Cuban Revolution

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Cuban Revolution" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Cuban Revolution
Fidel Castro and his men in the Sierra Maestra, 1956
Date 26 July 1953 – 1 January 1959 (5 years, 5 months and 6 days) Location Cuba Result Rebel victory Overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's government Establishment of a government led by Fidel Castro Beginning of the Escambray rebellion
Belligerents
Cuba Cuban Constitutional Army	26th of July Movement Revolutionary Directorate of March 13th Second National Front of Escambray
Commanders and leaders
Fulgencio Batista Eulogio Cantillo Fernando Neugart José Quevedo Pérez (Until July 1958) Alberto del Rio Chaviano Joaquín Casillas  Cornelio Rojas  Fernández Suero Cándido Hernández Alfredo Abon Lee	Fidel Castro Raúl Castro Che Guevara Abel Santamaría  Camilo Cienfuegos Huber Matos Juan Almeida Bosque Frank País † René Ramos Latour † Roberto Rodríguez † Humberto Sorí Marin José Quevedo Pérez (from July 1958) Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo William Alexander Morgan José Antonio Echeverría † Rolando Cubela Secades
Strength
20,000 (1958)	3,000 (1958)
Casualties and losses
2,000 killed[1] Arms captured: 1 M4 Sherman tank 12 mortars 2 bazookas 33 machine guns 142 M-1 rifles 200 Cristóbal carbines[2]	1,000 killed[1]
Thousands of civilians tortured and murdered by Batista's government; unknown number of people executed by the Rebel Army[3][4][5][6]

Part of a series on the
History of Cuba
Governorate of Cuba (1511–1519)
Taíno genocide
Viceroyalty of New Spain (1535–1821)
Siege of Havana (1762)
Captaincy General of Cuba (1607–1898)
Lopez Expedition (1850–1851) Ten Years' War (1868–1878) Little War (1879–1880) Cuban War of Independence (1895–1898) Treaty of Paris (1898)
US Military Government (1898–1902)
Platt Amendment (1901)
Republic of Cuba (1902–1959)
Cuban Pacification (1906–1909) Negro Rebellion (1912) Sugar Intervention (1917–1922) Cuban Revolution of 1933 (1933) Batistazo (1952) Cuban Revolution (1953–1959) United States embargo against Cuba (1958–)
Republic of Cuba (1959–)
Consolidation of the revolution (1959–1962) Cuban exodus (1959–) Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961) Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) Grey years (1971-76) Institutionalization process (1976-1986) Intervention in Angola (1975–1991) Rectification process (1986-1992) Special Period (1991–2000) Cuban thaw (2015–2017)
Timeline
Topical Agriculture Education Economic history Healthcare Human rights Jewish history Military history Religion Women's history
Cuba portal
v t e

Part of a series on
Political revolution
By class Bourgeois Communist Counter-revolutionary Democratic Proletarian
By other characteristic Colour From above Nonviolent Passive Permanent Social Wave
Methods Boycott Civil disorder Civil war Class conflict Contentious politics Coup d'état Demonstration Human chain Direct action Guerrilla warfare Insurgency Mass mobilization Mutiny Protest Rebellion Resistance Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Riot Samizdat Strike action Tax resistance Terror
Examples English Atlantic American Brabant Liège French Haitian Spanish American Serbian Greek 1820 1830 July Belgian Texas 1848 Italian states February German Hungarian Eureka Bulgarian unification Philippine Iranian First Second Young Turk Mexican Chinese Xinhai Communist Cultural 1917–1923 Russian German Siamese Spanish August Guatemalan Hungarian (1956) Cuban Rwandan Nicaraguan Argentine Carnation Saur People Power 1989 Yogurt Velvet Romanian Singing Bolivarian Bulldozer Rose Orange Tulip Kyrgyz Arab Spring Tunisian Egyptian Yemeni Euromaidan Second Arab Spring Sudanese
Politics portal
v t e

The Cuban Revolution (Spanish: Revolución cubana) was the military and political overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, which had reigned as the government of Cuba between 1952 and 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, which saw Batista topple the nascent Cuban democracy and consolidate power. Among those opposing the coup was Fidel Castro, then a novice attorney who attempted to contest the coup through Cuba's judiciary. Once these efforts proved fruitless, Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on 26 July 1953.

Following the attack's failure, Fidel Castro and his co-conspirators were arrested and formed the 26th of July Movement (M-26-7) in detention. At his trial, Fidel Castro launched into a two-hour speech that won him national fame as he laid out his grievances against the Batista dictatorship. In an attempt to win public approval, Batista granted amnesty to the surviving Moncada Barracks attackers and the Castros fled into exile. During their exile, the Castros consolidated their strategy in Mexico and subsequently reentered Cuba in 1956, accompanied by Che Guevara, whom they had encountered during their time in Mexico.

Returning to Cuba aboard the Granma, the Castros, Guevara, and other supporters encountered gunfire from Batista's troops. The rebels fled to the Sierra Maestra where the M-26-7 rebel forces would reorganize, conducting urban sabotage and covert recruitment. Over time the Popular Socialist Party, once the largest and most powerful organizations opposing Batista, would see its influence and power wane in favor of the 26th of July Movement. As the irregular war against Batista escalated, the rebel forces transformed from crude, guerrilla fighters into a cohesive fighting force that could confront Batista's army in military engagements. By the time the rebels were able to oust Batista, the revolution was being driven by a coalition between the Popular Socialist Party, the 26th of July Movement and the Revolutionary Directorate of 13 March.^[7]

The rebels, led by the 26th of July Movement, finally toppled Batista on 31 December 1958, after which he fled the country. Batista's government was dismantled as Castro became the most prominent leader of the revolutionary forces. Soon thereafter, the 26th of July Movement established itself as the de facto government. Although Castro was immensely popular in the period immediately following Batista's ouster, he quickly consolidated power, leading to domestic and international tensions. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución (from Spanish: "Day of the Revolution"). The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist–Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.^[8]

The Cuban Revolution had powerful and profound domestic and international repercussions. In particular, it shipwrecked Cuba–United States relations, although efforts to improve them, such as the Cuban thaw, gained momentum during the 2010s and have continued through the 2020s.^[9][10] In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Castro's government began a program of nationalization, centralization of the press and political consolidation that transformed Cuba's economy and civil society, angering sectors of the Cuban population and the American government.^[11] In the aftermath of the revolution, Castro's authoritarianism in conjunction with the struggling economy lead to the Cuban Exodus as citizens fled the island, with the majority arriving in the United States.^[12] The revolution also heralded an era of Cuban intervention in foreign conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia,^[13] and the Middle East, beginning on 24 April 1959 when Cuba tried and failed to invade Panama.^[14][15] Several rebellions occurred between 1959 and 1965, mainly in the Escambray Mountains, which were suppressed by the revolutionary government.^[16]