Ted Cruz says that his father fought against Batista.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. That's reading a very uncertain struggle from its endpoint

At the time, all the factions fighting thought they had the edge, even if they entered into uncertain alliances. The centrist factions thought they could align with Castro, then dispense with him. Castro thought the same of the bourgeois resistance to Batista. Castro turned out to be right, but to read that back into the moment is teleological and ahistorical. There was a robust bourgeois/capitalist resistance to Batista's corruption. They fought and were jailed and were killed and fled. that's the history of the matter. They aligned with (in various forms) Castro's factions. And when Batista got the boot, Castro eliminated them, too (just as they would have done to him had things been different.

To say that anyone fighting Batista knew he was essentially fighting for the Communists (nominally, Castro) is just wrong. It's simply not true. I can't believe I'm positioned as a Cruz defender here, but you just happen to be historically wrong.