A lot of you aren’t old enough to remember Cuba before Fidel Castro came into power, but on this date in 1953 it was the beginning of the end for Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
July 26, 1953 marked the beginning of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary “26th of July Movement.”
The name originates from a coup plot that involved attacking the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953. The attack failed, but had the effect of catapulting Castro into the leadership role of the anti-Batista movement.
Fidel Castro was arrested as a result of the coup attempt and during his trial, he gave an impassioned speech in which he proclaimed, “History will absolve me!” After being released from jail, Fidel and his brother Raul met with a group in Mexico and renewed efforts to overthrow Batista. Several attempts at the revolution failed, but the Twenty-Sixth of July Movement gained support, capitalizing on discontent among peasants and the increasingly brutal nature of Batista’s repression, and waged a successful guerrilla war. By 1958, the guerrillas expanded their operations to include economic warfare, burning sugar cane fields, attacking tobacco factories, oil refineries and railroads.
Batista fled Havan for the Dominican Republic on New Year’s Eve, 1958. The Twenty-Sixth of July Movement overtook the capital on January 1, 1959.
Although he once declared that Cuba would never again be ruled by a dictator, Castro’s government became a Communist dictatorship.
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