Existing comment:
Fidel Castro, Havana, January 10, 1959
Photograph by Lester Cole.
The illegitimate son of a wealthy sugar planter and household servant, Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, at age 32, after leading a rebel army that toppled the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Subsequently, Castro consolidated power in his own hands, postponed the free elections and reforms promised by the revolution, cracked down on all political dissent, and eventually declared Cuba a socialist state. Thousands of Cubans were executed between 1959 and 1962; hundreds of thousands more fled the country. Castro actively sought the support and protection of the Soviet Union, openly aligned with the policies of the Soviet Union and eventually became a Soviet ally in the Cold War. |