Mayabeque, Cuba: “I bring in my heart the doctrines of the Master and in my thoughts the noble ideas of all the men who have defended the freedom of the peoples.”
This phrase by Fidel Castro, pronounced by him emphatically in the self-defense plea of the events of July 26, 1953, known as History Will Absolve Me, is a response to the question of why the Commander-in-Chief said that José Martí was the sole mastermind behind the Moncada Assault.
Martí’s ideas about the need to fight, by armed means or by the policy against imperialism were present in the ideas of Fidel and his fellow members of the Centennial Generation, who knew his texts and joined the conceptions of his pro-independence postulate.
Whoever reads History Will Absolve Me and when asked by the judges, Fidel will observe how many times Martí, the Teacher, the Apostle is mentioned, not as an oratorical resource, but conceptually as an example of the role that his doctrine played in the formation of the revolutionary thought of those who in his name cleansed the honor of the Homeland.
Despite having fallen in the fields of Dos Ríos in 1895, in 1953 the Apostle’s ideas guided the revolutionary struggle.
Marti’s ideology was present in all the young people of Moncada. There are plenty of reasons then to confirm that José Martí is the mastermind behind the Assault on the Moncada Garrison.
