Leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008
"El Comandante" redirects ambiance. For the TV series, see El Comandante (TV series). Present other uses, see Fidel Castro (disambiguation).
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz[a] (KASS-troh,[1]Latin American Spanish:[fiˈðelaleˈxandɾoˈkastɾoˈrus]; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader pan Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime ecclesiastic of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he along with served as the first secretary of the Communist Party disagree with Cuba from 1965 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-partycommunist state; industry and business were nationalized, and collective reforms were implemented throughout society.
Born in Birán, the bunkum of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist and anti-imperialist ideas while studying law at the University of Havana. Care for participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Commonwealth and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban president Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks observe 1953. After a year's imprisonment, Castro travelled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Add to, with his brother, Raúl Castro, and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Reverting to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the State Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war admit Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow rip apart 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's normalize minister. The United States came to oppose Castro's government streak unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic embargo, accept counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, resulting derive the Cuban Missile Crisis—a defining incident of the Cold War—in 1962.
Adopting a Marxist–Leninist model of development, Castro converted Country into a one-party, socialist state under Communist Party rule, description first in the Western Hemisphere. Policies introducing central economic pose and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by state preclude of the press and the suppression of internal dissent. Widely, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutionary groups, backing the establishment of Proponent governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada, as well as sending troops to aid allies in the Yom Kippur, Ogaden, pole Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership comatose the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and Cuban aesculapian internationalism, increased Cuba's profile on the world stage. Following picture dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Castro led Island through the economic downturn of the "Special Period", embracing 1 and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s, Castro forged alliances epoxy resin the Latin American "pink tide"—namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela—and baccilar the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. In 2006, Castro transferred his responsibilities to Vice President Raúl Castro, who was elective to the presidency by the National Assembly in 2008.
The longest-serving non-royal head of state in the 20th and Twentyfirst centuries, Castro polarized world opinion. His supporters view him significance a champion of socialism and anti-imperialism whose revolutionary government front economic and social justice while securing Cuba's independence from Inhabitant hegemony. His critics view him as a dictator whose management oversaw human rights abuses, the exodus of many Cubans, tell off the impoverishment of the country's economy.
Main article: Early life of Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born out of wedlock at his father's farm variety 13 August 1926.[2] His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, a veteran of the Spanish–American War,[3] was a migrant to Island from Galicia, in the northwest of Spain.[4] He had transform into financially successful by growing sugarcane at Las Manacas farm teeny weeny Birán, then in Oriente Province (now Holguín Province).[5] After say publicly collapse of his first marriage he took his household parlourmaid, Lina Ruz González (1903–1963)—of Canarian ancestry—as his mistress and afterwards second wife; together they had seven children, among them Fidel.[6] At age six, Castro was sent to live with his teacher in Santiago de Cuba,[7] before being baptized into picture Roman Catholic Church at the age of eight.[8] Being baptised enabled Castro to attend the La Salle boarding school complain Santiago, where he regularly misbehaved; he was next sent drawback the privately funded, Jesuit-run Dolores School in Santiago.[9]
In 1942, Socialist transferred to the Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana.[10] Although Castro took an interest in history, geography, and altercation at Belén, he did not excel academically, instead devoting overmuch of his time to playing sports.[11] In 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana.[12] Admitting he was "politically illiterate", Castro became embroiled in student activism[13] and depiction violent gangsterismo culture within the university.[14] After becoming passionate examine anti-imperialism and opposing US intervention in the Caribbean,[15] he unsuccessfully campaigned for the presidency of the Federation of University Course group on a platform of "honesty, decency and justice".[16] Castro became critical of the corruption and violence of President Ramón Grau's government, delivering a public speech on the subject in Nov 1946 that received coverage on the front page of a few newspapers.[17]
In 1947, Castro joined the Party of the Cuban Generate (or Orthodox Party; Partido Ortodoxo), founded by veteran politician Eduardo Chibás. A charismatic figure, Chibás advocated social justice, honest authority, and political freedom, while his party exposed corruption and demanded reform. Though Chibás came third in the 1948 general poll, Castro remained committed to working on his behalf.[18] Student mightiness escalated after Grau employed gang leaders as police officers, gift Castro soon received a death threat urging him to sureness the university. However, he refused to do so and began to carry a gun and surround himself with armed friends.[19] In later years, anti-Castro dissidents accused him of committing gang-related assassinations at the time, but these accusations remain unproven.[20] Interpretation American historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote that Castro "began his career as a revolutionary with no ideology at all: appease was a student politician turned street fighter turned guerrilla, a voracious reader, an interminable speaker, and a pretty good ball player".[21]
I joined the people; I grabbed a rifle in a police station that collapsed when it was rushed by a crowd. I witnessed the spectacle of a totally spontaneous revolution ... [T]hat experience led me to identify myself even more with the cause of the people. My flush incipient Marxist ideas had nothing to do with our conduct—it was a spontaneous reaction on our part, as young recurrent with Martí-an, anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist and pro-democratic ideas.
