July 26th Movement

The 26 July Movement (; M-26-7) was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, part of an attempt to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista.

M-26-7 is considered the leading organization of the Cuban Revolution. At the end of 1956, Castro established a guerrilla base in the Sierra Maestra. This base defeated the troops of Batista on 31 December 1958, setting into motion the Cuban Revolution and installing a government led by Manuel Urrutia Lleó. The Movement fought the Batista regime on both rural and urban fronts. The movement's main objectives were distribution of land to peasants, nationalization of public services, industrialization, honest elections, and large-scale education reform.

In July 1961, the 26th of July Movement was one of the parties that integrated into the Integrated Revolutionary Organization (ORI) as well as the Popular Socialist Party (PSP) and the 13 March Revolutionary Directorate. On 26 March 1962, the party dissolved to form the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution (PURSC), which held a communist ideology.  

Origins

The 26th of July Movement's name originated from the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, an army facility in the city of Santiago de Cuba, on 26 July 1953. This attack was led by a young Fidel Castro, who was a legislative candidate in a free election that had been cancelled by Batista. The attack had been intended as a rallying cry for the revolution.

Castro was captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison but, along with his group, was granted an amnesty after two years following a political campaign on their behalf. Castro traveled to Mexico to reorganize the movement in 1955 with several other exiled revolutionaries (including Raúl Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, and Juan Almeida Bosque). Their task was to form a disciplined guerrilla force to overthrow Batista.

The original core of the group was organized around the attack on the Moncada Barracks, merged with the National Revolutionary Movement led by Rafael García Bárcena and with a majority of the Orthodox Youth. Soon after, National Revolutionary Action led by Frank País would join. Because of the commonality in their ideology and their goal of wanting to topple the Batista regime, the M-26-7 would quickly add more young people from diverse political backgrounds. Castro sought to frame the Movement as a direct continuation of the anti-colonial struggle of the Ten Years' War and the War of Independence.

Role in the Cuban Revolution

On 2 December 1956, 82 men landed in Cuba, having sailed in the boat '' Granma'' from Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico ready to organize and lead a revolution. The early signs were not good for the movement. They landed in daylight, were attacked by the Cuban Air Force and suffered numerous casualties. The landing party was split into two and wandered lost for two days, most of their supplies abandoned where they landed. They were also betrayed by their peasant guide in an ambush, which killed more of those who had landed. Batista mistakenly announced Fidel Castro's death at this point. Of the 82 who sailed aboard the ''Granma,'' only 22 eventually regrouped in the Sierra Maestra mountain range.

While the revolutionaries were setting up camp in the mountains, "Civic Resistance" groups were forming in the cities, putting pressure on the Batista regime. The poor and many middle-class and professional persons flocked toward Castro and his movement being tired of the corruption of Batista and his government. While in the Sierra Maestra mountains, the guerrilla forces attracted hundreds of Cuban volunteers and won several battles against the Cuban Army. Ernesto "Che" Guevara was shot in the neck and chest during the fighting but was not severely injured. (Guevara, who had studied medicine, continued to give first aid to other wounded guerrillas.) This was the opening phase of the war of the Cuban Revolution, which continued for the next two years. It ended in January 1959, after the right-wing Dictator Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic, in the early hours of New Year's Day when the Movement's forces marched into Havana

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