Juan Marinello Vidaurreta

Cuban politician and notable intellectual. Doctor of Civil Law and Public Law, poet and brilliant essayist. He participated in the Protest of the Thirteen, was a member of the Minorista Group and the Movement of Veterans and Patriots.

He fought against the governments of Alfredo Zayas, Gerardo Machado and Carlos Mendieta, for which he suffered imprisonment and exile. A communist activist from a young age, he presided over the Revolutionary Union Party and the Popular Socialist Party. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Assembly of 1940, a representative to the Chamber, Senator of the Republic, vice president of the Senate and presidential candidate in the 1948 elections.

After the coup d'état of March 10, 1952, his activities against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista led to his imprisonment on several occasions.

Following the triumph of the Revolution, he was Rector of the University of Havana, ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and vice president of the National Assembly of People's Power. He belonged to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba from its founding in 1965 until his death.

He was born in Jicotea, municipality of Ranchuelo. His parents were Felio Marinello Fábregas, Spanish, and Juana Vidaurreta y del Valle, Cuban.

He completed his primary studies in Santa Clara, and later in Catalonia, Spain, his father's homeland. He returns to Cuba and completes his secondary studies at the Santa Clara Institute of Secondary Education. He later graduated in Law from the University of Havana.

He completed his primary and secondary studies in the city of Santa Clara. He then went to the University of Havana, where he obtained the degrees of doctor in Civil Law as an eminent student, in Public Law and in Philosophy and Letters. In early 1920 he furthered his studies at the Central University of Madrid.

Upon his return he collaborated with student leader Julio Antonio Mella in the University Reform movement, and together with him and Rubén Martínez Villena in the creation of the Popular University "José Martí".

He joined the intellectual youth vanguard that emerged into public life between the 1920s and 1930s, a period that he called the critical decade, in which important events occurred, including the founding of the National Workers' Confederation of Cuba and the Communist Party.

From his student days in Havana he was involved with the social and political struggles of the country, in the early twenties. He participated in the Protest of the Thirteen against the government of Alfredo Zayas, founded with Rubén Martínez Villena the Phalanx of Cuban Action, and was part of the Executive Committee of the Movement of Veterans and Patriots. Together with Mella and Villena he founded the magazine Venezuela Libre, he was also a founder of the Hispanic Cuban Institution of Culture and the Magazine of Advance. He was a member of the Minorista Group and the Economic Society of Friends of the Country.

He was a tireless fighter against the tyranny of Machado, a member of the Communist Party, suffered persecution and imprisonment, and ultimately emigrated to Mexico. Upon his return to Cuba in 1933, he brought the ashes of Julio Antonio Mella.

He presided over the Revolutionary Union Party, and in September 1938 the Communist Revolutionary Union Party, and was ratified in that position when the organization became known as the Popular Socialist Party, in 1944, which he maintained until the creation of the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI), in 1961. He was a Delegate to the Constitutional Assembly of 1940, Representative to the Chamber in 1942 and Senator in the period 1944-1948.

He was one of the founders of the World Peace Council. Following the triumph of the Revolution he was appointed Rector of the University of Havana, in 1963 he was appointed permanent delegate of Cuba to UNESCO, and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba since its establishment in 1965. Elected Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power in 1976, and member of the Council of State.

In the last years of his life he was president in Cuba of the Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of Peoples and the Cuban-Mexican Society of Cultural Relations, as well as member of the Executive Committee of UNESCO. During his fruitful life he always carried out intense intellectual work, founded and collaborated with multiple national and foreign publications.

He died in Havana on March 27, 1977.