Contramaestre knows the history of the rebelliousness of its children to forge the Cuban Revolution, conquered by Fidel Castro, on that luminous January 1st, 1959.
The passing of the last years of incessant struggle for the country’s independence against the abuses of Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship left eloquent signs of the revolutionary concerns that accompanied the libertarian yearnings of the young people of this eastern Cuban terroir.
Juan Morales, the well-known Miñin, assures to have known of the stature that characterized the martyr Rodolfo.
In the early morning of May 20, 1957, members of the clandestine urban militias, among them Rodolfo Rodríguez Benítez, carried out the feat of placing the first flag of the 26th of July Movement that flew in this city on the top of the former La Libertad de Contramaestre store.
It was not a fervently unique event; the then neighborhoods of Los Pazos, Guaninao and Pueblo Nuevo, were shaken under multiple sabotages to the electric and telephone lines, as well as to the railroad lines.
Groups in rural areas of this eastern Cuban jurisdiction, such as Cascajal, Resbaloso and Cruce de Laja, flooded sugar cane areas and collected weapons destined for the Rebel Army of the Third Front.
The objective of the action was achieved: to reduce the pressure of Batista’s army on the combatants of the Third Eastern Front.
The transcendence of the action was greater because it was appreciated and applauded by the people of Contramaestre, its repercussion in the press of the time was national and it was also recognized as the first flag placed in the urban area during the war against Batista.
Rodolfo Rodriguez, like many young intrepid revolutionaries, demonstrated a singular stature of courage and daring in the combats in which he participated, such as those of the capture of the barracks of La Maya, and El Cristo, the latter, in which that fateful November 23, 1958, shrapnel in hand, he died fighting bravely against the Batista criminal forces.
67 years after Rodolfo’s protagonism in the old “La Libertad” Store, Contramaestre keeps our flag high, while honoring the sons who forged a free and sovereign homeland. And it is because he, along with many others, left us schools, factories, peasant structures, neighborhood organizations, the community where his people live and the whole flow of the work that he pushed to forge forever and against any media attempt: the invincible Revolution.
