Joined the Cuban Communist Party in 1935 and worked for their newspaper Hoy. He later joined Joven Cuba revolutionary organization. Masferrer and three other Joven Cuba members were arrested on Nov. 9, 1936, for plotting to assassinate Col. José Pedraza, chief of the National Police. After his release, Masferrer enrolled in June 1937 in the International Brigades fighting for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. He achieved the rank of major, in charge of the 401 Battalion, 101 Brigade, 46 Division, 5th Corps of the Ebro Army. Masferrer was wounded in action twice. After returning to Cuba in 1939, he became assistant editor of Hoy and graduated from the University of Havana Law School in 1945 with the Dolz Award, given to the most studious member of the class. Masferrer and a group of Cuban Communists who sided with Earl Browder during the Duclos incident were expelled from the party on Aug. 22, 1945 for advocating rapprochement with the U. S. He then founded the weekly magazine Tiempo en Cuba to combat the Stalinists. Masferrer married Lucila Montero, who gave birth to Alejandro and Liudmila. In 1946 he was an English teacher at Marianao High School. Masferrer was elected Republican Party Representative from Oriente province on June 1, 1948. He was elected in 1954 as Auténtico Party Senator from Oriente. During the Sierra Maestra guerrilla campaign (1956-1958), he created the Anti-Communist Peasant Militia, dubbed the "Tigers of Masferrer." Masferrer fled Cuba when Castro seized power on Jan. 1, 1959, in his converted PT boat, receiving asylum in the U. S. He and a group of followers were arrested in Florida on Jan. 2, 1967, for plotting with Haitian exiles to overthrow the Duvalier dictatorship. Masferrer served two years in federal prison, being released on parole on Dec. 4, 1972. He owned a security firm in Miami and published the weekly tabloid Libertad. Masferrer was blown to bits by a bomb under his car on Oct. 31, 1975.