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Throughout Cuba’s history, groups waging guerrilla warfare against the national govern- ment have hidden out in the Sierra Maestra mountain range. After Castro’s initial attacks failed, he and his men hid in the mountains to rebuild their force and recruit others to the revolutionary cause.

economically comfortable chafed at their lack of political free- doms. Batista used secret police to silence his critics. He cen- sored the press. In the face of student demonstrations, he closed the University of Havana, Cuba’s oldest and most respected institution of higher learning. The regime’s corruption was another source of widespread anger. Previous Cuban leaders had lined their pockets at the expense of the public, but under Batista, as one historian noted, “every government activity was milked” for illicit profit.

Revolution 11