Blas Roca: A Communist's role in Black Civil Rights in Cuba

While the Cuban Communist Party was founded in 1925, and this year marks its 100 years of struggle, this member of the Communist International was not legalized in Cuba until the putsch of 1937. Like its sister Party in the US, the Communist Party USA, the Cuban party - eventually known as the Partido Socialista Popular - was a unique force confronting white racism as a major task of its work.

Unique, of course, outside of Black radical forces which existed in both Cuba and the US long before white, mainstream society embraced this cause.

In his 1943 groundbreaking book, Los Fundamentos del Socialismo en Cuba, Blas Roca Calderio, the young militant trades-union organizer and general-secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, dedicated a specific chapter to anti-Black racism on the island and the importance of confronting it, noting "Blacks are discriminated against socially, economically, politically, and culturally. Racial discrimination is advocated by capitalists and landowners as a means of dividing the people and keeping them in slavery."

Roca, described in various sources as either "mulatto" or a "negro," was a young, successful labor organizer from Manzanillo who rose quickly in the Party and became its general secretary in 1933. He was succeeded in that role by Fidel Castro in 1961.

In an analysis of Roca's anti-racist work, A Nation or All, Alejandro de la Fuente writes this "In 'The Foundations of Socialism', Blas continues to delve into this problem, and raises important considerations aimed at overcoming racial prejudices that retain current value."

Early in his tenure as general secretary and taking a cue from the Communist International directives of the early 1930's, the Party and Roca advocated a Black Belt theory similar to the one advocated by the US Party. In the US, much of the Deep South was designated as a place for Black workers. In Cuba, Oriente Province, at the far east of the island, was so designated. But, as with the US Party, this proposal was rejected in 1935 after the 7th Congress of the Communist International in Moscow, where Georgi Dimitrov outlined what became the Popular Front strategy.

In fact, in 1944, the Party changed its name to Partido Socialista Popular and its youth wing to Juventud Socalista. Among the young recruits to Juventud Socialista was Raul Castro, not his older brother.

Under Roca's leadership, the Party's membership grew into the tens of thousands, controlled the main labor unions, like the Federation of Cuban Workers [CTC], a newspaper, Hoy, and a radio station, Mil Diez [Radio 1010].

Furthermore, according to Fabio Grobart's "Una emulacion de tipo especial," Fundamentos 2, November 1942, Black Cubans made up 35% of the new recruits to Cuba's communist party by that year, and 40% of the Party's affiliates by 1946.

Grobart was a Polish-born Marxist-Leninist who moved to Cuba in the early 1920s and is one of the founders of the Party. Anti-communist sources indicate he recruited a young Fidel Castro in 1948, but this is doubtful.

Among Roca's writings on the subject of race in Cuba are the following:

* "Penas y educacion contra la discriminacion racial," Fundamentos 4, May 1944

* "Interesan del Congreso," Noticias de Hoy, October 1944

* "El decreto sobre la discriminacion racial y la masas," Hoy, November 17, 1951

In "El decreto sobre la discriminacion racial y la masas," Roca takes to task in a front-page missive the hypocrisy of those who pretend to want racial justice but are nowhere to be seen when several Black militants are assassinated or cosigned the elimination of Black workers from labor leadership positions of unions that are "80% Black."

This growth in the Party's membership overall, but especially the growth of Black comrades, alarmed US authorities, which began surveillance of the Cuban Party. It authored "Report Concerning the Development of the Communist Party of Cuba in August 1946 and began monitoring in particular its Black members. As reported by Carol Rosenberg in the Miami-Herald, in 2004, this surveillance included establishing a file on a young Radio 1010 singer named Celia Cruz who had reportedly been recruited by Roca and joined the Party in the early 1940's.

In Roca's "The Cuban Revolution; Report to the Eighth National Congress of the Partido Socialista Popular,"1960, more than a year of the triumph of the Revolution has passed, and he reflects on the past decade and looking to future struggles.

The convention elected Fidel Castro to succeed Roca as general secretary. Roca is elected head of the Cuban parliament. In 1965, the PSP reverted to its original name, the Communist Party of Cuba, which it retains to this day - 100 years later and still fighting for socialism.

Further Reading:

Blas Roca, communist leader and exceptional revolutionary [Radio 26 - Matanzas]

Blas Roca Calderío: “Un hombre de extraordinario talento” [Trabajadores]

Blas Roca Calderío, un pilar de los comunistas cubanos [Granma]

Blas Roca, vocación de revolucionario [Granma]