Early life of Fidel Castro

Castro's father, Ángel Castro y Argiz (1875–1956), was born to a poor peasant family in Galicia, a province in northwest Spain. A farm laborer, in 1895 he was conscripted into the Spanish Army to fight in the Cuban War of Independence and the ensuing Spanish–American War of 1898, in which the U.S. seized control of Cuba. In 1902, the Republic of Cuba was proclaimed; however it remained economically and politically dominated by the U.S. For a time, Cuba enjoyed economic growth, and Ángel migrated there in search of employment.^[2] After various jobs, he set up a business growing sugar cane at Las Manacas farm in Birán, near Mayarí, Oriente Province.^[3] Ángel took a wife in 1911, María Luisa Argota Reyes, with whom he had five children before separating. He then began a relationship with Lina Ruz González (1903–1963), a household servant of Canarian descent who was twenty-seven years his junior; they had three sons and four daughters, legally marrying in 1943.^[4]

Castro was Lina's third child, born out of wedlock at Ángel's farm on August 13, 1926. Because of the stigma of illegitimacy, he was given his mother's surname of Ruz rather than his father's name.^[5] Although Ángel's business ventures prospered, he ensured that Fidel grew up alongside the children of the farm's workforce, many of whom were Haitian economic migrants of African descent.^[6] This experience, Castro later related, prevented him from absorbing "bourgeois culture" at an early age.^[7]

Aged six, Castro, along with his elder siblings Ramón and Angela, was sent to live with their teacher in Santiago de Cuba, dwelling in cramped conditions and relative poverty, often failing to have enough to eat because of their tutor's poor economic situation.^[8] Aged eight, Castro was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, although later became an atheist.^[9] Being baptized enabled Castro to attend the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, where he regularly misbehaved, and so was sent to the privately funded, Jesuit-run Dolores School in Santiago.^[10] In 1945 he graduated from high school in the prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana.^[11] Although Castro took an interest in history, geography and debating at Belén, he did not excel academically, instead devoting much of his time to playing sport.^[12]

In late 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana.^[13] Admitting he was "politically illiterate", he became embroiled in the student protest movement: under the regimes of Cuban Presidents Gerardo Machado, Fulgencio Batista and Ramón Grau there had been a crackdown on protest, with student leaders being killed or terrorized by gangs.^[14] This led to a form of gangsterismo culture within the university, dominated by armed student groups who spent much of their time fighting and running criminal enterprises.^[15] Passionate about Cuban nationalism and opposed to U.S. intervention in the Caribbean, Castro joined the University Committee for the Independence of Puerto Rico and the Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic.^[16] During an unsuccessful campaign for the presidency of the Federation of University Students (Federación Estudiantil Universitaria - FEU), he put forward a platform of "honesty, decency and justice" and emphasized his opposition to corruption, which he associated with U.S. involvement in Cuba.^[17]

Castro became critical of the corruption and violence of Grau's regime, delivering a public speech on the subject in November 1946 that earned him a place on the front page of several newspapers. In contact with members of student leftist groups – including the Popular Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Popular – PSP), the Socialist Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Socialista Revolucionaria – MSR) and the Insurrectional Revolutionary Union (Unión Insurrecional Revolucionaria – UIR) – he grew close to the UIR, although biographers are unsure whether he became a member.^[18] In 1947, Castro joined a new populist group, the Party of the Cuban People (Partido Ortodoxo), founded by veteran politician Eduardo Chibás (1907–1951). A charismatic figure, Chibás advocated national revolution, social justice, political freedom, and anti-corruption measures.^{[19][20][21][22]} Though Chibás lost the election, Castro remained committed to working on his behalf.^[23] Student violence escalated after Grau employed gang leaders as police officers, and Castro soon received a death threat urging him to leave the university; he refused and began carrying a gun and surrounding himself with armed friends.^[24] In later years Castro was accused of attempting gang-related assassinations during this period, including that of UIR member Leonel Gómez, MSR leader Manolo Castro and university policeman Oscar Fernandez Caral, but these charges remain unproven.^[25]

In June 1947, Castro learned of a planned expedition to overthrow the right-wing military junta of Rafael Trujillo, a U.S. ally, in the Dominican Republic. Widely seen as a dictator, Trujillo utilized a violent secret police that routinely murdered and tortured opponents.^[26] Becoming president of the University Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic, Castro decided to join the expedition, led by Dominican exile General Juan Rodríguez.^[27] Launched from Cuba, the mission began on July 29, 1947; it consisted of around 1,200 men, most of whom were exiled Dominicans or Cubans. However, the Dominican and U.S. governments were prepared and soon quashed the rebellion. Grau's government arrested many of those involved before they set sail, but Castro escaped arrest by jumping off of his naval frigate and swimming to shore at night.^[28]

The botched mission furthered Castro's opposition to the Grau administration, and returning to Havana, he took a leading role in the student protests against the killing of a high school pupil by government bodyguards.^[30] The protests, accompanied by a U.S.-imposed crackdown on those considered communists, led to violent clashes between protesters and police in February 1948, in which Castro was badly beaten.^[31] At this point his public speeches took on a distinctively leftist slant, condemning the social and economic inequalities of Cuba, something in contrast to his former public criticisms, which had centered on condemning corruption and U.S. imperialism.^[31]

After a quick visit to Venezuela and Panama, in April 1948 Castro traveled to the city of Bogotá, Colombia where the Pan-American Conference was taking place. Fidel's Cuban student group along with others attempted to organize the 1948 Pan-American Students Conference in opposition, sponsored by the government of Argentine President Juan Perón. Instead, the assassination of popular leftist leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala led to widespread rioting that came to be known as the Bogotazo. Leaving 3000 dead, the riots revolved around clashes between the governing Conservatives – backed by the army – and leftist Liberals with support from socialists. Along with his fellow Cuban visitors, Castro joined the Liberal cause by stealing guns from a police station, but subsequent police investigations concluded that neither Castro nor any of the other Cubans had been involved in the killings.^[32]