II.

Education and Early Political Career

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on a sizable estate near Birán in Oriente Province, the third of seven children born to Spanish immigrant parents. Castro’s education began in the local public schools near the neighbouring town of Mayarí. Recognized for his scholastic talents, Castro was privately tutored and then enrolled in La Salle School in Santiago de Cuba, which was run by French priests. He later attended the Dolores Colegio, a Catholic private school known for its tough discipline and high academic standards. In 1940 Castro enrolled in the prestigious Belen Secondary School in Havana, where he learned Cuban history and about José Martí, the father of Cuban independence from Spain. Castro also developed his athletic and oratorical skills during his time at Belen.

In 1945 Castro entered the University of Havana Law School, where he became involved in politics. He joined the Party of the Cuban People (the Ortodoxo Party), which publicly exposed corruption in the government of President Ramón Grau San Martín and demanded reform. The party’s founding principles included building a strong sense of national identity among Cubans, opposing the influence of powerful foreign nations in Cuba’s affairs, supporting social justice, establishing economic independence for Cuba, and evenly distributing the nation’s wealth through government control of natural and economic resources. His speeches, effective political organization, and other activities brought him early recognition, if not power, in the party.

In 1947 Castro joined the Caribbean Legion, a group of political exiles from other Caribbean nations based in Cuba. With them, he took part in a failed effort to overthrow Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic, by launching an invasion from Cuba. In April 1948 he attended the Ninth Pan American Union conference, a student conference held in Bogotá, Colombia. Upon arriving in Bogotá, Castro and a friend, Rafael del Pino, disrupted the conference by showering delegates with pamphlets condemning US influence in Latin America. A few days later, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, leader of the Colombian Liberal Party, was assassinated, and outraged students rioted in the streets. Castro was later blamed for instigating the uprising, known as the Bogotazo, but he was little more than a spectator. However, the assassination of Gaitán proved a turning point in the development of Castro’s political thought and he concluded that making changes through the electoral process could not succeed. When Batista instigated a bloodless coup d’état in Cuba and established a dictatorship in 1952, it ended Castro’s chance to attain office legally. Castro’s cynicism hardened into rejection of electoral democracy, and he declared himself in favour of armed revolution.