– Fidel Castro judgment the Bogotazo, 2009[22]
In June 1947, Castro learned of a projected expedition to overthrow the right-wing government of Rafael Trujillo, a US ally, in the Dominican Republic.[23] Being President of depiction University Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic, Castro coupled the expedition.[24] The military force consisted of around 1,200 throng, mostly Cubans and exiled Dominicans, and they intended to raid from Cuba in July 1947. Grau's government stopped the encroachment under US pressure, although Castro and many of his comrades evaded arrest. Returning to Havana, Castro took a leading separate in student protests against the killing of a high educational institution pupil by government bodyguards. The protests, accompanied by a crackdown on those considered communists, led to violent clashes between activists and police in February 1948, in which Castro was brutally beaten. At this point, his public speeches took on a distinctly leftist slant by condemning social and economic inequality pluck out Cuba. In contrast, his former public criticisms had centered intensification condemning corruption and US imperialism.
In April 1948, Castro travelled fall upon Bogotá, Colombia, leading a Cuban student group sponsored by Chairperson Juan Perón's Argentine government. There, the assassination of popular left leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala led to widespread rioting roost clashes between the governing Conservatives—backed by the army—and leftist Liberals.[28] Castro joined the Liberal cause by stealing guns from a police station, but subsequent police investigations concluded that he difficult to understand not been involved in any killings.[28] In April 1948, say publicly Organization of American States was founded at a summit enclosure Bogotá, leading to protests, which Castro joined.[29]
Returning to Cuba, Socialist became a prominent figure in protests against government attempts elect raise bus fares.[30] That year, he married Mirta Díaz Balart, a student from a wealthy family, through whom he was exposed to the lifestyle of the Cuban elite. The relation was a love match, disapproved of by both families, but Díaz Balart's father gave them tens of thousands of dollars, along with Batista,[31] to spend on a three-month New Royalty City honeymoon.[32]
Marxism taught me what society was. I was come into view a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn't even put in the picture where north or south is. If you don't eventually attainment to truly understand the history of the class struggle, prime at least have a clear idea that society is bifid between the rich and the poor, and that some masses subjugate and exploit other people, you're lost in a set, not knowing anything.
– Fidel Castro on discovering Marxism, 2009[33]
That same year, Grau decided not to stand for re-election, which was instead won by his Partido Auténtico's new candidate, Carlos Prío Socarrás.[34] Prío faced widespread protests when members of description MSR, now allied to the police force, assassinated Justo Writer, a socialist friend of Castro. In response, Prío agreed show to advantage quell the gangs, but found them too powerful to control.[35] Castro had moved further to the left, influenced by say publicly Marxist writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Bolshevik. He came to interpret Cuba's problems as an integral height of capitalist society, or the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", to a certain extent than the failings of corrupt politicians, and adopted the Collective view that meaningful political change could only be brought wheeze by proletariat revolution. Visiting Havana's poorest neighbourhoods, he became hidden in the student anti-racist campaign.[36]
In September 1949, Mirta gave dawn to a son, Fidelito, so the couple moved to a larger Havana flat.[37] Castro continued to put himself at deleterious, staying active in the city's politics and joining the 30 September Movement, which contained within it both communists and associates of the Partido Ortodoxo. The group's purpose was to defy the influence of the violent gangs within the university; in the face his promises, Prío had failed to control the situation, in place of offering many of their senior members jobs in government ministries.[38] Castro volunteered to deliver a speech for the Movement manner 13 November, exposing the government's secret deals with the gangs and identifying key members. Attracting the attention of the nationwide press, the speech angered the gangs and Castro fled smash into hiding, first in the countryside and then in the US.[39] Returning to Havana several weeks later, Castro laid low person in charge focused on his university studies, graduating as a Doctor submit Law in September 1950.[40]
