Cuban‐African relations: nationalist roots of an internationalist policy

To understand the type of relationship that Cuba has had with Africa for the past four decades, one must understand what happened on 1 January 1959, a watershed date in Cuban history. On that day after several years of armed struggle, dictator Fulgencio Batista fled, a Revolutionary Government led by Fidel Castro took power and Cuba ceased to be the neo‐colony that it had been for over 56 years.