Ernesto "Che" Guevara, martyr for the cause of socialism, will live forever in the hearts of Cubans as the second greatest hero the nation has ever known. Following his first meeting with Fidel Castro in 1955, Guevara became an integral part of the Cuban Revolution. The overthrow of the Batista dictatorship by the rebels was nothing short of a miracle; the band led by Castro and Guevara, a numbering less than three hundred until mid 1958, had destroyed the incompetent and corrupt regime. Guevara's actions helped Cuba to break the hold of the powerful latifundio on the land, becoming the hero of the oppressed proletarians- sugar workers and railroad laborers in particular – and ultimately dying for their cause. For his role in the revolution and his incessant and fervent devotion to the Cuban socialist cause, Che Guevara lives as perhaps the most famous socialist martyr in the world and a Cuban hero like no other.
             In Cuba during the 1940s and 1950s the reforms promised by the oppressive Batista dictatorship never seemed to arrive. Land redistribution, educational reform, and a policy ending "the widespread graft and corruption rampant in the Cuban government were nowhere in sight" (Anderson 28). Finally, revolution arrived with Fidel Castor's organization of a coup effort in 1956 aboard the yacht Granma, carrying Guevara and other guerrilla fighters from Mexico to Cuba. The yachting experience was a pivotal turning point the Che's path toward martyrdom. The risky yet spectacularly successful ambush tactics of the revolutionaries under Guevara combined with his incredible "bravery in leading them to victory, made him into a figure more myth than man" (Anderson 50). Guevara's column of soldiers was instrumental in the eventual capture of Havana, and his own personal beliefs had not escaped the people. The Cuban masses worshiped Guevara not only for his soc
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