Raúl Roa García

Writer, polemicist, professor, politician and diplomat, since adolescence he was linked to the country's revolutionary movements, first against the Machado tyranny and later against the Batista regime. He suffered imprisonment on more than one occasion and was even forced into exile.

In international forums he defended the just causes of our peoples of America and the entire world. For his outstanding work on this front, the people called him with admiration and affection the "Minister of Dignity." He is responsible for the selection of the book "Pluma en Ristre" by Pablo de la Torriente Brau and the compilation of "Con la pluma y el Machete" by Ramón Roa. Among his most important books are "Retorno a la alborada," "Aventuras, venturas y desventuras de un mambí" and "Revolución del 30 se fue a bolina."

Grandson of lieutenant colonel Ramón Roa. He completed his primary and secondary studies in his native city. In 1925 he entered the School of Law at the University of Havana. He became involved with the Student Revolutionary Movement organized and directed by Julio Antonio Mella since 1923. He confronted the reactionary regime of Gerardo Machado.

Professor in 1927 at the Popular University "José Martí," which was directed by Rubén Martínez Villena at that time. He was a member of the Anti-imperialist League of Cuba. Teaching assistant in the Chair of Sociology (1928-1929) and professor of social doctrines at the Private School of Law (1929).

He participated in the activities of the student group that maintained protest in the militarily occupied university grounds, a protest that culminated in the events of September 30, 1930, of which he was not only a protagonist but also a chronicler.

Founder of the University Student Directory (1930) and the Left Wing Students (1931), whose Central Committee he was part of. Member of the Organizing Committee of the failed national tribute to Enrique José Varona.

He suffered imprisonment (1931-1933) in the Castle of the Prince, in La Cabaña and in the prison of Isle of Pines. Upon the fall of the Machado tyranny in August 1933, he was a member of the mixed university purge commission and a student delegate to the Commission of Statutes of the University of Havana. He spoke on behalf of university students at the funeral of Enrique José Varona. Doctor of Civil Law and Public Law (1934).

His participation in the revolutionary general strike against the emerging military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1935) forced him into exile. In the United States he pursued postgraduate studies at Columbia University and at the New School for Social Research in New York.

He created the Cuban Revolutionary Anti-imperialist Organization (ORCA), which he represented at the United Front conference held in Miami in 1936. Upon his return to Cuba he continued his revolutionary work and contributed to the struggle in defense of the Spanish Republic.

Member of the organizing committee of a Revolutionary Democratic Party and Professor of Sociology at the Free School of Havana (1939). Full professor of History of Social Doctrines and Social Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Law at the University of Havana, of which he was vice-dean and later dean.

Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation to study the foundations and economic-political-social projections of the New Deal (1945-1946). Director of Culture of the Ministry of Education (1948). Member of the national commission for the study of postwar problems, of the Cuban Alliance for a Free World, of the Codifying Commission of Labor Law, of the Institute for Studies in Social Psychology and Public Opinion, of the Cuban Association for Freedom of Culture.

Delegate from the University of Havana to the I American Municipal Historical Congress (1944), to the International Conference of Universities in Amsterdam (1947), to the Conference of Latin American Universities in Santiago de Chile (1952) and to the VI Congress of Ibero-American Literature held in Mexico (1952).

He was a Delegate of Cuba to the UNESCO General Assembly (Paris, 1951). He received the Manuel Sanguily Award (1947), the Justo de Lara Award (1956-1957), the National Journalism Award "Juan Gualberto Gómez" (1956).

When Batista's military coup occurred in March 1952, he was forced into exile again. In Mexico, he was an extraordinary professor at the University of Nuevo León and director of the magazine Humanismo. His essays and literary and journalistic articles, scattered in magazines and newspapers of Cuba and other Latin American countries, have been collected in books. He collaborated in the literary supplement of the Diario de la Marina, in the magazines Orto, El Fígaro, Social, Revista de Avance, América Libre, Universidad de la Habana, Bohemia, Índice, Baraguá, Mediodía; Repertorio Americano (Costa Rica), Revista de las Indias (Colombia), Ruta and Cuadernos Americanos (Mexico) and Claridad (Buenos Aires); in the newspapers Línea, Alma Mater, El Mundo, Ahora, El País, Pueblo. He returned to Cuba when the Revolution triumphed.

