cuban revolution, 1959

• Fidel Castro seizes power from the American-backed dictator, Batista , who has run a corrupt and unpopular regime.
• Castro and his followers aim to improve Cuban propserity , especially of peasants working on the land and in the sugar mills of American-owned companies
• They aimed to end corruption and terror in Cuban politics
• They aimed to help oppressed people in other countries in the region
• Fidel Castro appoints Communism to the Government
• He signed a trade agreement with the USSR , in return for Cuban sugar, the USSR willl provide oil, machinery and economic aid (1959)
• Castro nationalizes all American companies (July 1961)