Cristino Naranjo was an active participant in the national liberation struggle waged by our people in the 1950s. Naranjo was born in the eastern Cuban city of Palma Soriano, on December 15, 1929. Of humble origin, he knew the rigors of exploitation and poverty from an early age. In the 1950s, Cristino worked as a miner in the then province of Oriente.  Eager to fight against those who kept the country in a situation of humiliation and dispossession, in 1957, during the attack of the members of the Rebel Army to Bueyecito, the young miner joined the troops of Commander Ernesto Che Guevara, who described him as a valuable acquisition for the guerrilla forces.

Shortly before joining the Rebel Army, he had already put his knowledge at the service of the liberating cause, when he managed to blow up a bridge. Later he participated in the combats of El Hombrito, in the two actions of Pino del Agua and Mar Verde, among others. In April 1958, he was appointed to join the forces led by Commander Camilo Cienfuegos, whose mission was to take the war to the plains of Oriente province. Cristino Naranjo operated in areas near the city of Bayamo.  His qualities as a combatant as well as his fighting determination made him worthy of promotion to the rank of lieutenant.

When in May 1958, Fidel Castro called Commander Camilo Cienfuegos, who was at that time in a plain area near the city of Bayamo to the Sierra Maestra to reinforce the defense of that mountainous territory against the offensive of the dictatorship's troops. Cristino Naranjo remained in command of the rebel fighters who continued in the plain and in that period he carried out victorious actions in Bayamo, Las Tunas and Holguin. 

And from that moment until the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, on January 1st, 1959, he kept fighting in that combat front, constantly harassing Batista's army and inflicting successive defeats in the Oriente province. In that same year Cristino Naranjo was appointed chief of a company in Holguin, until August when he was transferred to the General Staff of the Rebel Army in Havana, by order of Camilo, who promoted him to Commander. Together with Camilo and other officers, he marched to Camagüey in October 1959 to confront the counterrevolutionary conspiracy that was being forged there. Almost a month later Cristino Naranjo was assassinated on November 12, 1959 in Ciudad Libertad as a result of an attack by a traitor.