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Hitler's coup-launching and general martial abilities were poor. He was very charismatic, as was Castro (and Cortes for that matter). But what were his military feats? I'm focused purely on that. In Hitler's case, it was his generals who did the fighting, he directed grand strategy and messed things up, failing to sufficiently mobilize the German war economy until it was too late.
Castro managed a revolution in a poor, coup-prone country. The US pulled away from Batista the moment he was seriously threatened. They had Cantillo launch another coup against him, the whole thing was a shambles. He didn't face really substantial opposition like Giap did.
I'm not arguing that Hitler was a military genius. He certainly had his moments, for example he correctly sided with the Ardennes option during the planning of the invasion of France. But his track record as a military leader is mixed. My point, and the reason why I brought Hitler up, is that judging Castro's achievements in the Cuban Revolution based on the fact that he had been let out of jail by his opponents at some point in the past does not make sense.
I don't understand why you don't want to admit that invading Cuba with 80 men, getting most of them killed on the first day, fleeing to the mountains with 20 men, and then building a base of support that allows you to conquer the whole island two years later, is not a great feat of generalship.
I do want to admit that it's not great generalship! That's my whole argument.
The reasons Castro won were predominantly political, not military. Throughout his whole life, he displayed military ineptitude. He got released from prison after failing his first attempt at revolution, losing the battle. He fumbled his landing attempt, arriving late:
He lost 75% of his men in the first few days of landing. Cortes didn't do that! As I read further, Castro even gets support from the CIA! So much for defeating the strongest government in the world...
Castro won because apparently everyone, US deep state goons included, favoured him over the disintegrating Bastillo regime. He was charismatic, not a great military leader. And even if he had beaten the Cuban government solely with force of arms, that still wouldn't make him a great leader. Beating a weak Cuban government is not a sufficient feat to put you up there with Cortes.
Cortes beat an utterly hated Aztec Empire that probably had less support from the population it ruled than Batista's government had from its. And like Castro, Cortez also came within a hair's breadth of being destroyed at one point. Plus Cortez was going up against an empire that had technology equivalent to the European Bronze Age, whereas Castro was going up against a country that had the same level of technology that he did.
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