I entered the University on September 4, 1945. The son of a landowner, I was able to finish sixth grade, and then, having passed seventh grade, I was able to enter a pre-university institute. I was able to come to Havana because my father had the means, and so I earned my bachelor's degree, and so chance brought me to the University[1].

At that university, which I arrived at simply with a rebellious spirit and some basic ideas about justice, I became a revolutionary, a Marxist-Leninist, and acquired the sentiments that, over the years, I have had the privilege of never being tempted, not even in the slightest, to abandon. That's why I dare say I will never abandon them.

(…) And if I tell you that I became a revolutionary at that university, it was because I came into contact with some books. But before I'd read any of those books, I was already questioning capitalist political economy, because it seemed irrational to me even at that time.

–When did you find the left in your university career?

–I once told how, when I arrived at university, people on the left saw me as a strange character, because they said: "Son of a landowner and a graduate of the Bethlehem school, this man must be the most reactionary person in the world." In the early days, as I had done at high school, I devoted myself a lot to sports; but from the very first weeks of my first year, I also began to take an interest in politics, and I took my first steps, not in national politics, but in university politics. I was a candidate for class representative. I was elected—181 votes in favor and 33 against.

I devoted more and more time to this activity. I began by opposing the government candidate in the University Student Federation (FEU). This meant for me countless dangers from the mafia that, as I told you, dominated the University.

The physical pressure and threats were intense. As the feu elections approached—the Law School was decisive—that mob, irritated by my insubordination, banned me from even entering the University. I couldn't return to its facilities.

–And what did he do?

Well, I cried. Yes, I went to a beach to meditate, and at 20, I started to cry. I cried and decided to return, aware that it could mean certain death. And to return armed. Thus began my first and peculiar armed struggle.

At this university, I lived through difficult times, very difficult times, so difficult that it seems a real coincidence that I even survived those university years. I fought very hard battles, with all the necessary persistence and determination, until other years and other times approached.[2]

–Was he a good student?

No, I wasn't a good student. I must start by telling you that I can't present myself to this generation as a good student. (…) The teacher was in my classroom over here, and my mind was over there… thinking about who knows how many things, or mountains, or sports, or any of the other things that boys and girls sometimes think about.

When I arrived at this university at the end of 1945, we were living through one of the worst periods in our country's history, and one of the most disappointing.

So, I spent my first few months at university playing sports, because I wanted to continue practicing them, and I was already getting involved in political activities. But these weren't political activities that had yet transcended the university's boundaries; rather, they were internal ones.

So, I'm running for the Anthropology class as a delegate. That was a special subject because it was a subject in which students could be helped in various ways, with information about practice dates, with notices about lab days and exams, because there were many students who didn't come to the university; they were enrolled but didn't attend (...).

I was alone at the university, completely alone, when suddenly, in that university election process, I found myself facing off against the entire mafia that dominated the university: they controlled the rectorate, they controlled the university police, they controlled the street police, they controlled everything.

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This staircase, to which I never imagined I would return, holds indelible memories of the years when I began to realize our times and our duty. One can acquire knowledge and awareness throughout a lifetime, but never at any other stage of their existence will a person again possess the purity and selflessness with which, as a young person, they face life. At that age, I discovered my true destiny.

Then, upon this university hill fell the power of brute force and the brutality of force, the unconsciousness and corruption applied to our people.

Thanks to the example of those who came before us, to the students shot at the behest of the hordes of so-called Spanish volunteers, many of them born in this land, who offered themselves to the service of the Spanish tyranny, thanks to the Apostle of our independence and the blood shed by tens of thousands of patriots in three wars of independence, we truly had a history that inspired our struggles. We did not deserve to be a colony of an even more powerful empire, which seized our homeland and a good part of our national consciousness, sowing fatalism with the idea that it was impossible to shake off such a powerful yoke.

The Revolution put an end to those horrors, which is why we can meet here[3].

[1] From the book One Hundred Hours with Fidel.

[2] Speech by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, on the occasion of the beginning of the 1995/96 school year and his 50 years of revolutionary life, which began at the Faculty of Law, held in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana, on September 4, 1995.

[3] Message to Cuban university students, September 3, 2010.