Involved in agitation against the regime of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, Bravo played a role in planning the 1950 coup d'etat that ousted the dictator. Emerging as the leader of the militant tendency of the PCV, he encouraged the party to resist the government of Rómulo Betancourt and decamped to the hills to organise armed guerrilla resistance. He was arrested in 1961 but escaped custody the following year and in his home state established the José Leonardo Chirino Front along the lines of the movement that had successfully taken control in Cuba.