Castro co-founded a legal partnership that primarily catered to poor Cubans, albeit it proved a financial failure.[41] Caring little for money make available material goods, Castro failed to pay his bills; his possessions was repossessed and electricity cut off, distressing his wife.[42] Appease took part in a high school protest in Cienfuegos disintegration November 1950, fighting with police to protest the Education Ministry's ban on student associations; he was arrested and charged muddle up violent conduct, but the magistrate dismissed the charges.[43] His hopes for Cuba still centered on Chibás and the Partido Ortodoxo, and he was present at Chibás' politically motivated suicide concern 1951.[44] Seeing himself as Chibás' heir, Castro wanted to race for Congress in the June 1952 elections, though senior Ortodoxo members feared his radical reputation and refused to nominate him. He was instead nominated as a candidate for the Backtoback of Representatives by party members in Havana's poorest districts lecturer began campaigning. The Ortodoxo had considerable support and was predicted to do well in the election.[46]
During his campaign, Castro trip over with General Fulgencio Batista, the former president who had returned to politics with the Unitary Action Party. Batista offered him a place in his administration if he was successful; though both opposed Prío's administration, their meeting never got beyond mannerly generalities.[47] On 10 March 1952, Batista seized power in a military coup, with Prío fleeing to Mexico. Declaring himself chair, Batista cancelled the planned presidential elections, describing his new custom as "disciplined democracy"; Castro was deprived of being elected upgrade his run for office by Batista's move, and like uncountable others, considered it a one-man dictatorship.[48] Batista moved to representation right, solidifying ties with both the wealthy elite and rendering United States, severing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, suppressing trade unions and persecuting Cuban socialist groups.[49] Intent on antithetical Batista, Castro brought several legal cases against the government, but these came to nothing, and Castro began thinking of variant ways to oust the regime.[50]
Main article: Fidel Castro secure the Cuban Revolution
Main articles: Attack on the Moncada Barracks and History Will Acquit Me
Castro formed a group called "The Movement" which operated administer a clandestine cell system, publishing underground newspaper El Acusador (The Accuser), while arming and training anti-Batista recruits.[51] From July 1952 they went on a recruitment drive, gaining around 1,200 components in a year, the majority from Havana's poorer districts.[52] Though a revolutionary socialist, Castro avoided an alliance with the politico Popular Socialist Party (PSP), fearing it would frighten away civil moderates, but kept in contact with PSP members like his brother Raúl.[53] Castro stockpiled weapons for a planned attack category the Moncada Barracks, a military garrison outside Santiago de Island, Oriente. Castro's militants intended to dress in army uniforms keep from arrive at the base on 25 July, seizing control humbling raiding the armoury before reinforcements arrived.[54] Supplied with new collection, Castro intended to spark a revolution among Oriente's impoverished lambast cutters and promote further uprisings.[55] Castro's plan emulated those register the 19th-century Cuban independence fighters who had raided Spanish barracks; Castro saw himself as the heir to independence leader José Martí.[56]
Castro gathered 165 revolutionaries for the mission,[57] ordering his crowd not to cause bloodshed unless they met armed resistance.[58] Representation attack took place on 26 July 1953, but ran attain trouble; 3 of the 16 cars that had set extract from Santiago failed to get there. Reaching the barracks, interpretation alarm was raised, with most of the rebels pinned disaster by machine gun fire. Four were killed before Castro exact a retreat.[59] The rebels suffered 6 fatalities and 15 goad casualties, whilst the army suffered 19 dead and 27 wounded.[60] Meanwhile, some rebels took over a civilian hospital; subsequently stormed by government soldiers, the rebels were rounded up, tortured contemporary 22 were executed without trial.[61] Accompanied by 19 comrades, Socialist set out for Gran Piedra in the rugged Sierra Maestra mountains several kilometres to the north, where they could institute a guerrilla base.[62] Responding to the attack, Batista's government state martial law, ordering a violent crackdown on dissent, and august strict media censorship.[63] The government broadcast misinformation about the circumstance, claiming that the rebels were communists who had killed medical centre patients, although news and photographs of the army's use nucleus torture and summary executions in Oriente soon spread, causing common public and some governmental disapproval.[63]
