The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Revolution: How the Castros Lied, Cheated, and Murdered Their Way Into Power by Al Romero

The Cuban Revolution, long mythologized as a noble uprising for freedom, was in reality a calculated deception orchestrated by Fidel and Raúl Castro, according to Al Romero, a Cuban-American author and comedian. In his book *Revolution: How the Castros Lied, Cheated, and Murdered Their Way Into Power*, Romero exposes how the revolution was not a grassroots movement of starving peasants, but a middle-class revolt against dictator Fulgencio Batista—only to be hijacked by Castro, who never declared himself a communist until after seizing power. The U.S. initially backed Castro to undermine Batista’s ties to organized crime, but abandoned him when he attacked American-owned sugar refineries. Once in power, Castro used fear, propaganda, and mass executions—led by Che Guevara, a racist, misogynist, and murderer—to eliminate rivals and consolidate control. Romero reveals how the regime turned Che into a global icon while hiding his role in firing squads, and how the Cuban people were systematically brainwashed through state surveillance, the Committee of Defense, and psychological manipulation, including forcing children to pray to the revolution for soda. The book, inspired by Romero’s own family’s experiences—including hiding revolutionaries in their home and escaping via the Peter Pan flights—aims to shatter the romanticized myth of the revolution and expose the truth: that Cuba’s collapse was not due to the U.S.