Fulgencio Batista

Thereafter, the US had gradually established an independent Cuban government, but the island always retained the air of an American protectorate, with US governments intervening to try and install favored candidates in power in Havana.

In the 1930s, they were offering support to the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

He had subsequently retired to the US for much of the 1940s, but his return to Cuba and his seizure of power in a coup in 1952 had led Castro and many others to determine that armed resistance to the US-backed Batista regime was now necessary.

On the 26th of July 1953, Castro and some of his allies launched a revolt by attacking the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, Theirs was a small movement at this stage, and after a period of imprisonment and engaging in guerrilla attacks over the next two years, Fidel, his brother Raul, and several other supporters left Cuba for Central America to try and obtain support and resources for a wider guerrilla war back home in Cuba.

It was against this backdrop that Guevara began meeting some of Castro's followers in Guatemala City for the first time.

The Castros had spent a period in prison after the attack on the Moncada barracks in 1953 and had gained some attention for their cause as a result.

Nevertheless, they had little military support at home in Cuba and had come to Central America to develop plans for a new campaign back home.

Over the next year, he and the Castros and their small band of followers began preparing to return to Cuba and commence a guerrilla war there to oust Fulgencio Batista from power and establish an anti-US, anti-imperialist government.

The Battle of the Officers.

September, and for those of you who don't know, September of 1933, officers led by Fulgencio Batista.

All right.

He staged a coup.

Es curioso porque contradijo directamente al propio presidente de los Estados Unidos o a la vocera del presidente en relación con estos, con estos temas.

¿Quiénes podrían beneficiarse de la destrucción de la economía cubana, de la destrucción de nuestro país, sino un pequeño grupo de, eh, políticos corruptos, generalmente, eh, asentados en el sur de la Florida, eh, empujados en primer lugar por el deseo de venganza en relación con la revolución cubana? Heredaron, mmm, ideas, heredaron pecados de las personas que sirvieron en la, eh, sangrienta dictadura de Fulgencio Batista, en los que robaron a mano llena, en los, eh, que se beneficiaron de la corrupción de la época, de una, eh, migración de numerosos criminales, criminales de guerra, e, e invocan hoy las, unas razones de revancha, de venganza y de recuperación, de reversión, eh, de nuestro país a la década de 1950.

Son los que encarnan las posturas más radicales y extremas, son los que más empujan por una aventura militar de Estados Unidos contra Cuba sin pensar en, en las terribles consecuencias que tendría.

Hay políticos en Estados Unidos también que quieren liquidar el, el carácter, eh, de alternativa que, que la experiencia histórica de Cuba plantea frente al capitalismo salvaje, frente al neoliberalismo más, eh, ortodoxo, frente a las corrientes fascistas y neofascistas que tienden a ganar terreno en esta época y les preocupa la existencia de un modelo alternativo al que quisieran imponer en todo el planeta y el que de hecho han impuesto en toda una serie de países en, en los últimos años.

Fidel Castro was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2011.

He led an armed revolt that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

His movement transformed Cuba into a socialist state, and it reshaped Cold War politics in the Western world.

Businesses were nationalized, political tensions rose, and many affluent families feared for their future.