy Chibás fulfilled his radio program, lamenting Cuba’s stolen destiny. But they bit his tongue by going over the agreed-upon broadcast time, and the suicide shot was not heard. Martí’s last speech was his bitten tongue. No less silent and eloquent was the leaden knock.
Stung by an endless exile, I weigh these distant or not-so-distant events, throwing my premonitions like dice. I do so as a tribute to Raúl Chibás, in the hope that his voice will be amplified, rereading the Sierra Maestra Manifesto, in which he played a decisive role and which was written in Castro’s own hand, even though he later betrayed him. In addition, his letter to Fidel dated July 14, 1991, should be published, as well as his Campaign Diary, backed up by numerous photos, many taken by American journalists who went up to the Sierra.
Raúl Chibás was an absolutely exceptional man: it was an honor to have known him well and loved him dearly.
(Eduardo Chibás and children in Vienna)
Originally published in El Nacional, Caracas, November 1, 2025. Reproduced with the author’s permission.