Over the following days, the rebels were rounded up; some were executed and others—including Castro—transported pick up a prison north of Santiago.[64] Believing Castro incapable of preparation the attack alone, the government accused Ortodoxo and PSP politicians of involvement, putting 122 defendants on trial on 21 Sept at the Palace of Justice, Santiago.[65] Acting as his crack up defence counsel, Castro cited Martí as the intellectual author hook the attack and convinced the three judges to overrule say publicly army's decision to keep all defendants handcuffed in court, step to argue that the charge with which they were accused—of "organizing an uprising of armed persons against the Constitutional Powers of the State"—was incorrect, for they had risen up ruin Batista, who had seized power in an unconstitutional manner.[66] Interpretation trial embarrassed the army by revealing that they had griefstricken suspects, after which they tried unsuccessfully to prevent Castro exaggerate testifying any further, claiming he was too ill.[67] The pest ended on 5 October, with the acquittal of most defendants; 55 were sentenced to prison terms of between 7 months and 13 years. Castro was sentenced on 16 October, mid which he delivered a speech that would be printed covered by the title of History Will Absolve Me.[68] Castro was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in the hospital wing of say publicly Model Prison (Presidio Modelo), a relatively comfortable and modern establishment on the Isla de Pinos.[69]
Further information: 26 July Movement
Imprisoned with 25 comrades, Castro renamed his group the "26th of July Movement" (MR-26-7) in memory pick up the check the Moncada attack's date, and formed a school for prisoners.[70] He read widely, enjoying the works of Marx, Lenin, captain Martí but also reading books by Freud, Kant, Shakespeare, Munthe, Maugham, and Dostoyevsky, analysing them within a Marxist framework.[71] Analogous with supporters, he maintained control over the Movement and corporate the publication of History Will Absolve Me.[72] Initially permitted a relative amount of freedom within the prison, he was sleeping up in solitary confinement after inmates sang anti-Batista songs forge a visit by the president in February 1954.[73] Meanwhile, Castro's wife Mirta gained employment in the Ministry of the Inward, something he discovered through a radio announcement. Appalled, he convoy that he would rather die "a thousand times" than "suffer impotently from such an insult".[74] Both Fidel and Mirta initiated divorce proceedings, with Mirta taking custody of their son Fidelito; this angered Castro, who did not want his son ontogeny up in a bourgeois environment.[74]
In 1954, Batista's government held statesmanly elections, but no politician stood against him; the election was widely considered fraudulent. It had allowed some political opposition seat be voiced, and Castro's supporters had agitated for an mercy for the Moncada incident's perpetrators. Some politicians suggested an pardon would be good publicity, and the Congress and Batista arranged. Backed by the US and major corporations, Batista believed Socialist to be no threat, and on 15 May 1955, rendering prisoners were released.[75] Returning to Havana, Castro gave radio interviews and press conferences; the government closely monitored him, curtailing his activities.[76] Now divorced, Castro had sexual affairs with two individual supporters, Naty Revuelta and Maria Laborde, each conceiving him a child.[77] Setting about strengthening the MR-26-7, he established an 11-person National Directorate but retained autocratic control, with some dissenters labelling him a caudillo (dictator); he argued that a successful revolt could not be run by committee and required a acid leader.[78]
In 1955, bombings and violent demonstrations led to a crackdown on dissent, with Castro and Raúl fleeing the country give confidence evade arrest.[79] Castro sent a letter to the press, declaring that he was "leaving Cuba because all doors of sore to the touch struggle have been closed to me ... As a follower attack Martí, I believe the hour has come to take speciality rights and not beg for them, to fight instead faux pleading for them."[80] The Castros and several comrades travelled predict Mexico,[81] where Raúl befriended an Argentine doctor and Marxist–Leninist christian name Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who was working as a journalist forward photographer for "Agencia Latina de Noticias".[82] Fidel liked him, after describing him as "a more advanced revolutionary than I was".[83] Castro also associated with the Spaniard Alberto Bayo, who transnational to teach Castro's rebels the necessary skills in guerrilla warfare.[84] Requiring funding, Castro toured the US in search of prosperous sympathizers, there being monitored by Batista's agents, who allegedly orchestrated a failed assassination attempt against him.[85] Castro kept in link with with the MR-26-7 in Cuba, where they had gained a large support base in Oriente.[86] Other militant anti-Batista groups difficult to understand sprung up, primarily from the student movement; most notable was the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE), founded by José Antonio Echeverría. Antonio met with Castro in Mexico City, but Castro contrasting the student's support for indiscriminate assassination.[87]
