Cuban Revolution

Background

From 1953 to 1959, a small band of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara overthrew the Batista dictatorship in Cuba and established a socialist state in its place, the first in the Western Hemisphere.

The Cuban Revolution upended not only the island’s political, social, cultural, and economic systems but also global geopolitics, profoundly affecting Cuba’s relationship with its largest neighbor, the United States (see background).

Life Before Castro

Though Cuba’s political history had been marked by wars and instability since Columbus’ arrival in 1492, by the mid-20th century, life on the island was, by some measures, going well.

With the help of the US, Cuba had shaken off Spanish rule in 1898, and the postwar economy was booming. Literacy rates were rising, and American tourists (not to mention Ernest Hemingway) flocked to Havana, a vibrant, modern city that would never dare outlaw drinking rum.

But rising inequality, racism, and the increasingly corrupt and autocratic rule of US-backed Fulgencio Batista led some young Cubans to call for change—and more distance from the overbearing hand of the US (see timeline). Batista’s most vocal opponent was a young lawyer named Fidel Castro.

Che and Fidel in Mexico

Castro got involved in radical leftist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. He began trying to change the system from within, first by running for Congress, then by challenging the constitutionality of Batista’s 1952 coup d'état in court. When that didn’t work, he resorted to more violent means: armed revolution.

After Castro and his brother Raul were released from prison in 1955, the pair left for Mexico, where they met an Argentine medical student named Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Che had become a committed Marxist revolutionary during a motorcycle trip he took through the Americas in the early 1950s, particularly as he witnessed the CIA’s overthrow of Guatemala’s progressive president a year prior. In 1956, a cadre of 82 men, including the Castros and Che, prepared to sail for Cuba to launch their revolution.

The Revolution Begins

The guerrillas arrived in Cuba on a dilapidated yacht Dec. 2, 1956. Many were killed or captured right away, and Che was wounded, but about a dozen men made it to the mountains to regroup and form a new rebel army.

For the next two years, Castro’s men fought and sabotaged the Batista regime, burning sugar plantations, seizing military installations, and disrupting the mining industry. The revolutionaries had the public on their side, and by 1958, Batista’s regime was crumbling. On New Year's Day 1959, Batista fled the country; Castro arrived in Havana days later and was sworn in as prime minister. He would remain Cuba’s leader for almost half a century.

Legacy

The Cuban Revolution sent shockwaves across the world that are still felt today. After Castro took over, 1.4 million Cubans fled to the US, the largest refugee flow to the US in history.

Among those were 14,000 unaccompanied minors. Castro's alignment with the Soviet Union led the world to the brink of nuclear war, and the US responded to the alliance with a barrage of assassination attempts, an ill-fated invasion of the Bay of Pigs, and an economic embargo that persists to this day.

And though Che Guevara was killed in Bolivia in 1967, his face would become a cultural icon, reproduced billions of times on T-shirts, posters, and pins worn by rebellious youth around the world.