Mayabeque, Cuba: The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution were born on September 28, 1960 as a rapid and firm response of the Cuban people to the actions of counterrevolutionary elements.
On that date, the maximum leader of the Revolution, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, had returned to the Cuban capital after having made a momentous intervention in the United Nations General Assembly two days earlier in New York.
To give him a unique welcome, hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of Havana gathered in front of the then Presidential Palace.
To try to interrupt Fidel’s dialogue with the people, counterrevolutionary elements initially set off a firecracker in order to frighten those who had gathered in front of the north terrace of the then Presidential Palace.
But they received as a vibrant response that the crowd began to shout “Long live the Revolution and Fidel” and also the National Anthem was sung. Fidel also immediately stated: ?We are going to establish a collective surveillance system, we are going to establish a collective revolutionary surveillance system!