He represented Cuba as ambassador to the OAS. Since 1959 he was minister of foreign relations of the Revolutionary Government, whose foreign policy he defended before the UN and at international conferences.

He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. He is the author of the work "Una semilla en un surco de fuego," which served as a prologue to the edition of La pupila insomne (1936), by Rubén Martínez Villena. He made the selection of the book Pluma en ristre (1949), by Pablo de la Torriente Brau, as well as the compilation, prologue and notes of Con la pluma y el machete (1950), by Ramón Roa.

Active Bibliography: Open Letter to Raúl Maestri. Havana, 1933. /Reaction versus Revolution. Polemic on Revolutionary Minorities. Manzanillo (Oriente), Editorial El Arte, 1933. /The Revolutionary Day of September 30. Havana, Cultural, 1934. /Subversive Buffoonery [Various Works]. "Initial Drink," by Pablo de la Torriente Brau. "End of the Party," by Aureliano Sánchez Arango. Havana, Cultural, 1935. /Martí and Fascism. Havana, Úcar, García, 1937. /Pablo de la Torriente Brau and the Spanish Revolution. Havana, Empresa Editora de Publicaciones, 1937. /José Martí and the American Destiny. Havana, Imp. and Paper of Rambla Bouza, 1938. /Calling, Word and Example of José Gaos. Havana, Publications of the University of Havana Magazine, 1939. /My Oppositions. "Valuation" by Emilio F. Camus. Havana, Editorial Alfa, 1941. /Program of History of Social Doctrines. Havana, University of Havana. Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Law, 1944. /Don Fernando and Don Francisco. Lecture read at the Lyceum on August 12, 1949. Havana, Editorial Lex, 1949. /History of Social Doctrines. Vol. 1. Havana, Imp. of the University of Havana, 1949. /Rómulo Betancourt; the Fighter [Havana, 1949?]. /15 Years Later. Havana, Editorial Librería Selecta, 1950. /South Wind [Works and Articles]. Havana, Editorial Selecta, 1953. /Variations on the Spirit of Our Time. Monterrey (Mexico), Publications of D.A.S.U., 1954. /Cuba Responds to the Note of the USA, in Defense of National Sovereignty. State Department. Public Relations Dept. [Havana, Graphic Workshops of the State Department, 1959]. /Speech by Dr. Raúl Roa, Minister of State of Cuba, delivered at the General Assembly of the United Nations [Havana, State Department, 1959]. /Standing. Havana, Central University of Las Villas, 1959. /Cuba's Position. Note that the Minister of State addressed to the American Ambassador accredited to the Revolutionary Government in response to another from that Government. Panama, Embassy of the Republic of Cuba in Panama, 1959. /Social Problems. Havana, University of Havana. Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Law. Institute of Public Administration, 1959. /Cuba's Response to the Note of the United States of America. Santiago de Cuba, University of Oriente. Dept. of Extension and Cultural Relations, 1959. /In Defense of National Sovereignty. Havana, State Department. Public Relations Dept., 1959. /Cuba Denounces Yankee Patrols in the Caribbean as an Imperialist Interventionist Activity. Letter from Cuba's Minister of Foreign Relations to the Secretary General of the United Nations Organization [Havana], National Printing of Cuba, 1960. /Cuba is Right. Text of the speech delivered before the UN Security Council. San José (Costa Rica), Society of Friends of the Cuban Revolution of Costa Rica, 1960. /Cuba at the UN. Speech by the Minister of Foreign Relations of the Revolutionary Government [...] at the General Assembly and at the Security Council. [Havana] National Printing of Cuba, 1961. /Being and Becoming of Antonio Maceo. Havana, Ministry of Foreign Relations, 1962. /Return to the Dawn [Chronicles and Essays]. Havana, Central University of Las Villas, 1964. 2 vols. /Skirmish on the Eve and Other Creatures (essays). "Brief Preface," by Samuel Feijóo. Havana, University Press, Central University of Las Villas, 1966. /The Revolution of the 30 Went to Bolina. Havana, Institute of the Book, 1969. /Cuba Responds to the OAS Document on the Tricontinental. Havana, Ministry of Foreign Relations. Information Directorate [196-]. /Adventures, Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Mambí. Havana, Institute of the Book. Publishing of Social Sciences, 1970; Havana, Institute of the Book. Huracán Eds., 1970; Mexico, Siglo Veintiuno, editores [1970]. /Evocation of Pablo Lafargue. Havana, Cuban Institute of the Book, 1973 (Notebooks of History of Public Health, 58. Organisms). /Chile in the International Panorama (speech delivered on October 1, 1973 at the XXVIII General Assembly of the United Nations). Havana, Cuban Institute of the Book. Publishing of Social Sciences, 1974. /The Fire of the Seed in the Furrow (biography), 1982.

