After his release, Castro went to Mexico where he spent the next year organizing the "26th of July Movement", based on the date of the failed barracks attack in Santiago de Cuba. On the 2nd December 1956 Castro and his other rebel comrades from the 26th of July Movement landed on Cuban soil with the intention of starting a revolution. They were only greeted by Batista's heavy defenses, resulting in the deaths of nearly all of the Movement's members. Almost no one escaped, and those who did, including Castro and his brother Raúl, fled the scene to avoid being jailed. For the next two years Castro continued guerrilla attacks and managed to gain a large number of radical followers. Using guerrilla tactics, Castro became known as the "Guerrilla Prince" and with his supporters attacked Batista's forces, conquering city after city. Batista quickly lost all popular support and suffered numerous embarrassing defeats. Finally, on January 1, 1959, Batista fled Cuba and went into exile, leaving the Cuban government in search of a president and someone to get rid of the corruption that had previously plagued the country. Manuel Urrutia, a very liberal Cuban lawyer and politician, was named president of Cuba, and Castro was put in charge of the army. However, by July 1959, Castro had easily and effectively assumed leadership of Cuba, a role he would remain for the next four decades. (See figure 2) Having close ties to his brother, Fidel put Raúl in charge of the army, allowing the Castro family to have most control over Cuba. In his first years as ruler of Cuba, Castro made several radical changes and significant in Cuba, including the collectivization of agriculture, the nationalization of industry, a... medium of paper......le that was printed in Time Magazine in their special cover issue on Fidel Castro. I used this article to learn more about Cuba's relations with the United States after Castro became president and then dictator. I will use it in my paragraph describing the political and economic relationship between Cuba and the USThomas M. Leonard "Castro, Fidel". Facts On File, Inc., 2010. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE53&iPin=ELAIV0074&SingleRecord=True (accessed May 8, 2014). This was an article that described the life of Fidel Castro but not in a middle school history but instead explained his life's actions and how they affected Cuba and carried on the revolution and his dictatorship. It had a lot of really useful information that I used throughout my research paper, not just in one specific place.