Viva la Revolución!

The year before the 1934 agreement General Fulgencio Batista led a successful coup that propelled him to power. He ruled Cuba from 1933-44 and again from 1952-59. Shortly after regaining power, Batista was confronted by a band of socialist revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro who attempted, but failed, to overthrow the regime. Castro was arrested and jailed, but didn’t spend long there as all political prisoners were freed by Batista in 1955. When free, Castro went to Mexico to regroup, and in 1959 led a successful revolution flanked by his brother Raul and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Che was an Argentinean doctor, renowned as a key strategist in the revolutionary struggle and for his bravery as a guerrilla commander. As teenagers all over the world will know, Che has come to embody the spirit of the socialist revolution. He was just 39 years old when he was hunted down and killed by CIA-backed Bolivian special forces while leading a group of Marxist-Leninist guerrillas in Bolivia in 1967.