Peasant's Day: In the strength of their hands

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Día del Campesino: En la fuerza de sus manos

The Moncada program became a strategic and tactical guide in the vertiginous process of the country's socioeconomic transformations. Just two months after assuming power, the revolutionary government proclaimed different measures with the aim of rescuing national sovereignty, eliminating underdevelopment and establishing social equality.

Four months and 17 days after the triumph of the Revolution, the Revolutionary Government issued the first Agrarian Reform Law, which took place in the premises occupied by the Rebel Army Command in La Plata, Sierra Maestra.

Thus, the native and foreign large states were eliminated, by limiting land ownership to a maximum of 30 Cavalry units; the properties of the land were handed over to the peasants who worked them and the rents they were forced to pay were liquidated, freeing them from all kinds of exploitation and threat of eviction; farm workers were redeemed from paltry wages, long hours, and the constant threat of unemployment and "downtime."

The Agrarian Reform constituted an important step in the radicalization of the revolutionary process, it meant the birth of a state sector of the economy, when thousands of expropriated cavalries became people's farms and the process of cooperativization began. But, above all, it helped to strengthen the worker-peasant alliance, which was a first step of the Revolution from the beginning of the struggle.

This union was consolidated in the revolutionary process itself: together, they formed the new revolutionary army, supported and put into practice the new revolutionary measures, prepared to face the internal and external aggressions of the reaction, and undertook the construction of the new society.

The radical nature of the popular measures, which included the Agrarian Reform Law, strongly hit the native bourgeoisie and Imperialism, who unleashed a chain of aggressions that ranged from the fiercest anti-communist campaign to direct aggression.

Cuban bank funds deposited in the United States were seized, and the reduction to Cuba of the supply of North American oil, industrial equipment, and other merchandise, including groceries, was declared. Aerial attacks and a dangerous attempt at counterrevolutionary sedition were added to this.

The aggressions from that nation have been exacerbated as part of the hostile policy maintained by the US government for more than 62 years. In this scenario, the peasantry has shown resistance, giving countless signs of confidence in the Revolution that dignified them that May 17, later becoming a day to celebrate and renew the commitment to the sovereignty of the Homeland, which also rests on strength from their hands.