Marianas in Combat: Tete Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War 1956-58

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The good thing about this book is the details offered about Castro's interventions all over the world; however the reader must exercise great caution since the book is unabashedly partisan and these very same details are distorted to support the Castro message, and malign his enemies. Interestingly enough the details of the war in Cuba support my memories of those events, although "battles" is mistranslated to describe all military actions however small. Cowardice of the Marianas reported by such as Norberto Fuentes (see below), and is not consistent with my memories that recall these women as being irrationally brave, but such is the fog of war. On the other hand Puebla portrays a courageous Castro an exaggeration of reality, since his caution and discrete retirement from the battle field is legendary.Fuentes, Norberto 2004 La Autobiografia de Fidel Castro (Paperback). Destino Ediciones, Barcelona ISBN: 9707490012 pp. 852-853.

This is an interview with Brigadier General Teté Puebla, the highest-ranking female officer of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. The interview is conducted by Mary-Alice Waters, the president of Pathfinder Press. In the exchange with the interviewer Teté tells the story of her experiences in the Cuban revolutionary war. And the story she tells indicates a great deal about how the Cuban revolution, from its earliest days, tried to promote the emancipation of women from their subjugated condition. Teté's struggle began in 1956, not as a fight for the rights of women, but as a fight for the most basic rights of her community in the town of Yara in Eastern Cuba under siege by Batista's thugs. Once the rebel band led by Fidel Castro was established in the area, Teté began running errands for them, smuggling guns and supplies. Discovered by the army's agents, she was forced to flee to the Sierra in July 1957. She was integrated into the guerrilla army in a support capacity. As a resourceful and courageous fighter, she soon came to grips with the fact that there was no women's combat unit. So she volunteered to form one. Fidel agreed, and thus was born the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon (the Marianas). The young women fighters went into combat together with the men, and, in addition to demonstrating their bravery and marksmanship, laid the foundation stone for a new kind of society in Cuba. The new Cuba was born with men and women fighting side by side on an equal basis to liberate Cuba from the misery imposed upon it by the colossus to the north. This egalitarian principle, laid down in battle as a norm of action, became a model for the new society as it developed. After the January 1959 victory Teté developed her leadership capacities further, working in the process of developing new education systems and social services that made women's equality not just a legal principle, but a practical reality in everyday life. She remains a soldier in Cuba's revolutionary army.

Malcolm X and Thomas Sankara both wrote about how the reality of any revolution, and any society is shown in the role of women. This is the story of Tete Puebla, the highest ranking women general in the Cuban army about how Cuban women fought and gained an equal role as combatants in the Cuban revolution, how revolutionary Cuban women played a decisive role in the transformation of Cuban society, about how Cuban women led the fight for literacy in the 1960s, and how Cuban women have fought in Angola, in Grenada, and wherever imperialism threatens the revolution, and how Cuban woman are ready to fight, arms in hands, against Washington's threats to overturn their revolution.This is no Cooks tour about the perfection of Cuban revolutionists, but it does show how Fidel fought for women's equal role because they were recognized as fighters. To me the most wonderful part is the description of how the revolution dealt not just with the orphans of revolutionary martyrs, but with children orphaned because their parents were in Batista's murderous criminal army. They were all treated the same, as children of the revolution. Read this book and you will recognize the depth of the lies that Washington, and Ottawa, and London throw at the Cuban Revolution. Read this and you will be able to look forward to the time your country can be transformed as Cuba was!While Amazon may say this book is unavailable from time to time, it is always available fromt he Pathfinder Amazon partner z-store that you can reach by click on to new and used on the top of this page.

Every woman -- no matter where she's from or when she was born -- will identify with Cuba's Teté Puebla, and love doing so. She wore crinolines in the 50s, and hid grenades under them as she flirted with the soldiers at the dictatorship's checkpoints. She fled to the mountains, and, when on a courrier mission for the guerrilla forces, crept out of the Batista army officer's tent as he slept in order to talk politics with his soldiers. She was among the first women to win the right to bear weapons in the Rebel Army. What makes the book so hair-standing-up-on the-back-of-your-neck thrilling is captured, I think, in this detail: after the women's platoon had been trained (by Castro himself), one of the officers who had been dead set against the girls getting guns, was told that he had to take them on a mission, and if he refused, he wouldn't be going on the mission himself. He went. With the women. And when they got back, he wrote Castro a letter saying, essentially, well, you were right-they know how to fight and I'm proud to be with them. A story of men and women daring to teach and learn and fight and triumph - exciting stuff. And true.