Literacy Campaign Timeline

September 26, 1960: Speech to the United Nations General Assembly
Castro declares that “next year our people propose to launch an all-out offensive against illiteracy… Cuba will be the first country in America to be able to claim that it has not a single illiterate inhabitant.”

Early October 1960: First Congress of the Municipal Councils of Education
Local level and Ministry of Education officials convene and start to strategize. This first conference shows that Castro did arrange for some planning in the campaign.

Late October 1960: Creation of Comision Nacional de Alfabetizacion
The Comision Alfabetizacion (Literacy Commission), which was created after the rebels came to power, was replaced by new Comision Nacional de Alfabetizacion (National Commission), which was structurally different. It tied the local councils of education to national key members of government. It became vast machine for financial, propaganda and mobilization means.

November 1960: Special Census to Locate Illiterates Begins
The government sends out students, teachers, and voluntary census takers to the country side with a single page questionnaire to comb the villages for illiterates. It ended in August 1961, having found that roughly 1 million people in Cuba cannot read.

December 1960 – January 1961: Recruitment Efforts Start Full Force
Before this point, there were students and teachers in training, in the mountains. Parts of Red Army and IRNA and people in the cities became volunteer teachers for the Ministry of Education. Castro starts making more speeches, getting the word out (New Years Eve speech, etc.). There was no formal plan yet, but the propaganda machine was in place.

January 23, 1961: Death of Conrado Benitez Announced
Benitez was a young volunteer in Las Villas. “He was poor, he was a Negro, and he was a teacher,” and according to Castro, he was assassinated by counterrevolutionaries. Castro used the opportunity to further advertise the campaign. He turned the literacy project into issue of great national importance, and the young man into a Saint of the revolution.

January 28, 1961: Early Closing of Schools and Formation of “Conrado Benitez Brigadistas”
Castro announced that all secondary and pre-university schools will close on April 15, so that an army of literacy workers can be created. All children over the age of thirteen, will be given the “honor and privilege” of serving. Castro named the forces of students and young people “Benitez Brigadistas.”

Mid March 1961: Castro Takes Over Ministry of Education
The Minister of Education, Armando Hart, left for a tour of Eastern Europe. Castro considered this project so important, that he personally stepped in.

May 1, 1961: Post Bay of Pigs Speech—Castro Announces Nationalization of All Schools
Castro reaffirmed the socialist, radical, nature of the revolution, and gloated in the victory against the Yankees at the Bay of Pigs. He announces an end to the pre-revolutionary system of education.

Late May 1961: Varedero Beach Resort Training Center Expanded
Students and youth lived in hotels, clubs, former luxury resorts, taking special classes on revolutionary politics and rural life, participating in various recreational activities. By the end of August 1961, 105,700 students had been through the facilities. It is not the physical location or the programming that made the experience; it was the spirit, the fulfillment of revolutionary obligations, in the air.

May-June 1961: Teachers Join Campaign as Alfabetizadores Populares
After primary schools closed for the year, teachers joined, mostly as overseers on municipal levels, supervising students. They received a salary for this work.

Early August 1961: Confederation of Cuban Workers mobilizes 30,000 Brigadistas Obreros
Workers were called away from factories and shops to go teach. They received stipends and a salary while they traveled. The workers remaining in factories had to make up the work through over time and voluntary work. Teachers and workers served mostly as a back-up force to the Benitez brigades.

Early September 1961: National Literacy Congress
A Convention takes place at the ex-Havana Hilton Hotel, now called Havana Libre, for 4 days with 800 members, of national, provincial, municipal council, present. They came together to celebrate, to criticize and to improve the campaign. They stressed that there were only three months left to carry out the plan. They had the man power and apparatus in place—now the teaching had to start.

