Castro Rise The Power
...student. After Batista's coup in 1952, he went to court and tried to have
the Batista dictatorship declared illegal. However, his attempt to
peacefully bring down the Batista government did not work, and so in 1953,
Castro turned toward violent means. On July 26, 1953, Castro led a group of
men to attack the Moncada military fortress. However, his little rebellion
was immediately crushed by the Batista army. In fact, the Roman Catholic
archbishop of Santiago had to make the government promise that the rebels
would live, if they would stop fighting and come down from the mountains.
Sure enough, the government kept its promise and Fidel Castro and his
followers were sentenced to three years of imprisonment. Batista, in order
to gain some popular support, released them after a few months.
Castro's rebellion failed, it sparked hopes of revolution everywhere in
Cuba. After a few years of exile in Mexico, Castro and a small band of about
eighty-five men returned to Cuba in December of 1956. Many of the men
perished during the initial landing, but a small group including Fidel
Castro and an Argentinian Marxist Ernesto "Che" Guevara, survived and went
into the mountains. During the next two years, Castro and Guevara fought the
Batista army continuously in small guerrilla wars. They called themselves
the Twenty-sixth of July Movement, after the earlier unsuccessful raid on
the Moncada barracks. Their group gained in numbers and popularity among
Cubans as the desire for political change in Cuba increased. Castro promised
sweeping changes including free elections, non-corrupt government, land,
improved educational systems, jobs and health care for all. Castro became
sort of like a Robin Hood for Cuba and many flocked to his banner. The final
blow to the Batista regime came when the United States...
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