A Cuban ruler who shifted between electoral legitimacy and military power
On January 1, 1959, as rebel forces advanced, Batista resigned and fled Cuba.
Fulgencio Batista was a soldier and politician from a poor rural background who shaped Cuban politics after the Sergeants’ Revolt of 1933. Elected president under the new constitution in 1940, he pursued social reforms and supported the Allies, but returned to power through a coup when electoral defeat appeared likely in 1952. His second rule suspended constitutional liberties and became an authoritarian order tied to U.S. capital and organized crime in Havana, while inequality and repression helped broaden armed resistance. Overthrown by the Cuban Revolution in 1959, his exile was one of the starting points for the subsequent escalation of U.S.–Cuban hostility.
Career timeline
1921Private, Cuban Army
1923–1933Sergeant stenographer, Rural Guard
1933–1940Chief of Staff of the Cuban Army, de facto ruler
The student founder of the Cuban Communist Party martyred at 25: a face of Latin American anti-imperialism
December 1928, at a tense party meeting in Mexico City, Vittorio Vidali shouted at Mella: "Never forget — there are only two ways out of the International: expelled or dead!" A month later, Mella was assassinated on the street.
Student leader who co-founded the Communist Party of Cuba, organizing anti-imperialist student struggles at the University of Havana and establishing Cuba's first Marxist-Leninist party with Carlos Baliño in 1925. Exiled in Mexico for resisting the Machado dictatorship, he was assassinated at 25 in 1929 and became a foundational martyr of the Cuban revolutionary left, later claimed as a precursor by the Castro movement.
Career timeline
1922Enters University of Havana law school — co-founds FEU, serves as secretary
1923Becomes FEU president — convenes First National Student Congress, founds José Martí Popular University
1924Joins Havana Communist Group, creates Cuban section of the Anti-Imperialist League
1925Co-founds the Communist Party of Cuba with Carlos Baliño — Central Committee member; arrested, conducts 18-day hunger strike
1926Expelled from university and party — flees via Honduras and Guatemala to Mexico City
1926–1927Founds ANERC — writes for Cuba Libre and other revolutionary papers
1927Attends World Congress Against Colonial Oppression in Brussels — Moscow for RILU Fourth Congress
1929Shot dead on 10 January walking home in Mexico City — aged 25
Cuban revolutionary commander credited with defeating the 1961 Bay of Pigs landing (Brigade 2506)
During the Bay of Pigs invasion of 17 April 1961, Fidel Castro ordered him to command the militia and regular-army battalions fighting Brigade 2506; late on 19 April 1961 he was among the forces that broke through to Playa Girón and forced the invaders' surrender.
Cuban Communist and military leader, and later vice-president of the Council of Ministers. Born in Santiago de Cuba, he joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) after the 1959 revolution and held many state posts, including minister, vice-president and deputy. He was among the longest-lived historic leaders of the Cuban Revolution.
Career timeline
1978–2012Vice-president of the Council of Ministers
Leader of the hemisphere's first socialist revolution: forty-seven years against imperialism
“History will absolve me.” — courtroom speech after Moncada, 1953
Leader of Latin America's first successful socialist revolution. He opened the struggle against the Batista dictatorship with the 1953 Moncada attack, seized power through guerrilla war in 1959, and defended socialist Cuba for forty-seven years against US blockade and pressure.
Career timeline
1953The Moncada attack — 'History will absolve me'
1954Clandestinely published his courtroom defense as History Will Absolve Me
1956–1959Lands from the Granma; guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra
1959Overthrows Batista; the revolutionary government
1961–1962Repels the Bay of Pigs invasion; the Missile Crisis
Cuba
Communism
1930–1989
✕ Executed by firing squad
Cuban general of the African expeditionary campaigns
As commander of the Cuban expeditionary force in Ethiopia from 1977, he directed the Jijiga counter-offensive that, with Soviet military advisers, broke the Somali army. Sources date the recapture of Jijiga to 4 or 5 March 1978.
Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez (1930–1989) was a divisional general of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and a Hero of the Republic of Cuba. Born in Cacocum, he joined Column 2 under Camilo Cienfuegos in 1958 and fought in the Sierra Maestra, helped defeat the Bay of Pigs invasion, and sat on the Communist Party of Cuba's Central Committee for more than twenty years. He fought against the FNLA in Luanda in 1975 and in 1977 took command of the Cuban expeditionary force in Ethiopia during the Ogaden War. Awarded the Hero title in 1984, he was convicted of drug trafficking and treason in 1989 and executed by firing squad on 13 July. Sources give his second given name as Tomás or Teodomiro and his age at death as 58–59 or 57.
