What was the point of the Cuban revolution if it only replaced a dictatorship with another?

Question

Batista, Castro...what's the difference? Why did Fidel become like the same guy he hated? If he wanted tyranny why didn't just leave things the way they were?!

Answer 1

Castro was a nationalist and he did not want a US puppet dictator ruling Cuba which is what you had with Batista. But, because the US was so aggressive in trying to preserve that area Castro aligned himself with Russia and compromised his principles. He wanted a socialist government as defined by Karl Marx, but alas those never work.

Answer 2

Under Batista there was much corruption with the Mafia and local thugs running lucrative gambling, prostitution and drugs businesses with official protection and payoffs. The majority of the population were wretchedly poor with minimal education for the children and minimal health services. It was fundamentally because of these conditions that Castro's revolution succeeded. Castro's one-party state has done away with the corruption , gambling and gangsterism and provided education and healthcare on a level Cubans never previously had.. So although it is a dictatorship, it is very different to Batista's.

Answer 3

Castro wanted independance for Cuba instead of the Batista regime which was quite happy to let the American Mafia run everything. The subsequent American economic boycott of Cuba drove his regime into the Soviet sphere of influence and things just never recovered.
If the USA had been more politically helpful things would have turned out much better for Cuba but the Mafia were too powerful.

Answer 4

Well, if he'd have left things the way they were he wouldn't have gotten to be the tyrant, duh.

I am sure the Cuban people had different expectations from the revolution than what transpired; however, I am not in a position to say that they are worse off.