Student leader Julio Antonio Mella

Havana, March 25 (RHC) Cuba evokes the legacy of leader Julio Antonio Mella, founder of the Federation of University Students (FEU), on commemorating today the 120th anniversary of his birth.

Mella is considered one of the emblematic figures in the revolutionary process in the Caribbean nation during the first half of the 20th century. Before he was 20 years old, he had already founded the magazine Alma Mater (1922-1923) in which he made a declaration of principles that would accompany him until his death: confronting the interference of the United States on the island.

In his short existence he developed a feverish political and revolutionary activity that made him a leader of international stature.

In 1924 he joined the Communist Association of Havana and from there he carried out very active work among the proletariat.

Together with other revolutionaries, such as Rubén Martínez Villena, he gave life to the José Martí Popular University (1923), a project that allowed education to be brought to the humblest workers. He also founded the Cuban Section of the Anti-Imperialist League of the Americas, in 1925.

The FEU, created on December 20, 1922, was another of its defense spaces for the country, and from there it contributed to organizing the student body in order to reform the university, but it also joined forces with the labor movement to fight against the tyranny of Gerardo Machado (1925-1933).

The radicalization of his thought and the identification with communist ideas led him to form part of the group that on August 16, 1925, constituted the first Communist Party of Cuba, a militancy he defended until death.

In 1926 he was expelled from the University for his revolutionary actions and went on a hunger strike, then had to go into exile in Mexico.

Mella attended the 1927 Congress against Colonial Oppression in Brussels, Belgium and later visited the Soviet Union as a delegate to the Fourth International Red Trade Union Congress.

He was two months short of his 26th birthday when, on orders from Machado, his assassins shot him dead on January 10, 1929, in Mexico.

The historic leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, considered him "the Cuban who did the most in less time." (Source: Prensa Latina)