Luis Díaz Soto

Cuban doctor, activist of the Communist Party of Cuba. He practiced medicine with a human sense based on the ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism.

He was born in the locality of Pedro Betancourt belonging to the province of Matanzas in Cuba. From a middle-class family, his father was a postal administrator and his mother was a primary school teacher.

He attended the school of the Centro de Dependientes de La Habana, where he completed his early grades and later attended Colegio de Belén until entering high school, whose studies he pursued at the Instituto de La Habana, where he graduated with a degree in Letters and Sciences in 1922. That same year he entered the Faculty of Medicine of the University of La Habana, where he was an internal student at the "Calixto García" Hospital. He was an internal student at the Fortún-Souza Clinic during the years 1925 and 1926.

Once graduated in 1929, he was an internal doctor at the Fortún-Souza Clinic during the years 1930 and 1932. In this clinic he performed various duties; as an anesthetist, surgical assistant, later as a specialist in heart and vascular diseases and also in nutritional diseases.

When the Clinical Institute of La Habana was founded in 1932, he was an internal doctor, night house visit physician, specialist in Digestive Diseases, and successively worked in various departments: metabolism, drainage, laboratory, X-rays. He was in charge of organizing the Pharmacy Department of the Institution from both the administrative and technical aspects.

He worked as a doctor for the Municipal Health Services of La Habana (emergency care center), from December 1933 to March 1935, and was expelled from his position for participating in the general strike that year. He became involved in medical struggles in Cuba, initiated in the thirties.

He participated in the organization of the Medical Federation of Cuba and along with José Elias Borges, in the medical strike of 1934. He assumed the direction of the Benevolent Center of Workers of Cuba in 1940.

In June 1937 he was part of a group of Cuban fighters who participated in the war of the Spanish people against fascism. He was appointed chief surgeon of the Lincoln-Washington American battalion, with the rank of lieutenant, on September 17, 1937. For demonstrating exemplary and heroic behavior he was promoted to captain on March 29, 1938. He served on the fronts of Teruel, Belchite, Brunete, and others, taking part in military operations.

During the war in Spain he acquired experience in military medical organization. Upon returning from Spain he rejoined the activities of the Communist Party and when the Communist Revolutionary Union Party was constituted, he was appointed member of the Executive Committee, and by the same party, candidate as Delegate to the Constituent Assembly. More than once he was taken to the BRAC for communist activities, being registered in the SIM with No. 001929.

From a very young age he was interested in books and Cuban topics and in authors who collected data relating to Cuba's historical past. He visited bookstores periodically and enjoyed old editions that contained little-known information. He set out to write the History of Medicine in Cuba, for which purpose he managed to gather a large amount of data. Political and professional responsibilities did not allow him to achieve this goal.

Death
Gravely ill in his final years, he lived under police pressure in a semi-clandestine existence, always aware of events and with great desire to achieve revolutionary triumph. He died on November 23, 1958.