| Summary: | The bandido or bandit uprisings that began in 1959 had their origins in the resistance of some peasants to agrarian reform. Many small property owners with a few coffee trees or tobacco plants or a small cattle herd feared the redistribution of private lands. Many landless rural laborers also joined the fight against the comunistas who administered the agrarian reforms. The Castro Regime maintained that the “real” peasants supported the Revolution. Indeed, rural residents who benefitted positively from land reform did fill out the militia units that fought the “bandits” in the Escambray Mountains and elsewhere on the island. The Cuban counterrevolution, in this regard, compares to the Vendée in France, the Cristero Revolt in Mexico, the kulaks of Russia, and the Contra Movement of Nicaragua. Sources : Cuban military records and CIA documents.
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