ABSTRACT
Fidel Castro had survived with a small force of guerrilla fighters in the Sierra Maestra for over a year. Isolated from the rest of the island, sustaining few casualties and supported by the urban underground of the M-26-7, Fidel was creating a well-disciplined group of guerrillas and gaining the backing of the area’s population. His mere presence in the Sierra Maestra contributed to his popularity with the people. Urban underground fighters were unknown precisely because of the secret nature of their activities, and after the deaths of Frank País and José Antonio Echeverría, Fidel was the only important insurrectionary leader, urban or otherwise, left in Cuba. Militarily, he had demonstrated that one could wage guerrilla warfare in the mountains against a regular army; and in so doing he had created a sanctuary for the urban cadres, a place where they could continue the struggle rather than perish in the cities.
