In October of 1967 Bofill would become a victim of Castro’s rift with Russia. The Cuban Revolution was something of a mixed blessing for the Soviet Union. On the one hand, it represented the first major advance of Communism since the Chinese Revolution —and as the Soviet ideological and strategic struggle with the People’s Republic of China grew more serious— the Soviets became eager to have the Cubans accept their version of socialism rather thatn that of the Chinese. On the other hand, the Cubans confounded the traditional Communist parties in Latin America. Both Castro and "Che" Guevara had little patience with these parties, and at various times withdrew support from Communists and supported their own guerrillas in Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala. However, nowhere in Latin America did Castro’s guerrillas succeed, though the Soviet-sponsored Communist parties did. In 1968, a progressive, leftist military government sympathetic to the Soviets took power in Peru. It initiated land reform and nationalized foreign petroleum holdings. The Peruvian experience, moreover, was soon followed by the victory of Salvador Allende’s leftist popular front in Chile. The Latin American Communist parties feared that the Cuban guerrilla revolutionaries would provoke harsh reactions and jeopardize what they had accomplished. 12 The Soviets, hence, urged the Cubans to be cautious and to work with the existing Communist parties rather that attempt to supplant them. But the Cubans did not heed that advice, and Moscow decided to clamp down on Castro and forced him to conform.

In October of 1967 the Soviet-Cuban trade agreement, upon which the Cuban economy was virtually dependent, was up for renewal. When the Cuban foreign-trade minister arrived in Moscow in October to negotiate renewal of the annual l trade agreement, he was told that the Soviet Union would not increase fuel deliveries by the eight percent the Cubans has requested. Moreover, Moscow declined Cuba’s proposal to convert the annual agreement into a three-year pact and refused to set a date for the signing of the new annual accord. 13

When informed of Moscow’s intransigent position, Castro was furious. He responded with an act of defiance. When addressing the closing session of a week-long International Cultural Congress in Havana on January 12th of 1968, a meeting attended by five hundred top intellectuals from seventy countries, including Jean Paul Sartre, Lord Bertrand Russell, and prominent Argentine novelist Julio Cortaza, Fidel urged the audience to help him define the role of intellectuals in the revolution. At his oratorical best, he appealed to hem to inform the world of the ‘real’ value of the Cuban revolution. Castro concluded his speech by chiding the orthodox Communist parties that "remained completely removed from the struggle against imperialism". He noted the failure of Eastern Bloc countries "to mobilize the masses", in support of Cuba at the time of the Missile Crisis of 1962, contending that their failure to act was directed by Moscow. He further cited the lack of resolve shown by the Soviet Union in the handling of the crisis as evidence of the Kremlin’s failure to meet the challenge of American imperialism, laying the blame on Nikita Khruschev’s policy of co-existence. 14

A little over two week later, on January 25, 1968, Castro followed up his charger by exposing the existence of what he called a "treasonous microfaction" in the Cuban Communist Party. The alleged leader of the group was Anibal Escalante, whom Castro labeled an "old-line" communist with strong ties to the Kremlin. Along with Escalante and thirty-four other people, Ricardo Bofill had been arrested in October 8, 1967. After spending five months at Villa Marista, a detention and interrogation facility in Havana, Bofill was formally charged on January 25, 1968 with "ideological diversionism". He and the microfaction were accused of having plotted to persuade Moscow to suspend all economic aid to Cuba in order to force the ouster of Fidel Castro’s government.

Prominent in the evidence presented against the microfaction was Bofill’s manuscript "Points for a Critical History of the Cuban Revolution". This work, which had been seized by Cuban authorities, outlines the failure of the Soviet economic model, speculated that Castro had driven "Che" Guevara out of Cuba in a power struggle, and severely criticized Castro’s harsh treatment of dissenters. The government’s prosecutors charged, and the court agreed, that Bofill’s manuscript "totally distorted" the history of the Cuban Revolution.16 In the end, Bofill, found guilty of writing and spreading "enemy propaganda", was sentenced to twelve years in Castillo del Morro Prison in Havana. Bofill contends, "I was never part of any conspiracy against the Cuban government. I had nothing to do with any microfaction. Castro simply attached my name to it because it suited his interest". 17

Escalante and his associates may well have been at cross purposes with Castro, arguing that Cuba should conform and align itself with Soviet policy, but that almost certainly, was all that they were guilty of. It is entirely unlikely that Moscow was plotting a coup. While the Soviets were not above staging coup d’etats against allies when it suited their purpose, it is unreasonable to believe that Moscow would have expected that a small group of intellectuals could effect such a coup. In any case, Soviet pressure persuaded Castro to moderate his stance. By late 1968 Castro began to halt his criticism of Moscow and his endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the Brezhnev Doctrine, which asserted the right of the USSR to define the limits of permissible behavior for Communist countries, signaled and end to his friction with the Soviets. 18

During the time he served at Castillo del Morro Prison, Bofill was subjected to a near-starvation diet, bayonet stabbing, and psychological torture which included long periods of dark isolation. He also witnessed torture of fellow prisoners and executions by firing squads. And worst of all, he has said, he worried over the "mental anguish and economic deprivations his family suffered". 19  His emotional turmoil, coupled with the harsh experiences he witnessed, as well as endured, brought Bofill to the brink of what he has called a "mental crisis". He had two options: to allow himself to sink into catatonia, "overwhelmed by skepticism and desperation" or to defend himself against the "brutal actions of his oppressors". 20 He determined to fight back and to fight back with the only weapon at his disposal, words. He managed to smuggle out of prison a long series of letters, which he called his "balitas" (little bullets), addressed to foreign statesmen, among them, England’s Ambassador to Cuba, David Thomas, Mexico’s foreign trade representative, Enrique Buck Flores, Chile’s President, Eduardo Frey, and Chilean presidential candidate, Salvador Allende. In each case he asked the recipient to make some king of response, although he indicated that most such replies would, he realized, have to be indirect. He got no responses, direct or indirect, for quite some time.

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