A Brief History of the Cuban Revolution

In the final days of 1958, ragged rebels began the process of driving out forces loyal to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. By New Year’s Day 1959, the nation was theirs, and Fidel Castro, Chà © Guevara, Raà ºl Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, and their companions rode triumphantly into Havana and history, but the revolution had begun long before. The eventual rebel triumph came only after many years of hardship, propaganda campaigns, and guerrilla warfare. Transcendental Graphics / Getty Images Batista Seizes Power The seeds of the revolution were sown when former Army Sergeant Fulgencio Batista seized power during a hotly contested election. When it became clear that Batista—who had been president from 1940 to 1944—would not win the 1952 election, he seized power prior to the voting and canceled the elections outright. Many people in Cuba were disgusted by his power grab, preferring Cuba’s democracy, as flawed as it was. One such person was rising political star Fidel Castro, who would likely have won a seat in Congress had the 1952 elections taken place. Castro immediately began plotting Batista’s downfall. Assault on Moncada On the morning of July 26, 1953, Castro made his move. For a revolution to succeed, he needed weapons, and he selected the isolated Moncada barracks as his target. The compound was attacked at dawn by 138 men. It was hoped that the element of surprise would make up for the rebels’ lack of numbers and arms. The attack was a fiasco almost from the start, and the rebels were routed after a firefight that lasted a few hours. Many were captured. Nineteen federal soldiers were killed; those remaining took out their anger on captured rebels, and most of them were shot. Fidel and Raul Castro escaped  but were later captured. History Will Absolve Me The Castros and surviving rebels were put on public trial. Fidel, a trained lawyer, turned the tables on the Batista dictatorship by making the trial about the power grab. Basically, his argument was that as a loyal Cuban, he had taken up arms against the dictatorship because it was his civic duty. He made long speeches and the government belatedly tried to shut him up by claiming he was too ill to attend his own trial. His most famous quote from the trial was, â€Å"History will absolve me.† He was sentenced to 15 years in prison  but had become a nationally recognized figure and a hero to many poor Cubans. Mexico and the Granma In May 1955, the Batista government, bending to international pressure to reform, released many political prisoners, including those who had taken part in the Moncada assault. Fidel and Raul Castro went to Mexico to regroup and plan the next step in the revolution. There they met up with many disaffected Cuban exiles who joined the new â€Å"26th of July Movement,† named after the date of the Moncada assault. Among the new recruits were charismatic Cuban exile Camilo Cienfuegos and Argentine doctor Ernesto â€Å"Chà ©Ã¢â‚¬  Guevara. In November  1956, 82 men crowded onto the tiny yacht Granma and set sail to Cuba and revolution. In the Highlands Batista’s men had gotten wind of the returning rebels and ambushed them. Fidel and Raul made it into the wooded central highlands with only a handful of survivors from Mexico—Cienfuegos and Guevara among them. In the impenetrable highlands, the rebels regrouped, attracting new members, collecting weapons, and staging guerrilla attacks on military targets. Try as he might, Batista could not root them out. The leaders of the revolution permitted foreign journalists to visit and interviews with them were published around the world. The Movement Gains Strength As the July 26th Movement gained power in the mountains, other rebel groups took up the fight as well. In the cities, rebel groups loosely allied with Castro carried out hit-and-run attacks and nearly succeeded in assassinating Batista. Batista boldly decided to send a large portion of his army into the highlands in the summer of 1958 to try and flush out Castro once and for all—but the move backfired. The nimble rebels carried out guerrilla attacks on the soldiers, many of whom switched sides or deserted. By the end of 1958, Castro was ready to deliver the coup de grà ¢ce. Underwood Archives / Getty Images Castro Tightens the Noose In late 1958, Castro divided his forces, sending Cienfuegos and Guevara into the plains with small armies; Castro followed them with the remaining rebels. The rebels captured towns and villages along the way, where they were greeted as liberators. Cienfuegos captured the small garrison at Yaguajay on December 30. Defying the odds, Guevara and 300 weary rebels defeated a much larger force at the city of Santa Clara in a siege that lasted from December 28–30, capturing valuable munitions in the process. Meanwhile, government officials were negotiating with Castro, trying to salvage the situation and halt the bloodshed. Victory for the Revolution Batista and his inner circle, seeing that Castro’s victory was inevitable, took what loot they could gather up and fled. Batista authorized some of his subordinates to deal with Castro and the rebels. The people of Cuba took to the streets, joyfully greeting the rebels. Cienfuegos and Guevara and their men entered Havana January 2, 1959, and disarmed the remaining military installations. Castro made his way into Havana slowly, pausing in every town, city, and village along the way to give speeches to the cheering crowds, finally entering Havana on January 9, 1959. Aftermath and Legacy The Castro brothers quickly consolidated their power, sweeping away all remnants of the Batista regime and muscling out all of the rival rebel groups that had aided them in their rise to power. Raul Castro and Chà © Guevara were put in charge of organizing squads to round up the Batista-era war criminals whod engaged in torture and murder under the old regime in order to bring them to trial and execution. Although Castro initially positioned himself as a nationalist, he soon gravitated toward communism and openly courted the leaders of the Soviet Union. Communist Cuba would be a thorn in the side of the United States for decades, triggering international incidents such as the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States imposed a trade embargo in 1962 that led to years of hardship for the Cuban people. Under Castro, Cuba has become a player on the international stage. The prime example is its intervention in Angola: thousands of Cuban troops were sent there in the 1970s to support a leftist movement. The Cuban revolution inspired revolutionaries throughout Latin America as idealistic young men and women took up arms to try and change hated governments for new ones. The results were mixed. In Nicaragua, rebel Sandinistas eventually did overthrow the government and come to power. In the southern part of South America, the upswing in Marxist revolutionary groups such as Chiles MIR and Uruguays Tupamaros led to right-wing military governments seizing power (Chilean dictator  Augusto Pinochet is a prime example). Working together through Operation Condor, these repressive governments waged a war of terror on their own citizens. The Marxist rebellions were stamped out, however, many innocent civilians died as well. Cuba and the United States, meanwhile, maintained an antagonistic relationship well into the first decade of the 21st century. Waves of migrants fled the island nation over the years, transforming the ethnic makeup of Miami and South Florida. In 1980 alone, more than 125,000 Cubans fled in makeshift boats in what came to be known as the Mariel Boatlift. After Fidel In 2008, the aging Fidel Castro stepped down as president of Cuba, installing his brother Raul in his stead. During the next five years, the government gradually loosened its tight restrictions on foreign travel and also began allowing some private economic activity among its citizens. The U.S. also began to engage Cuba under the direction of President Barack Obama, and by 2015 announced that the long-standing embargo would gradually be loosened.   The announcement resulted in a surge of travel from the U.S. to Cuba and more cultural exchanges between the two nations. However, with the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, the relationship between the two countries is in flux. Fidel Castro died on Nov. 25, 2016.  Raà ºl Castro announced municipal elections for October 2017, and Cubas National Assembly officially confirmed Miguel Dà ­az-Canel as Cuba’s new head of state.