Camilo Cienfuegos

He joined Castro's 26th of July Movement on its expedition to Cuba and was one of the few survivors of the Landing of the Granma.

He quickly distinguished himself as one of the top commanders of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and a popular leading figure of the revolution, becoming close friends with Che Guevara during their guerrilla campaign in Las Villas.

Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán (6 February 1932 – 28 October 1959) was a Cuban revolutionary.

One of the major figures of the Cuban Revolution, he was widely considered second only to Fidel Castro among the revolutionary leadership.

The son of Spanish anarchists, Cienfuegos engaged with left-wing politics from an early age, going on to join the opposition movement against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

In 1932, Camilo Cienfuegos was born into a working-class family, the son of Spanish anarchists who had immigrated to Cuba.

His father Ramón Cienfuegos worked as a tailor in Havana and was involved in left-wing political activism, working with Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA) and the Asociacíon Libertaria de Cuba (ALC).

While Camilo was still an infant, his father took him along with him to raise money for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.

Camilo's older brother Osmany Cienfuegos, who had graduated as an architect, became a communist activist, at a time when student dissidents were highly active and increasingly being repressed by the anti-communist regime of Fulgencio Batista.

Having himself enrolled in an art school to study sculpture, in December 1955, Camilo participated in a series of student demonstrations that were violently broken up by the authorities.

After laying a wreath at a monument to Antonio Maceo, while walking back to their university, he and his fellow students were shot and wounded by police.

He was eventually forced to drop out of school due to financial difficulties and began working at the same clothing shop as his father.

He also briefly emigrated to the United States, where he worked illegally for a period.

In 1956, Cienfuegos moved to Mexico and joined Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement for its expedition back to Cuba.

After the landing of the Granma on 2 December 1956, the 26th of July Movement made its way into the Sierra Maestra, where they were Battle of Alegría de Pío by the Cuban National Army on 5 December.

Many of the guerrillas were captured and killed, forcing the rest to escape into the mountains.

Cienfuegos' small group wandered around the area for days, eventually being pointed in Castro's direction by local peasants.

He found himself to be one of only twelve men that had survived the initial expedition.

During the set up for an ambush of the National Army, Cienfuegos accidentally almost shot Che Guevara, who was disguised as a National Army officer.

Despite this mistake, the ambush went ahead successfully.

The ranks of the rebels soon grew, as they gained the support of the local peasantry.

Relations with new recruits didn't start off well, as the veterans were frustrated by their lack of experience, knowledge and proper equipment.

This larger revolutionary armed force was divided into three companies, while Cienfuegos took command of a small special vanguard unit.

It was also brought under the command of an inner council, of which Cienfuegos was also a member.

With Fidel Castro as commander-in-chief, all of the leading commanders of the revolutionary armed forces shared equal rank: that of major.

In March 1957, the National Army initiated a counter-offensive against the rebels, confidently declaring victory over them by early April.

Within weeks, the rebels returned to Pico Turquino, supported by the local population.

There they made efforts to combat the chronic malnutrition and illness of the peasantry, carried out agrarian reform and taught classes on Marxist theory.

By May 1957, the rebels were marching east, planning to launch another attack against the army.

After winning the Battle of Yaguajay in December 1958, Cienfuegos led the capture of Matanzas and Havana, where he was appointed as commander-in-chief of the armed forces by the new revolutionary government.

He oversaw the reorganization of the armed forces, in order to purge leading figures of the Cuban National Army and replace them with guerrilla commanders more loyal to Fidel Castro.

When Huber Matos objected to Castro's consolidation of power, he was arrested by Cienfuegos.

While flying back from Matos' former headquarters at Camagüey, Cienfuegos' plane disappeared over the Straits of Florida.

After a few days of an attempted search and rescue operation, he was presumed dead by the Cuban government.

His disappearance quickly spawned a number of conspiracy theories, many of which speculated Fidel or Raúl Castro to have been responsible, but no proof of such has been discovered.

Cienfuegos has since become known as a revolutionary martyr in Cuba, with a number of institutions being dedicated to his name, including a Military Schools System and an Order of Merit.

Cienfuegos was a popular figure in Cuba, due to his cheerful and carefree personality, which contrasted sharply with the strict austerity of his comrade Guevara.

Although he was claimed by different factions to have been a communist, an anti-communist or an anarchist, he never publicly expressed any political ideology.

The soldiers that fought for him remembered him for his friendly and paternal leadership style, while the Cuban government upheld him as a loyal supporter of Fidel Castro.

Every year, on 28 October, Cuban children throw flowers into the rivers and seas, in tribute to him.