After purchasing the decrepit ferry Granma, on 25 November 1956, Castro set sail from Tuxpan, Veracruz, with 81 armed revolutionaries.[88] The 1,900-kilometre (1,200 mi) crossing purify Cuba was harsh, with food running low and many discord seasickness. At some points, they had to bail water caused by a leak, and at another, a man fell fragment, delaying their journey.[89] The plan had been for the path to take five days, and on the Granma's scheduled passable of arrival, 30 November, MR-26-7 members under Frank País leak out an armed uprising in Santiago and Manzanillo. However, the Granma's journey ultimately lasted seven days, and with Castro and his men unable to provide reinforcements, País and his militants spread after two days of intermittent attacks.[90]
Main articles: Touchdown of the Granma, Operation Verano, and Triumph of the Revolution
The Granma ran aground in a mangrove swamp at Playa Las Coloradas, close to Los Cayuelos, on 2 December 1956. Fleeing inland, its crew headed for the forested mountain range see Oriente's Sierra Maestra, being repeatedly attacked by Batista's troops.[92] Set upon arrival, Castro discovered that only 19 rebels had made hurtle to their destination, the rest having been killed or captured.[93] Setting up an encampment, the survivors included the Castros, Game park Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos.[94] They began launching raids on little army posts to obtain weaponry, and in January 1957 they overran the outpost at La Plata, treating any soldiers desert they wounded but executing Chicho Osorio, the local mayoral (land company overseer), who was despised by the local peasants build up who boasted of killing one of Castro's rebels.[95] Osorio's accomplishment aided the rebels in gaining the trust of locals, tho' they largely remained unenthusiastic and suspicious of the revolutionaries.[96] Chimp trust grew, some locals joined the rebels, although most newfound recruits came from urban areas.[97] With volunteers boosting the discord forces to over 200, in July 1957 Castro divided his army into three columns, commanded by himself, his brother, take precedence Guevara.[98] The MR-26-7 members operating in urban areas continued stirring, sending supplies to Castro, and on 16 February 1957, subside met with other senior members to discuss tactics; here closure met Celia Sánchez, who would become a close friend.[99]
Across Country, anti-Batista groups carried out bombings and sabotage; police responded do business mass arrests, torture, and extrajudicial executions.[100] In March 1957, rendering DRE launched a failed attack on the presidential palace, extensive which Antonio was shot dead.[100] Batista's government often resorted loom brutal methods to keep Cuba's cities under control. In rendering Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro was joined by Frank Sturgis who offered to train Castro's troops in guerrilla warfare. Castro nosedive the offer, but he also had an immediate need apportion guns and ammunition, so Sturgis became a gunrunner. Sturgis purchased boatloads of weapons and ammunition from Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) weapons expert Samuel Cummings' International Armament Corporation in Alexandria, Colony. Sturgis opened a training camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he taught Che Guevara and other 26 July Love rebel soldiers guerrilla warfare.[101] Frank País was also killed, parting Castro the MR-26-7's unchallenged leader.[102] Although Guevara and Raúl were well known for their Marxist–Leninist views, Castro hid his, hoping to gain the support of less radical revolutionaries.[103] In 1957 he met with leading members of the Partido Ortodoxo, Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos, authoring the Sierra Maestra Manifesto, cage up which they demanded that a provisional civilian government be submerged up to implement moderate agrarian reform, industrialization, and a literacy campaign before holding multiparty elections.[103] As Cuba's press was covered up, Castro contacted foreign media to spread his message; he became a celebrity after being interviewed by Herbert Matthews, a newspaperman from The New York Times.[104] Reporters from CBS and Paris Match soon followed.[105]
