In the years following its independence, Cuba saw significant economic development, but also political corruption and a succession of despotic leaders, culminating in the overthrow of the dictator Fulgencio Batista by the communist revolutionary Fidel Castro during the 1953-9 Cuban Revolution.

Nikolai Leonov, the KGB chief in Mexico City, was one of the first Soviet officials to recognize Fidel Castro's potential as a revolutionary, and urged the Soviet Union to strengthen ties with the new Cuban leader.

* 1932 – Camilo Cienfuegos, Cuban revolutionary ( d. 1959 )

* 1818 – Pedro Figueredo, Cuban poet, musician, revolutionary ( d. 1870 )

In the 1960s the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara developed the foco () theory of revolution in his book Guerrilla Warfare, based on his experiences during the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

* 1854 – Juan Gualberto Gómez, Cuban revolutionary leader ( d. 1933 )

Demonstrating independence from the U. S., Mexico supported the Cuban government since its establishment in the early 1960s, the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua during the late 1970s, and leftist revolutionary groups in El Salvador during the 1980s.

Beginning in 1967, the Cuban General Intelligence Directorate, or DGI, had begun to establish ties with various Nicaraguan revolutionary organizations.

* August 13 – Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary and politician

* October 28 – Camilo Cienfuegos, Cuban revolutionary ( b. 1932 )

* January 28 – José Martí, Cuban revolutionary ( d. 1895 )

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; born August 13, 1926 ) is a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008.

A keen internationalist, Castro introduced Cuban medical brigades who worked throughout the developing world, and aided foreign revolutionary socialist groups in the hope of toppling world capitalism, thereby involving Cuba in the Yom Kippur War, Angolan Civil War and the Ogaden War.

After discussions between Jagan and Cuban revolutionary Ernesto " Che " Guevara in 1960 and 1961, Cuba offered British Guiana loans and equipment.

In 1965, at Algiers, in the Afro – Asian Conference, the Cuban revolutionary Ché Guevara spoke to the participants of the Second Economic Seminar of Afro – Asian Solidarity about the continued foreign domination of the underdeveloped countries of the world:

In 1961, regarding the economic mechanism of neo-colonial control, in the speech Cuba: Historical Exception or Vanguard in the Anti-colonial Struggle ?, the Cuban revolutionary Ché Guevara said:

In the 1960s, under the leadership of Chairman Mehdi Ben Barka, the Cuban Tricontinental Conference ( Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America ) recognised and supported the validity of revolutionary anti-colonialism as a means for colonised peoples of the Third World to achieve their self-determination, which policy angered the U. S. and France.

At about 11: 00, Premier Fidel Castro issued a statement over Cuba's nationwide network saying that the invaders, members of the exiled Cuban revolutionary front, have come to destroy the revolution and take away the dignity and rights of men.

Back in New York Martí joined General Calixto García's Cuban revolutionary committee, made up of exiled & disheveled Cubans who wanted independence for Cuba.

Within the revolutionary committee, there was tension between Martí and his Cuban military compatriots.

Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz ( born 3 June 1931 ) is a Cuban politician and revolutionary who has been President of the Council of State of Cuba and the President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba since 2008 ; he previously exercised presidential powers in an acting capacity from 2006 to 2008.

He was accused of being a Cuban revolutionary by authorities.

Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán (; February 6, 1932 – October 28, 1959 ) was a Cuban revolutionary born in Lawton, Havana.

* José Joaquín Palma ( 1844-1911 ), Cuban revolutionary and poet

In August 1965, the Prefab Four played a sell-out concert at New York's Ché Stadium ( named for famed Cuban guerilla leader Che Stadium ), arriving a day early in order to get away before the audience arrived.

In 1963, shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1, 500 DI agents, including Che Guevara, were invited to the USSR for intensive training in intelligence operations.

* 1956 – The Granma yacht reaches the shores of Cuba's Oriente province and Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement disembark to initiate the Cuban Revolution.

Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the 26th of July Movement in the Cuban Revolution.

Benicio del Toro plays Argentine guerrilla Ernesto " Che " Guevara in an epic four-hour double bill which looks first at his role in the Cuban revolution before moving to his campaign and eventual death in Bolivia .< ref >

* Cuban Revolution ( 1953 – 1959 ) – The 1959 overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and other forces resulted in the creation of the first communist government in the western hemisphere.

* October 17 – The remains of Che Guevara are laid to rest with full military honours in a specially built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, Cuba, where he had won the decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution 39 years before.

Che Guevara, though initially praising the Soviet Union prior to, during and shortly after the Cuban Revolution, later came out in support of Maoism, and advocated the adoption of the ideology throughout Latin America.

Guevara had appeared in the Congo with approximately 100 men who planned to bring about a Cuban style revolution.

* AMQUACK: Che Guevara, Argentinian ( later Cuban ) guerrilla leader.

Though commercial concerns continued to dominate foreign policy, conflict resolution was again ventured into when President Arturo Frondizi initiated negotiations between U. S. President John F. Kennedy and Cuban representative Ernesto Che Guevara during a Western Hemisphere summit in Uruguay in August 1961.

Anticipating an invasion, Che Guevara stressed the importance of an armed civilian populace, stating " all the Cuban people must become a guerrilla army, each and every Cuban must learn to handle and if necessary use firearms in defense of the nation.

In one reply, Guevara was asked to explain the growing number of Cuban counter-revolutionaries and defectors from the regime, to which he replied that the repelled invasion was the climax of counter revolution, and that afterwards such actions " fell drastically to zero.

" In regards to the defections of some prominent figures within the Cuban government, Guevara remarked that this was because " the socialist revolution left the opportunists, the ambitious, and the fearful far behind and now advances toward a new regime free of this class of vermin.

Raised in an anarchist family that had left Spain before the Spanish Civil War, he became a key figure of the Cuban Revolution, along with Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Juan Almeida Bosque, and Raúl Castro.

Franqui, one of Cienfuegos's closest friends during the Cuban revolution, asserts that Cienfuegos " sympathized with socialism " and that he followed the Marxist Che Guevara politically.

However protracted war should not be confused with the " foco " theory employed by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

Frondizi attempted to negotiate an entente between the U. S. and Cuba with a secret, August 1961 meeting at the Quinta de Olivos residence with Cuban envoy ( and fellow Argentine ) Che Guevara.

Though commercial concerns continued to dominate foreign policy, Frondizi took part in negotiations between President Kennedy and Cuban representative Ernesto Che Guevara after an Inter-American Economic and Social Council summit in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in August 1961.

On the whole, the original 1960s-era anti-revisionists tended to take a careful, selective approach to the Cuban Revolution and the way it soon aligned itself with Soviet ideas and practice, criticizing the latter action, while simultaneously acknowledging some aspects of Cuban self-described socialism as genuinely revolutionary — in particular the writing and thinking of Che Guevara.