ABSTRACT
When Fulgencio Batista fled Havana on 1 January 1959 and gave way to Fidel Castro and his guerrillas, the most important political challenge to twentieth century Latin America appeared. In 1961 Fidel Castro proclaimed his adherence to Marxism-Leninism after a badly mishandled conventional military operation (the 'Bay of Pigs') conducted by the United States failed to dislodge him from power. A year later, the Missile Crisis of 1962 fully introduced the Cold War to Latin America. Yet the the most relevant point about the Cuban Revolution was not its existence on the island next to Florida, but its ability to awaken the socialist utopia in almost all the continent.
