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Fidel Castro and Cuba History

CUBA BEFORE FIDEL CASTRO

After two Wars of Indenpendence (1868 and 1895) led by Antonio Maceo, Maximo Gomez and José Marti, the Republic of Cuba was founded in 1902.
The Platt admendent made a U.S. Protectorate from the young Cuban Republic. Gerardo Machado was elected as president.
The Americans invested heavily and dominated the Cuban economy. Havana and other cities were flooded with casinos, luxury hotels, strip clubs and prostitution.

After a general uprising, the puppet president Geraldo Machado was dumped.
A young sergant Fulgenio Batista , supported by the USA, seized the power in a military coup. The new president Batista, didn't stop the corruption and violence, a much hated and cruel dictatorship followed, in this period of murder and torture the coming of a young idealistic revolutionary leader Fidel was welcomed.
Life in Cuba before Fidel Castro

THE YOUNG CASTRO
CAUSE OF CUBAN REVOLUTION 1959

Fidel Castro Ruz was born (August 13, 1926) on a farm in the Eastern province of Cuba.
His father was a poor farmer, immigrant from Galicia in Spain.
Don Angel Castro, his father was a talented organizer, by managing a group of farmers he built a small business and started to buy land. With the income from the sugercane and livestock the Castro family could build a strong financial position, his father became a wealthy man to Cuban standards.
Fidels youth was strongly infuenced by the hard life of the poor illiterate people in Cuba.The ideas for the "Revolution", the education of the illiterate farmers, the health care, originated from the misery he witnessed during his youth.

ABOUT FIDEL CASTRO - CUBAN REVOLUTION 1959

Fidel studied at the Jesuit college in Santiago de Cuba. After his studies at the Havana University, where he graduated from Law school, he got involved in politics.
He launched his first armed action in an assault on the Monacada Barracks. Several rebels were killed, Castro was captured and later released. He travelled to Mexico where he met Che Guevara together they prepared the "Granma" expedition.
The group of about 80 men disembarked on december 1956 in Cuba. Attacked by fighter jets and the Bastista army only a small group of 8-12 men could escape to the Sierra Maestra from where they started a guerrilla warfare.
Fidel admitted that he learnt many of the guerrilla tactics from reading the Hemingway novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls" about the guerrilla during the Spanish Civil War.
The dictator Batista escaped from the country on the first of January 1959. Castro became Prime Minister of Cuba and later President. On february 2008 the ailing Fidel resigned as president and was succeeded by the vice-president, his younger brother Raul Castro.

Fidel Castro Biography - his life in pictures