Cuba Guide
Santiago de Cuba
Museo de la Lucha Clandestina
Opening time: Tues– Sat 9am–7pm, Sun 9am–5pm
Price: $1CUC; English, Italian and Spanish guides available; no photographs
Address: Just west of Padre Pico, perched on the Loma del Intendente
The Museo de la Lucha Clandestina is a tribute to the pre-revolutionary struggle. Spread over two floors, the museum comprises a photographic and journalistic history of the final years of the Batista regime and is a must for anyone struggling to understand the intricacies of the events leading up to the Revolution.
The immaculate building is a reproduction of an eighteenth-century house built on the site as the residence of the quartermaster general under Spanish rule. In the 1950s it served as the Santiago police headquarters until burnt to the ground during an assault orchestrated by schoolteacher-cum-underground leader Frank País on November 30, 1956. The three-pronged attack also took in the customs house and the harbour headquarters in an attempt to divert the authorities' attention from the arrival of Fidel Castro and other dissidents at Las Coloradas beach on the southwest coast. The attack is well documented here, with part of the museum focusing on the lives of Frank País and his brother and co-collaborator Josue, both subsequently murdered by Batista's henchmen in 1957. However, as in so many museums in Cuba, there's little discrimination in the exhibits, so that photographs of País's massively attended funeral procession share space with a red jumper he once wore, making the experience by turns moving and slightly comical.
The best exhibits are those that give an idea of the turbulent climate of fear, unrest and excitement that existed in the 1950s in the lead-up to the Revolution. Most memorable is a clutch of Molotov cocktails made from old-fashioned Pepsi Cola bottles, a hysterical newspaper cutting announcing Fidel Castro's death and another published by the rebels themselves refuting the claim. Also noteworthy are the evocative images of a young Castro and comrades in Mexico, Castro's Revolution manifesto written in exile, and a photograph of the triumphant gang on the town-hall balcony on the day of Castro's victory speech.