Passive Bibliography: Aguirre, Mirta. "Return to the Dawn," in Cuba Socialista. Havana, 4 (33): 138-142, May, 1964. /Amat, Víctor. "The Revolutionary Day of September 30," in Ahora. Havana, 2 (325): 4, Sep. 4, 1933. /Augier, Ángel. "Raúl Roa in the Dawn of Cuba," in Bohemia. Havana, 56 (15): 82, 83, 90, Apr. 10, 1964; "Work of Meditations and Combat: Skirmish on the Eve," in El Mundo del Domingo. Supplement to the newspaper El Mundo. Havana, 3, Apr. 2, 1967. /Bueno, Salvador. "Raúl Roa Writer," in Bohemia. Havana, 62 (22): 4-15, May 29, 1970. /Córdoba, Federico de. "Adventures, Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Mambí" in Bohemia. Havana, 62 (23): 20-21, Jun. 5, 1970. /Darias, Agileo. "The Voice of Others. The September 30 Exposed by Raúl Roa," in Ahora. Havana, 2 (338): 4, Aug. 27, 1934. /Fernández Retamar, Roberto. "Dawn of Truth," in Bohemia. Havana, 56 (51): 20-22, Dec. 15, 1964. /García Pons, César. "A Book by Raúl Roa," in Ahora. Havana, 2 (339): 4, Aug. 18, 1934. /Gavrikov, Yuri Pavlev. "The Book of a Generation," in Bohemia. Havana, 56 (39): 80-81, Sept. 25, 1964. / González, Manuel Pedro. "Raúl Roa-Ideology and Style," in Cuadernos Americanos. Mexico, D.F., 27, 96 (1): 75-94, Jan.-Feb., 1968. /M[arinello] V[idaurreta] J[uan]. "The Revolutionary Day of September 30, by Raúl Roa" in Masas. Havana, 1 (5): 24, Sep., 1934. /Morales, Salvador. "Critique. The Peripeties of a Mambí," in El Caimán Barbudo. Havana, 2nd epoch (40): 31, 1970. /[Nadeau, Maurice]. "Writers of Cuba," in Les Lettres Nouvelles. Special Issue. Paris: 160-164, Dec. 1967-Jan. 1968. /Navarro Luna, Manuel. "A Book by Raúl Roa. The Revolutionary Day of September 30," in Ahora. Havana, 3 (454): 2, 14, Feb. 8, 1935. /Portuondo, José Antonio. "Regarding Raúl Roa," in Índice. Havana, 2nd epoch, 2 (10): 9-10, Oct., 1937. /Suárez Solís. Rafael. "In Parentheses. The Revolutionary Day of September 30," in Ahora. Havana, 2 (296): 1, 6, Aug. 5, 1934.

Source: National Institute of International Relations, Cuba