The 26th of July Movement (Movimiento 26 de Julio, or M-26-7) was a vanguard Cuban revolutionary organization established in 1955. It's name was chosen to commemorate the failed assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953, to depose the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. The group's primary architect and leader was Fidel Castro, who reorganized the movement during his subsequent exile in Mexico alongside his brother Raúl Castro. It was there that they recruited crucial internationalist and military figures, most notably Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and the charismatic commander Camilo Cienfuegos. Crucially, the movement operated on a dual front: while the guerrilla nucleus fought from the rugged Sierra Maestra mountains, a highly disciplined urban underground led by figures like Frank País, Celia Sánchez, and Vilma Espín sustained the struggle in Cuba's cities through sabotage, propaganda, and logistics. The effect of M-26-7 was monumental; by uniting a coalition of peasants, workers, and middle-class professionals against the corruption of the Batista regime, their campaign culminated in the dictator's overthrow on New Year's Eve 1958. Upon taking power the movement radically reshaped geopolitics by establishing a socialist state just 90 miles from the United States, implementing sweeping agrarian and educational reforms, and eventually absorbing other political factions to form the modern Communist Party of Cuba.
