Before Fidel Castro came to power, Cuba boasted nearly the highest standard of living in the Spanish-speaking world. It was not predominately a country of rural peasantry, but a nation of cities with a large middle-class. 80 percent of the Cuban people were literate. The share of the national income that went to regular wage-earners was 65 percent—4th highest in the world behind the US, the UK, and Canada. This would seem like a very unlikely place for a Socialist revolution.

http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Fidel-Castro-Cuban-Revolution