The last stage of our struggles for national liberation (1956-1958) had, in the Second Front Frank País García, founded on March 11, 1958, one of the best examples of how the Revolution would transform, from the base, national life. The Second Front was “a small revolutionary State within another”, said then Commander Raúl Castro Ruz, its leader and founder.
The previous days were a long and narrow march from Pata de la Mesa - passing through San Lorenzo, the place where Carlos Manuel de Céspedes fell - to Piloto del Medio. There Raúl, with a little more than 50 fighters, executed the order of the Commander-in-Chief to form the Front that became, in the 12,000 square kilometers it covered, “a model of organization, administration and order”.
Not only did it transcend for its combative actions or for the Peasants and Workers Congresses in Arms, but also for having established departments to take care of education, health, finances, propaganda, justice, construction and communications, in coherence with the Moncada Program and the Republic “with all and for the good of all”, which would be built after the triumph of January 1, 1959.
Education and health services did not distinguish between the guerrillas and the population, who actively joined Frank País García's tasks and saw the Rebel Army as their own army.
Twenty hospitals and medical field posts, some 400 schools, hundreds of kilometers of roads and telephone lines attest to what was accomplished in a few months. By means of the war tax, more than two million pesos were collected, which were destined for the purchase of weapons abroad and the support of the Front.
In October, by Order 49 of Commander Raúl Castro, the Organic Law of the Front was promulgated, which included the six columns that operated, the Rebel Air Force, the aforementioned departments, as well as the Central Command and the Agrarian and Workers Bureaus.
The valuable experience of the Second Front demonstrated how, in the midst of adversity, and with monolithic unity, it was possible to confront an army superior in arms and resources, to conceive socioeconomic policies that responded to the needs of the popular masses, and to put them into practice.
Today the context is different, but the principles and ideals that move us are the same: to bet on full social justice, and that the people continue to be at the center of the work of the Revolution.