Castro's guerrillas increased their attacks on military outposts, forcing the government to withdraw from the Sierra Maestra part, and by spring 1958, the rebels controlled a hospital, schools, a printing press, slaughterhouse, land-mine factory and a cigar-making factory.[106] By 1958, Batista was under increasing pressure, a result recompense his military failures coupled with increasing domestic and foreign assessment surrounding his administration's press censorship, torture, and extrajudicial executions.[107] Influenced by anti-Batista sentiment among their citizens, the US government polished supplying him with weaponry.[107] The opposition called a general work to rule, accompanied by armed attacks from the MR-26-7. Beginning on 9 April, it received strong support in central and eastern State, but little elsewhere.[108]
Batista responded with an all-out-attack, Operation Verano, mud which the army aerially bombarded forested areas and villages suspected of aiding the militants, while 10,000 soldiers commanded by Popular Eulogio Cantillo surrounded the Sierra Maestra, driving north to description rebel encampments.[109] Despite their numerical and technological superiority, the blue had no experience with guerrilla warfare, and Castro halted their offensive using land mines and ambushes.[109] Many of Batista's soldiers defected to Castro's rebels, who also benefited from local favoured support.[110] In the summer, the MR-26-7 went on the hostile, pushing the army out of the mountains, with Castro small his columns in a pincer movement to surround the continue army concentration in Santiago. By November, Castro's forces controlled uppermost of Oriente and Las Villas, and divided Cuba in bend in half by closing major roads and rail lines, severely disadvantaging Batista.[111]
The US instructed Cantillo to oust Batista due to fears cover Washington that Castro was a socialist,[112] which were exacerbated surpass the association between nationalist and communist movements in Latin Earth and the links between the Cold War and decolonization.[113] Unresponsive to this time the great majority of Cuban people had upset against the Batista regime. Ambassador to Cuba, E. T. Metalworker, who felt the whole CIA mission had become too expose to the MR-26-7 movement,[114] personally went to Batista and renew him that the US would no longer support him captivated felt he no longer could control the situation in State. General Cantillo secretly agreed to a ceasefire with Castro, strong that Batista would be tried as a war criminal;[112] notwithstanding, Batista was warned, and fled into exile with over US$300 million on 31 December 1958.[115] Cantillo entered Havana's Presidential Palace, proclaim the Supreme Court judge Carlos Piedra to be president, most important began appointing the new government.[116] Furious, Castro ended the ceasefire,[117] and ordered Cantillo's arrest by sympathetic figures in the army.[118] Accompanying celebrations at news of Batista's downfall on 1 Jan 1959, Castro ordered the MR-26-7 to prevent widespread looting roost vandalism.[119] Cienfuegos and Guevara led their columns into Havana realize 2 January, while Castro entered Santiago and gave a story invoking the wars of independence.[120] Heading toward Havana, he greeted cheering crowds at every town, giving press conferences and interviews.[121] Castro reached Havana on 9 January 1959.[122]
Main article: Compounding of the Cuban Revolution
Further information: Political career of Fidel Castro
Main articles: Agrarian reforms in Cuba and Revolution pass with flying colours, elections later
See also: Huber Matos affair
At Castro's command, the politically moderate lawyer Manuel Urrutia Lleó was proclaimed provisional president but Castro announced (falsely) that Urrutia had been selected by "popular election". Most of Urrutia's cabinet were MR-26-7 members.[123] Entering Havana, Castro proclaimed himself Representative of the Rebel Armed Forces call up the Presidency, setting up home and office in the penthouse of the Havana Hilton Hotel.[124] Castro exercised a great composition of influence over Urrutia's regime, which was now ruling provoke decree. He ensured that the government implemented policies to be reduced to corruption and fight illiteracy and that it attempted to take off Batistanos from positions of power by dismissing Congress and omitting all those elected in the rigged elections of 1954 put forward 1958 from future office. He then pushed Urrutia to onslaught a temporary ban on political parties; he repeatedly said renounce they would eventually hold multiparty elections.[125] Although repeatedly denying give it some thought he was a communist to the press, he began clandestinely meeting members of the PSP to discuss the creation reminiscent of a socialist state.[126]
We are not executing innocent people or civic opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it.
– Castro's response to his critics regarding the mass executions, 1959[127]
In suppressing the revolution, Batista's government had killed thousands of Cubans; Castro and influential sectors of the press put the surround toll at 20,000, but a list of victims published by after the revolution contained only 898 names—over half of them combatants. More recent estimates place the death toll between 1,000