Reglamento Interior del Comite de "Lawton" del Movimiento Rivolucionario "26 de Julio"

Havana, April 3, 1959, "ANO DE LA LIBERACION". As issued.. Very good.. Six leaves (12 pp., last page blank) measuring appx. 165 x 108 mm.; mimeographed with purple ink. Pages are cut and hand-stapled; some pages bearing a faint irregular remnant of a perimeter line (presumably designating the line to cut on to make the pages uniform in size) from the mimeograph sheet on which they were originally printed as a unit. A signed presentation from Camilo Cienfuegos to his comrades in the movement. The inscription is in ink on the front wrapper. It reads: 28 de Marzo / 59 / A los Compañeros del movimiento: / Tes Agradeseo de los Conceptos, que aqui / exponen, que Consideren én todos los aspecto, La integracion en sus filas / alas mujeros. Ya que, senán un gran apoyo, a todas, sus actividades. / Su eterno Compañero / Camilo Cienfuegos.

Regis Debray wrote of the "revolution in the revolution" in reference to Cuba and what he identified, then, as a new, vital motive force powering and accelerating the ascent of the people's revolution. Here is proof of that extraordinary dynamic at work. Cienfuegos, a leading figure in the revolution, engaged with left-wing politics from an early age, going on to join the opposition movement against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. He joined Castro's 26th of July Movement on its expedition to Cuba and was one of the survivors of the landing of the Granma in 1956. He quickly distinguished himself as one of the top commanders of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and a popular leading figure of the revolution, becoming close friends with Che Guevara during their guerrilla campaign in Las Villas.
After winning the Battle of Yaguajay in December 1958, Cienfuegos led the capture of Matanzas and Havana, where he was appointed as commander-in-chief of the armed forces by the new revolutionary government. He was killed in an airplane wreck in Oct. 1959. This pamphlet dates from the heady, earliest days of the takeover; power not yet consolidated. It sets out to establish the operating principles of a revolutionary council of governance in the Lawton District of Havana (a district where Cienfuegos had attended school). Among the usual departments of finance, propaganda, administrative (a total of 6 separate entities) there was one dedicated to women. The responsibilities were, at best, amorphous: " ... sera la encargada de establecer contactos entre la simpatixantes del movimiento Revolucionario, para atraer las al sono de nuestro Comité y compartir como dignas ciudadanas ...." It is of considerable interest that Cienfuegos would chose this to highlight in the inscription. There is no copy of this pamphlet located; such "working" documents from the earliest days are rare survivals, especially given the number of expected copies that could have been produced in this manner.