Mid September 1961: Beginning of School Year Delayed from September to January 1962
Most of the Ministry of Education personnel were working on the campaign, teachers were still in the field, and thus school could not start. This means students in Cuba were out of schools for eight months in 1961. At the same time, a “Plan of attendance” was established. Volunteers and parents set up alternative activities for children.

November 1961: Mass Celebrations and Final Push Start
Communities wrapped up their literacy programs and celebrated their achievements. Mass “graduation” ceremonies were arranged, awards, certificates, flags were handed out, and whole areas were declared free of illiteracy. “Acceleration camps” were set up to help those who had fallen behind and scholarships were promised to brigadistas who completed the program successfully.

Late November 1961: Death of Brigadista Manuel Ascunce Announced
A Brigadista and the father of the family with which the student was living, were hanged outside of the family home. Castro claimed it was done by counterrevolutionaries. This event gave the final weeks an incredible sense of urgency.

December 15, 1961: The Brigadistas Return Home
Trains from the provinces carried brigadistas home to Havana. A whole army of youth gathered to share their experiences. They were still wearing their uniforms and peasant’s hats upon arrival.

December 22, 1961: The Grand Finale
Hundreds of thousands met at Plaza to celebrate the campaign’s victory. “First came a gigantic Cuban flag, escorted by motorcycle police, then the flags of Socialist and Latin American countries….dignitaries and officials of the camping came next, then five hundred literacy workers with lanterns …five thousand soldiers of the literacy campaign bearing giant pencils…then came the brigadistas” (Fagan 53).


Pre Literacy Campaign: Purposes
Already in 1953, during his trial for the attack on the Moncada Army barrack, Castro proclaimed that it is unacceptable that 99% of peasants cannot spell their name and know nothing of history. By 1957, he included his passion for education in the Manifesto of Sierra Maestra. The campaign against illiteracy became part of ten point revolutionary program. Data from the 1950’s confirms that the Cuban education system greatly disadvantaged the lower classes, and that there was a decline in literacy. This partially explains the broad support the campaign received.

Post Literacy Campaign: Results
Critics point to the fact that only a first grade level of reading skills was achieved during the campaign, much too low to have real and immediate effects. The knowledge that had been gained would quickly slip away. Most importantly, 28% of those illiterates located in the census, would not or could not be taught. According to this evaluation, the campaign was a definite failure. Supporters point to the amazing scope and reach of the effort. Over one sixth of the country was mobilized. The everyday life of most Cubans was directly touched and affected by the campaign. Being able to finally spell their names, meant very much to the illiterates helped by the project. Reviews are mixed at best.

Comment:

The Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961 was one of the most fantastic and dreamlike, almost whimsical, events of the early revolutionary period. A whole country was mobilized within months—children, teenagers, were driven into the countryside and mountains—peasants opened their homes to those children and for the most part, willingly received their instruction—teachers, government officials, and Fidel Castro himself, dropped what they were working on to momentarily dedicate themselves to the cause. An immense effort was poured into training teachers, printing materials, keeping labor running and younger children occupied, while the rest of the country had to function as well. The Cuban people threw themselves into a challenge which “was large enough to appear heroic without at the same time appearing absolutely impossible” (Fagan 36).

The project was turned over to the people in true revolutionary style. “The planning and organizational work would come after, not before this commitment” (Fagan 65). Fidel and Cuba committed to the campaign before any strategy was developed. Chaos was the plan, especially during the last couple of months, which is all the brigadistas had left to actually teach the people. At various random moments of the campaign, Castro haphazardly called on this organization, and that organization, to provide this many thousands of teachers. Castro’s whim was the plan, especially during the months when he ran the Ministry of Education. But the hectic and haphazard pace is exactly what the revolutionary government wanted—this was after all a revolutionary campaign. Castor firmly believed that “the act of trying, the struggle itself, opens up possibilities that could not have been imagined before the battle” (Fagan 65). The literacy campaign was as astonishing, albeit imperfect, a feat, as the effort of a dozen men in the Sierra Mountains.