When we talk about Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán, the image of a stocky man with a bushy beard and a broad smile comes to our minds, who, despite being from the village, came to embody a Commander of the Revolution respected by all.
This great of Cuban history was born on February 6, 1932 in Havana and from a very young age he assumed decisive responsibilities that evidenced his capacity and courage. He showed it in popular demonstrations against the increase in the price of transportation back in 1948 and then after Fulgencio Batista’s coup d’état in 1952 when he joined other young people to take weapons from the dictatorship and fight it.
The difficult situation in which the island of Cuba was plunged led him to emigrate to the United States in search of improvements and he was seen working as a laborer and waiter in several cities. There he joined Latin American emigrants and wrote harsh criticisms of the Batista government. After being detained by the immigration department of the northern nation, the man with the winged hat was finally deported to Mexico. He would have met Isabel Blandón, one of his loves, in the city of San Francisco.
In December 1955, while demonstrating in homage to Antonio Maceo, he received his first bullet wound. Still convalescent, he was at the commemorative act for the 103rd anniversary of the birth of José Martí in Havana’s central park. There, he was arrested, beaten and registered as a communist, for which he once again went into exile in the United States and then traveled to the Aztec nation.
It is said that he was the last one chosen for the expedition of the Granma Yacht because he had no military training, which he quickly received and learned to the point of becoming a guerrilla fighter as time showed shortly after. He excelled in Alegría de Pío, in the combat of Uvero, leader of the vanguard in the guerrilla column number 4, in the combats of Bueycito, El Hombrito and Pino del Agua. It was undoubtedly taking the fight to the plains and winning it that earned him the rank of Commander in 1958 from the hands of Fidel Castro, leader of the Revolution.
To victoriously lead the invasion from east to west like the mambises, to fight the battle of Yaguajay, to accompany the caravan of freedom, to assume functions after January 1, 1959 and to control enemy seditions prove the worth of the brilliant young guerrilla who was not in vain a man of Fidel’s confidence.
Camilo Cienfuegos, who disappeared when he was only 27 years old, is reincarnated in any young man who, like him, is a joker, cheerful, fair, patriotic and supportive. Camilo remains in the historical memory as the image of the people and as Fidel said, even with 66 years of physical disappearance, in the people there can be many Camilos.
