Gerardo Machado, Cuba’s president since 1925 maintained a dictatorship-like regime and was overthrown in 1933 and for nearly the next three decades politics in Cuba was centered on Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar. Batista was a former army sergeant who began leading Cuba both directly as president and indirectly as army chief of staff through puppet heads of state. His governments were known to be riddled with corruption and in 1952 just before presidential elections he used a military coup to seize power.

Fidel Castro, a young lawyer at the time, organized a revolt but unsuccessfully. Nevertheless, with the loyal support of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, he continued to wage guerilla warfare on Batista and when the U.S. finally withdrew military aid to Batista in 1958, he was finally overthrown and fled to the Dominican Republic.