During this period of the 20th century (1930-1958) in Cuba, the successes achieved during the first years of the Machado dictatorship failed to suppress the popular movement. Due to the regime’s excesses and the rapidly deteriorating economic situation following the global crisis of 1929, these popular forces showed growing opposition. With students and the proletariat as their fundamental bases, the opposition to Machado unleashed an endless succession of strikes, attacks, and sabotage. In 1933, the unstable Machado regime was on the verge of a revolution. On August 12, Machado left the country, defeated by a prolonged general strike.

The provisional government created by right-wing sectors of the opposition under the auspices of the US ambassador would not survive a month. An uprising of the military classes and soldiers, along with the University Student Directorate, brought a revolutionary government led by Ramón Grau San Martín to power. This government, primarily at the initiative of Antonio Guiteras, Secretary of the Interior, approved and implemented diverse measures that benefited the people. This government lasted only a few months in power, due to constant offensives by the United States and the opposition.

The state’s destiny would subsequently be effectively ruled by Batista and his military. This authoritarian regime, which combined repression with certain socioeconomic reforms, was unable to provide a solid solution to the Cuban situation. This led to an agreement with the revolutionary and democratic forces that would be embodied in the 1940 Constitution. This opened a new period of institutional legality. The first government of this period was led by Fulgencio Batista. This partnership, while leading the labor movement to significant achievements, was not understood by other popular sectors and constituted a historical factor of division among the revolutionary forces. During Batista’s government, the country’s economic situation improved, favored by the outbreak of World War II, which would further benefit his successor, Ramón Grau San Martín.

Neither Grau nor Carlos Prío Socarrás (1948-1952), both leaders of the Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party, took advantage of the favorable economic conditions of their terms. Administrative corruption was complemented by numerous gangster groups, which ousted communists from union leadership amid the favorable atmosphere of the Cold War. The rejection of the prevailing shameful situation was channeled through the civic-political movement of “orthodoxy,” whose leader, Eduardo Chibás, committed suicide in 1951 amid a bitter dispute with government officials.

Fulgencio Batista, leading a military revolt, seized power on March 10, 1952. Hopes of an orthodox victory in the 1952 elections were dashed.

A revolutionary movement was then born, led by Fidel Castro, a young lawyer whose early political activities had developed within the university community and within the ranks of the conservative establishment. He developed a new strategy of armed struggle against the dictatorship. The actions took place on July 26, 1953, with the simultaneous assault on the Moncada barracks (Trinidad and Moncada Avenue, Santiago de Cuba), and the Céspedes barracks (57 Abigail González Street between Serafín Sánchez and General García, Bayamo, Holguín), in Bayamo, intended as a trigger for a widespread popular uprising. The operation failed; dozens of attackers were captured and killed. Other survivors, including Fidel Castro, were tried and sentenced to severe prison terms. At the ensuing trial, the young revolutionary leader delivered a brilliant speech in self-defense known as “History Will Absolve Me,” in which he argued the people’s right to rebel against tyranny and explained the causes, paths, and objectives of the struggle he had undertaken. This speech would become the program of the Revolution.

The mass movement in 1955 grew significantly and achieved amnesty for political prisoners, including the Moncada fighters. That same year, the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement, formed by Fidel Castro and his comrades, was founded, and a year later, the Revolutionary Directorate, which brought together the most militant elements of the university student body, was created.

Fidel Castro marched toward Mexico with the aim of organizing a liberation expedition and launching the revolutionary war. On December 2, 1956, Fidel Castro landed at the head of the Granma yacht expedition in Las Coloradas, Oriente province. Two days earlier, clandestine fighters of the 26th of July Movement, under the command of Frank País, had carried out an uprising in Santiago de Cuba in support of the landing. When the two actions failed, the uprising ended in a lamentable failure. After the setback at Alegría de Pío, which dispersed the expeditionary contingent, Fidel Castro and a handful of fighters managed to gain the stronghold of the Sierra Maestra Mountains to form the initial nucleus of the Rebel Army.

In 1957, the Rebel Army generated a series of attacks in the mountains, among the most important being the battle of El Uvero, while in the cities the clandestine struggle raged. On March 13 of that year, a detachment of the Revolutionary Directorate attacked the Presidential Palace in Havana (Avenida de las Misiones, Old Havana, Havana City), intending to execute the tyrant, but they failed. José Antonio Echeverría, president of the University Student Federation, was killed in combat in this action. In July, the assassination of Frank País triggered a spontaneous strike that paralyzed much of the nation. At the end of the year, the army failed in its offensive against the Sierra Maestra, where two guerrilla columns had already established themselves.

In early 1958, the revolutionary movement decided to hasten the tyrant’s overthrow by launching a general strike with the characteristics of an insurrection. This strike, called for April 9, failed, resulting in heavy losses for the revolutionary forces. In the Sierra Maestra, Fidel Castro created two new columns under the command of Commanders Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida, respectively, who were to open two guerrilla fronts in other mountainous areas of the eastern region. In the summer, Batista launched a 10,000-man offensive on the Sierra Maestra. The rebel troops defeated the tyranny’s battalions.

The rebel columns departed for various points across the country, including those of Commanders Ernesto Ché Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, who advanced toward the province of Las Villas. On November 20, the Commander-in-Chief of the rebel troops, Fidel Castro, led the Battle of Guisa, marking the beginning of the definitive revolutionary offensive. In coordinated actions, the already numerous columns of the Second and Second Eastern Fronts took the surrounding towns to close the siege on Santiago de Cuba. Ché Guevara, in Las Villas, captured town after town and prepared to assault the city of Santa Clara, the provincial capital, while Camilo Cienfuegos surrendered the garrison in the city of Yaguajay in a tenacious battle. On January 1, 1959, Batista fled the country. In a last-minute maneuver, approved by the American embassy, ​​General Eulogio Cantillo attempted to create a civil-military junta. Fidel Castro intimidates the Santiago de Cuba garrison into surrender and calls the people to a general strike that, with massive support throughout the country, would ensure the victory of the Cuban Revolution.