LATIN AMERICA  
Communism in the Latin American continent remained of little significance until some time after the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro (1959). The Cuban Communist party had played a minor role in the revolution itself. At first Castro appeared to be another modernizing nationalist and non-aligned Third World leader. Over the next few years, he became internally dependent on the Communist party machine and externally reliant on Soviet help. Subsequent confrontation with the United States led to the nationalization of US property (1960), attempts by the United States to overthrow the regime (the Bay of Pigs in April 1961), Castro's declaration that he had become a "Marxist-Leninist" (December 1961) and the Cuban missile crisis (1962). During the 1960s Cuba tried to distance itself from the USSR and to develop a Latin American brand of Communism. Much as Lenin had hoped that the Russian Revolution would be followed by others in Europe, Castro hoped that there would be "one, two, and many Vietnams" in Latin America. By the end of the 1960s, Cuban-supported guerrilla activities in the rest of the continent had been contained or defeated and Cuba returned to the Moscow fold. The only other Communist party of some importance in Latin America was that of Chile. This had much in common with European Communist parties: its support was in the working class; its strategy was parliamentary and electoral. In 1970 Salvator Allende, a socialist, was elected President with Communist support. The Popular Unity government which followed was overthrown by a military coup in September 1973.