Blas Roca
| Blas Roca Calderio | |
|---|---|
 |
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| President of the National Assembly of People's Power | |
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In office 2 December 1976 – 1981 |
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| Vice President | Raúl Roa García |
| Preceded by | None |
| Succeeded by | Flavio Bravo Pardo |
| General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Popular Socialist Party | |
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In office December 1933 – 24 June 1961 |
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| Preceded by | Jorge Vivo |
| Succeeded by | Fidel Castro |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 24 July 1908 Manzanillo, Cuba |
| Died | 25 April 1987 (aged 78) |
| Political party | Popular Socialist Party, Communist Party of Cuba |
| Profession | Lawyer |
Blas Roca Calderio (24 July 1908 – 25 April 1987) was a Cuban politician and Marxist theorist who served as President of the National Assembly of People's Power in Cuba from 1976 to 1981. He was also head of the pre-1959 revolution Communist Party of Cuba for 28 years and editor of the communist newspaper Hoy. He was a signatory of the Cuban Constitution of 1940 and chaired the committee that wrote the country's first socialist constitution in 1976.
Blas Roca, born Francisco Calderio in Manzanillo, Cuba, a leading theoretician of the Cuban Revolution who led Cuba's pre-revolutionary Communist Party for 28 years, left school at the age of 11 and began shining shoes to help support his poor family. He changed his name to Roca, meaning 'rock', after he joined the Communist Party in 1929.
In 1929, he was elected Secretary General of the Union of Shoemakers of Manzanillo. In August 1931 he was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party and appointed head of his organization in the East. During this stage he displayed a wide journalistic activity in the labor press and led popular protests that culminated in the historic general strike of August 1933, which overthrew the Machado dictatorship.
Blas had grown remarkably in a few years as result of his abilities and participation in intensive popular and workers' struggles. He was called to the capital at a time the party needed a strong guiding direction, and replaced the party leader and poet Rubén Martínez Villena, who would make his last public appearance in September 1933 at the burial of fellow communist Julio Antonio Mella's ashes. Thus, at 26 years of age, Blas had become the leader of the Cuban Communists and would remain so until the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. He is credited for shifting the party from an ultra left sect to an influential national organization.
In August 1935, Blas Roca attended the 7th Congress of the Communist International in Moscow, where Georgi Dimitrov outlined what became the new popular front strategy. Roca was instrumental in adapting the popular front to Cuban conditions. Originally identifying Fulgencio Batista with fascism, in 1938 at the Party's Tenth Plenary Assembly in Havana Blas Roca told the party leaders that circumstances had changed and Batista "ceased to be the leading figure in the reactionary camp." According to K.S. Karol (Guerrillas in Power), Blas explained the threat of an economic and political crisis had split the Cuban Right into two camps: the fascists, who favored brute force to solve the crisis on the backs of the people, and the Batista forces who favored reforms and dialogue.
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