One was a lawyer, the other a doctor. Leaving those lives behind, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara became the foremost figures of the revolution
ALAMY X1, GETTY IMAGES X1
"Time is a highly important factor in all things. !e revolution cannot be completed in a single day, but you may be sure that we will carry the revolution through to the full. You may be sure that for the first time the Republic will be truly and entirely free, and the people will have their just recompense.”
As he made his speech from the balcony of the city hall in Santiago de Cuba on 3 January 1959, Fidel Castro ruminated on what had passed, and what was to come. In his battle fatigues – and almost certainly with a cigar close to hand – he was talking about the rebirth of a nation. His nation. Little more than 48 hours earlier, the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista had fled the Presidential Palace in Havana, never to be seen on the island again. His departure brought an end to the armed struggle that Castro and his rebels had been waging against Batista’s corrupt regime for more than half a decade.