Fidel Castro Is Alive

Upon his release, Castro went to Mexico where he spent the next year organizing the "26th of July Movement", which was based on the date of the failed Santiago de Cuba barracks attack. On December 2, 1956, Castro and the rest his fellow rebels of the 26th of July Movement landed on Cuban soil with the intention of starting a revolution. They were only met with the welcome of heavy Batista defenses, causing nearly everyone in the Movement to be killed. Barely anyone escaped, and those who did which included Castro and his brother Raúl fled the scene to avoid being jailed. For the next two years, Castro continued guerrilla attacks and succeeded in gaining large numbers radical followers. Using guerrilla warfare tactics, Castro became known as the “Guerilla Prince” and with his supporters, he attacked Batista's forces, overtaking town after town. Batista quickly lost all his popular support and suffered numerous and embarrassing defeats. Finally, on January 1, 1959, Batista fled Cuba and went into exile, leaving the Cuban government in need of a president and somebody to get rid of the corruption that had previously plagued the country.

Manuel Urrutia, a very liberal Cuban lawyer and politician, was placed as president of Cuba, and Castro was placed in charge of the military. However, by July of 1959, Castro had easily and effectively taken over as leader of Cuba, which he would remain as, for the next four decades. (See figure 2) With close ties to his brother, Fidel put Raúl in charge of the military, allowing the Castro family to have most of the control over Cuba. In Castro’s beginning years as Cuba’s ruler, he made several radical and significant changes in Cuba, including collectivizing agriculture, nationalizing industry, an...

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...le that was printed in Time Magazine in their special cover issue about Fidel Castro. I used this article to learn more about Cuba’s relationship with the United States after Castro became president and later dictator. I will use this in my paragraph describing the political and economic relationship between Cuba and the U.S.

Thomas M. Leonard "Castro, Fidel." Facts On File, Inc., 2010. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE53&iPin=ELAIV0074&SingleRecord=True (accessed May 8, 2014).

This was an article that described Fidel Castro’s life but not in a middle school story way but instead explained his life actions and how they impacted Cuba and brought forth the revolution and his dictatorship. It had a lot of really useful information that I used throughout my research paper not in just one specific place.