On this day in 1959, U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country following the victory of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement (M-26-7) at the Battle of Santa Clara, marking the successful conclusion of the Cuban Revolution.

The 26th of July Movement takes its name from the date of with a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953, however, the movement bearing this name was not formally organized until the attackers were released from prison in 1955. Public resistance continued sporadically until November 1956, when 80 members of the M-26-7 returned from exile.

Soon after landing on the island, a separate revolutionary group, the "Directorio Revoluncionari Estudiantil" (DRE), unsuccessfully attempted an attack on the Presidential Palace in Havana.

Throughout 1957, armed resistance from groups such as the DRE and M-26-7 would escalate. After a failed offensive by the government against rebels in the summer of 1958, the rebels launched a major counter-offensive.

On December 28th, 1958, after a fraudulent election in favor of Batista, revolutionary forces reached the city of Santa Clara. Seizing equipment from an armored train intended to transport government reinforcements, the rebels quickly captured the city, prompting Batista to panic and flee to the Dominican Republic with a personal fortune of more than $300 million.

In the following days, revolutionary forces entered Havana with no resistance, and Castro established a provisional government. The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist–Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.

Batista later settled in fascist Spain, dying there in 1973 at the age of 72.

The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto "Ché" Guevara

Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War by Ernesto "Ché" Guevara

History Will Absolve Me by Fidel Castro

To the U.N. General Assembly, The Problem of Cuba and its Revolutionary Policy by Fidel Castro

r/Communism Cuba and Fidel Castro Megathread

r/Communism Another Cuba and Fidel Megathread

lecture from Michael Parenti about Cuba

Hexbear links

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

    • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      6 days ago

      Jesus Christ I've gone from "Chomsky isn't as correct as I used to think but is probably still useful as part of a pipeline" to "Chomsky should be fed through a pipeline in less than an hour.

      This part did tickle me

      They report incorrect facts, be it regurgitating State Department claims about Xinjiang in China, or electoral ballots in Bolivia, or burning trucks in the Venezuelan-Colombian border, or the entire section they dedicate to “Iran’s Nuclear Program.”

      because I was discussing on here the other day how this event had been memory holed and should have destroyed trust in Western media single handedly.

      Chomsky's remarks about the Vietnam war hawk, the CIA director, the DPRK, China and Syria all have me seething. What a scumbag.

      EDIT: god and the Israel shit.

      This quote about the Vietnam hawk is just disgusting

      Nothing should be done to impede people from teaching and doing their research even if at that very moment it was being used to massacre and destroy. … [A]s a spokesman for the Rosa Luxemburg collective, I went to see the President of MIT in 1969 to inform him that we intended to protest publicly if there turned out to be any truth to the rumours then circulating that Walt Rostow (who we regarded as a war criminal) being denied a position at MIT on political grounds.

      I genuinely had no idea this man was so evil.

      He was funded by the US military and friends with CIA directors how does he have the positive reputation he does with the left.

      The skeletons in his closet are dead giants it's unreal