Cuban Revolution

Cuban Revolution
Date July 26th, 1953 - January 1st, 1959 Location Cuba Result Cuban Revolutionaries Victory
Belligerents
Cuban Revolutionaries	Cuban Government Armed Forces

The Cuban Revolution was a largely peasant-based national liberation movement in Cuba, waged from July 1953 until New Year's Day 1959 by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement (M-26-7) against the neocolonial military regime of Fulgencio Batista.

While the M-26-7 was not an explicitly Marxist–Leninist organization, its top leadership was largely dominated by Marxist–Leninists such as Raúl Castro and Che Guevara, and its earliest announced goals were intentionally kept moderate in order to retain integral support from liberal elements (such as the primarily student-based Revolutionary Directorate) as well as international support from countries hostile to communism. For this reason, Marxist–Leninists consider it to be a national liberation movement moreso than a socialist revolution. In 1961, Fidel Castro announced he was a Marxist–Leninist and that the Cuban Revolution was now a socialist revolution.

Cuban national history as it was established after the victory of the M-26-7 considers the "Revolution" to be more than just the armed struggle from 1953 to 1959. Instead, the Cuban state refers to the entire period from Cuba's independence from Spanish colonialism until the establishment of socialism as an extended revolutionary process. The "revolution" is used as a term that denotes all of the accomplishments of Cuban socialism since, as well as its proud independence from neocolonialism and US imperialism.

The 26th of July Movement entering Havana on January 8, 1959