Diaz-Canel recalls legacy of important Cuban poet and revolutionary

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 16 (ACN) Miguel Diaz-Canel, first secretary of the Party's Central Committee and president of the country, recalled today the life and work of Cuban poet and revolutionary Ruben Martinez Villena, on the occasion of the 89th anniversary of his death.

On Twitter, the president recalled that after the death of the outstanding intellectual, at the early age of 35, his mortal remains were watched over at the Palacio de los Torcedores, and the funeral procession became a great demonstration of popular mourning.
The head of state also highlighted that Raul Roa, revolutionary intellectual known as the Foreign Minister of Dignity, defined Villena as the highest and noblest hope of the Cuban youth.

Ruben Martinez Villena (December 20, 1899 - January 16, 1934) was 23 years old when he started in the political struggles, as one of the protagonists of the Protesta de los Trece (1923), organized by a group of young intellectuals who broke into an official act presided by a corrupt official of the government of the day, and imputed his lack of moral authority.

Villena, by then graduated in Law at the University of Havana, was beginning a literary trajectory and was beginning to be recognized as one of the most important poets of his generation, with poems such as La pupila insomne, El gigante, Insuficiencia de la escala y el iris, and El anhelo inutil.

In a few years his revolutionary thinking was radicalized and during the struggle against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado he was, along with Julio Antonio Mella, one of the most prominent leaders of the communist movement.

He suffered from tuberculosis, and despite his delicate health condition, he led the general strike of August 1933 that contributed to the defeat of Machado's tyranny.

During the last months of his life, he dedicated himself from the hospital to guide meetings of the Communist Party and to organize the 4th National Workers' Congress of Trade Union Unity, during whose sessions he died.