Cuba was originally ruled by a dictator: President Fulgencio Batista, who was an ally of the United States. Cuba at that time enjoyed a healthy urban middle class, and its citizens enjoyed a certain degree of freedom without a police state. Many other countries seemed much more likely to rebel, because economically and developmentally Cuba seemed stable. However, the role and control of the United States over the Cuban economy began to take its toll on the “peasants.” By 1953, the United States owned many major entities, such as 50% of the railroads. Just as there was development in urban areas, rural areas lacked it. Not just economically, Cubans began to resent the Sin City image that Americans gave the country. Cuba was a popular tourist spot where Americans came to misbehave. Castro's success came from these opposing sides of disgust with the United States, the peasantry on an economic level and the middle class on a social and national level. Castro was not originally a socialist; he was first and foremost a nationalist. However, when he attacks the Moncada barracks, he is arrested and exiled to Mexico City. During this period his failures are transformed into “successes” through propaganda. Castro meets Che Guevara in Mexico City and upon his return eliminates 483 Batista loyalists from the army, implements agrarian reforms and nationalizes the United States.