Blas Roca

Blas Roca 

(pseudonym of Francisco Wilfredo Calderio). Born July 24, 1908, in Mansanillo, Oriente Province. Figure in the Cuban workers’ movement.

In 1929, Blas Roca began to participate in the professional movement and joined the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC). In 1930 he was the committee secretary of the CPC of Oriente Province. In 1933 he became secretary of the CPC of the city of Havana. In that year he also became a member of the Central Committee, Politburo, and Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPC. From 1934 to 1961 he was general secretary of the Communist Party (from 1944 to 1961, the People’s Socialist Party). From 1961 he occupied leadership posts in the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations and after that, in the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution. Since October 1965 he has been a member of the Central Committee and of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPC and chairman of the Constitutional Commission of the Central Committee of the CPC. He is the author of several theoretical and political works, including Foundations of Socialism in Cuba (1943; Russian translation, 1961).