In 1959, when a radical, violent, brilliant, ruthless young lawyer named Fidel Castro led a successful armed revolt against Cuba's dictator, Fulgencio Batista, many Cubans hoped that decades of repression were at an end. Castro and his fellow revolutionaries promised social, economic, educational, and medical reforms, winning acclaim from both Cubans and foreign observers. Much of this public support, however, soon vanished when Castro imposed a new dictatorship that eventually proved to be more tyrannical and murderous than the regime he had helped destroy. Instead of a free and democratic Cuba, Castro chose to forge a Communist state based on the principles of German philosopher Karl Marx and the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, both of whom advocated total government control of society to meet the basic economic needs of all citizens.

Castro's forces quickly went to work restructuring Cuba. They imprisoned and executed...