Fidel Castro
...and for provoking such incidents as the Cuban Missile Crisis, Fidel Castro was a positive leader in Cuba and made many improvements to Cuban society after the Cuban Revolution that he led in 1959. Due to such incidents, many of Castro’s social reforms in Cuba are ignored (or dismissed as completely communistic and therefore without any merit to the United States), especially reforms that he made between the start of the revolution and 1990. As any newly instated leader would, Castro made mistakes in his rule and misjudged some situations, especially in the political playground. However, he made many contributions to his country and to the status of living to Cubans in his long reign as the main authority power in Cuba.
After graduating from the School of Law of the University of Havana in 1950, Fidel Castro began to practice law. He joined the Cuban People’s Party, sometimes called the Ortodoxos, and was their candidate for the Cuban House of Representatives in the Havana district for the June 1952 elections.
In March 1952, General Fulgencio Batista y Zalvidar overthrew current government of President Carlos Prío Socarrás. In a previous 1933 revolt, Batista organized a coup that overthrew a provisional regime under Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. Céspedes’ government had replaced the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado y Morales. Up until 1944, Batista established a strong and efficient government in Cuba. He cultivated army support, civil service, and organized labor. Ruling through associates between 1930 and 1949, he was then elected president in 1940. He retired from office in 1944 to travel, and then settled in Florida.
In the next eight years after Batista’s retirement, there was a resurrection of corruption in Cuba’s government. Batista then led a second military revolt in March 1952, where he was widely accepted as a hero and savior of the people under and...
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