Portal:Communism/Selected biography/47

Blas Roca Calderio (24 July 1908 – 25 April 1987) was the First President of the National Assembly of People's Power in Cuba, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba, editor of the communist newspaper 'Hoy', and influential member of Castro's government. Blas Roca, a leading theoretician of the Cuban Revolution who led Cuba's prerevolutionary Communist Party, 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.

1929, was elected Secretary General of the Union of Shoemakers of Manzanillo. In August 1931 he was co-opted to the Central Committee of the Communist Party and head of his organization in Oriente Province. During this stage displayed a wide journalistic activity in the labour press and led the popular protests that culminated in the historic general strike of August 1933, which overthrew the Machado dictatorship.