III.

Early Political Career

In 1945 Castro entered the University of Havana Law School, where he became involved in politics. At the university, politics centered around student political gangs, and Castro took part in the often violent confrontations among these gangs.

Castro’s political ideals matured as he committed himself to overthrowing President Ramón Grau San Martín, of the Auténtico Party, who had allowed corruption to grow in business and politics. Tired of university politics, Castro joined the Party of the Cuban People (the Ortodoxo Party), founded by Eduardo (Eddy) Chibás. The Ortodoxos publicly exposed government corruption 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.

Inspired by these values, Castro involved himself in three important activities. First, in 1947 he 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.

When the Dominican coup attempt failed, Castro returned to Cuba to focus on his second crusade, the electoral defeat of the candidates of the Auténtico Party. Campaign activities were punctuated with violence, and amidst the furor, Castro’s firebrand speeches and effective political organization brought him early recognition, if not power, in the Ortodoxo Party.

In April 1948 Castro undertook the third formative activity in his early political career. He attended the Ninth Pan American Union conference, a student conference held in Bogotá, Colombia. The conference was organized by Argentine president Juan Perón to protest U.S. domination of the western hemisphere. Upon arriving in Bogotá, Castro and a friend, Rafael del Pino, disrupted the conference by showering astonished delegates with pamphlets condemning U.S. influence in Latin America. A few days later, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, leader of the Colombian Liberal Party, and a man from whom the student rebels took council, was assassinated. The news of Gaitán’s death rocked Bogotá, 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. His pamphleteering of the Pan American Union meeting has been cited as evidence that he was a Communist at that time. In truth, the Bogotazo proved a turning point in the development of Castro’s political thought. Because Gaitán’s commitment to reforming the political system through democratic means resulted in his death, Castro concluded that making changes through the electoral process could not succeed.

When Castro returned to Cuba, he threw himself into the presidential campaign of 1948, which pitted Carlos Prio Socarrás, a seasoned politician and member of the Auténtico Party, against Eddy Chibás, the leader of the Party of the Cuban People (called the Ortodoxo Party). Castro was cynical about Cuban electoral politics. He believed that elections were often rigged and that the United States controlled Cuban politicians, regardless of whether they were elected officials or dictators. As a result, Castro formed a radical branch of the Ortodoxo Party called the Radical Action Orthodox wing. This organization supported Chibás in the 1948 election. Prio Socarrás won the election, despite Castro’s efforts.

After Chibás committed suicide in 1951, Castro believed he should become the leader of the Ortodoxo Party and ran for a seat in the Cuban House of Representatives in the 1952 election. Before that election could occur, however, General Fulgencio Batista staged a bloodless coup d’etat and established a dictatorship that ended Castro’s chance to attain office legally. Castro’s cynicism hardened into rejection of electoral democracy, and he declared himself in favor of armed revolution.