Cuban Revolutionaries Hope Their Legacy Won't Fade Away

Cuban Revolutionaries Hope Their Legacy Won't Fade Away
By AZAM AHMEDNOV. 7, 2015

SANTIAGO DE CUBA — In the photograph, the friends stand stripped to
their undershirts in the blistering heat, clutching shovels, their faces
cast in sepia. The men, hiding in the folds of the Sierra Maestra
mountains of Cuba, were fighters in the throes of revolution.

"We were digging our own graves," recalled Heriberto Olmo Lora, holding
the faded picture between his thumb and forefinger. "Three died that
day, another a few years later in Angola."

More than 60 years have passed since the photograph was taken, in the
early days of a revolution that would redefine Cuba and, to some degree,
the world. Like the picture, with its shiny surface molting and its
edges rubbed indistinct, the revolution and its heroes are fading

Time is Mr. Olmo's enemy, now that he is 79. He lives a quiet, modest
life in an apartment complex on the edge of Santiago de Cuba, the
island's second-largest city. Few of his comrades remain — five perhaps,
or six. They disagree on a count when you ask them. The men meet once
every three months, Mr. Olmo says, and between sessions it is not
uncommon for one of them to have passed away.


In some respects, the men are the last bearers of the revolution in its
wellspring, the city where Fidel Castro and his followers began their
struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Billboards
along the roads say, "Santiago is Santiago," as if nothing more need be
said on the virtues and bravery of its people. But there is a tinge of
desperation to the signage, a hint that the fight now is against
memory's atrophy.

The revolution is still respected, but to many Cubans it is no longer
reason enough to abide shortages of food and supplies, low monthly
incomes, infrastructure in disrepair.

"There are people who are die-hard and want to maintain the faith, but I
don't see another generation accepting the sacrifice for the project as
a basis for continuing austerity," said Lisandro Pérez, a professor of
Latin American studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in
New York.

Santiago de Cuba, with its pastel-colored, colonial-era structures and
undulating hills, staked its place in history long before the
revolution. The country's holiest site, the shrine of the Virgin of
Charity, stands on the edge of the city, and Cuba's most venerated
Catholic icon, a small wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, is kept there.

But change is in the air now, and the old revolutionaries recognize it.
What they do not know is whether it will preserve the ideals they fought
for or scatter them to the winds.

For sure, the revolution did not make Cuba, or many of them, wealthy.
Despite the economic struggles, though, they harbor no doubts that what
they did for their country made it better.

"If I could do it all again, I would do it all the same," said Ernesto
Mato Ruiz, 75, another of the revolutionary fighters in the Santiago area.

Mr. Mato is slightly stooped now, with mottled skin and a quick wit, and
he is something of a local celebrity among members of the older
generation, admired for his bravery while fighting under the famed
revolutionary commander Frank País.

Yet Mr. Mato acknowledges that the future of Cuba will not be up to him
or his friends, but to younger Cubans whose connection to the struggle
is not firsthand.

"We are talking about changing generations," he said. "It's something
completely distinct."

Many younger Cubans feel the weight of the revolution as a challenge to
their future rather than as its foundation. The evidence is clear on the
streets of Santiago, where young people take their fashion cues, their
backward hats and baggy clothes, from the country that was long
portrayed as Cuba's nemesis, the United States.

"What can I say, I don't really believe in politics, and the revolution
is purely political," Rubén Suarez Romero, 24, said. "My main concern is
my family, not party politics."

Many Cubans his age have little patience for revolutionary rhetoric, and
they are frustrated by the dearth of economic opportunity in the
country, despite the diplomatic thaw with Washington. They want to see
change in their lives, and revolutionary talk sounds to many like a
distraction from their struggles.

"The youth want everything now," Mr. Mato said with a sigh, running his
hands along the legs of his pants. "They think that everything will fall
from the sky."
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Then, with a smile, he added: "Listen, I'm an old fart, and I'll die
pretty soon. The youth are the ones who will need to carry things forward."

Revolutionaries like Mr. Olmo do what they can to pass the torch. He
tells his grandchildren about his actions in the 1950s and why it was so
important to overthrow the Batista regime.

"The revolution, for me, opened up my future," Mr. Olmo said as he sat
in a rocking chair in the home he shares with a daughter, her husband
and their children. "Idealistically, the revolution committed errors,
but in its essence it was something very pure."

He spoke of his children, all of them educated, some now living abroad.
The revolution gave them opportunities that did not exist in the old
Cuba, he said. He acknowledged that "now changes are necessary, our
economy needs to open up." But he also insisted, "The central idea of
politics, it should stay the same."

Hope for preserving the old socialist ideals grows fainter by the day,
even on Mr. Olmo's doorstep. The sun pierced the foliage of a large
acacia tree in the courtyard beneath his apartment, where a dozen
children played soccer barefoot, their voices and scrapes and bangs
filtering up through the open windows.

During a break in the game, the children sat on the concrete lip of the
courtyard and teased one another. When a visitor asked them about the
war hero living just above, they looked puzzled; one suggested that the
man was a friend's grandfather, then shrugged.

Another question, about what the revolution meant to them, was met with
a mix of adolescent shyness and aloofness. Finally one young boy stepped
forward and answered.

"The revolution has given me everything," he said, squinting slightly
into the sun.

Pressed further, the boy could not say what "everything" was, or what
the slogan meant. He retreated to the concrete lip with his friends and
looked away.

"When we talk about the revolution," he said, "it confuses me sometimes."

Hannah Berkeley Cohen contributed reporting.

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