Career timeline
1958Joined Column 2 under Camilo Cienfuegos and fought in the Sierra Maestra.
1961Fought against Brigade 2506 at the Bay of Pigs.
1975Fought against the FNLA in Luanda, Angola.
1977–1978Commanded the Cuban expeditionary force in Ethiopia during the Ogaden War.
1984Awarded the title Hero of the Republic of Cuba by Fidel Castro.
1987–1988Headed the Cuban military mission in Angola and took part in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale.
1989Tried on drug-trafficking and treason charges and executed by firing squad on 13 July.
From Moncada to the presidency: the Revolution's indispensable number two for over half a century
“Fidel is irreplaceable, unless we all replace him together, each in his own place.” — speech to university students, 2006
Core commander of the Cuban Revolution: a founding member of the 26th of July Movement who fought at Moncada (1953), survived the Granma landing to reach the Sierra Maestra, and as Comandante of the Frank País Eastern Front built a guerrilla proto-state in Oriente. As minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces from 1959 to 2008 (the longest-serving defense minister of any modern state), he forged Cuba's military and security apparatus and led the institutionalization of the Communist Party. Succeeding Fidel as president in 2008 and party first secretary in 2011, he oversaw cautious market reforms while preserving one-party rule, stepping down in 2018 and 2021 after more than half a century as the Revolution's indispensable number two.
Career timeline
1953Moncada Barracks attack — 13-year sentence, 22 months served
1956Lands from the Granma — guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra
1958Promoted to Comandante; opens the Frank País Eastern Front
1959–2008Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces — longest-serving defense minister
2006–2008Acting president during Fidel's illness
2008–2018President of the Council of State and Council of Ministers
2011–2021First Secretary, Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba
2021Steps down as first secretary — retires from politics
Cuban-born US sociologist and historian of the Cuban Revolution
In December 1977 she helped lead the Antonio Maceo Brigade with Lourdes Casal on a visit to Cuba by 55 exiles, a trip that preceded the 1978 dialogues between Cuban exiles and the Cuban government.
Marifeli Pérez-Stable is a Cuban-born sociologist and historian of Cuba, born in 1949; her family left the island when she was 11. She took her PhD in sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1985 and a master's in political science at the University of Florida. She is the author of The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy (Oxford University Press, first edition 1993), whose periodization the dictionary's historiography draws on. She was professor of sociology at Florida International University, now professor emeritus, and served as vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue from 2004 to 2009. Her designation as Cuban is an attributed label; no formal US citizenship status is documented.
Career timeline
1976–1988Instructor and assistant professor, Politics, Economy and Society Program, SUNY College at Old Westbury
1985PhD in sociology, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2004–2009Vice president for democratic governance, Inter-American Dialogue
2004–2011Biweekly Miami Herald column on Latin America
Cuban volunteer teacher, symbol and first martyr of the 1961 literacy campaign
On 5 January 1961 a counterrevolutionary band under Osvaldo Ramírez killed him at Tinajitas, Trinidad; Cuban sources place this six days into the literacy campaign. He was unarmed. At least the peasant Heliodoro Rodríguez Linares was killed with him.
Born into a poor family in Matanzas, Cuba. Most sources give 19 February 1942; Escambray records 18 February. He worked as a shoeblack and baker to help support his family and, after finishing sixth grade in 1954, continued studying at night. Answering the 1960 call for volunteer teachers, he trained from 12 May to August at the pedagogical school in Minas de Frío in the Sierra Maestra and, after graduating that August, was posted with Magalys Olmos López to the San Ambrosio mountains of Sancti Spíritus, where he built a school in an old sawmill at La Sierrita and taught 44 children by day and adults at night. He was killed in the Escambray on 5 January 1961 by a counterrevolutionary band under Osvaldo Ramírez. Cuban sources record him as the campaign's first victim; the Conrado Benítez brigade took his name, dated 17 January 1961 by Cuban sources and April 1961 by English-language ones.
Career timeline
1942Born in Matanzas
1960Volunteer teacher training at Minas de Frío (May–August)
1960Posted to the San Ambrosio area after graduating in August and began literacy teaching
