Antonio Guiteras

Antonio Guiteras y Holmes (22 November 1906 – 8 May 1935) was a leading politician in Cuba during the 1930s.

Biography He was born 22 November 1906 in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a proponent of revolutionary socialism and participated in the radical government installed after the overthrow of the autocratic right wing Cuban President Gerardo Machado y Morales in 1933. In 1932, Guiteras established the Unión Revolucionaria.

Guiteras's political beliefs were nurtured in the volatile political climate of the 1920s. He first became widely known as a student leader and associate of Julio Antonio Mella, a young Communist revolutionary. He believed that the liberation of the people would be achieved through violent confrontation with the established authorities; he did not hold firm to the ideal of democracy. Antonio Guiteras was named Minister of the Interior under President Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín. Many reforms were introduced, including a minimum wage, minimum labour regulations, academic freedom, and nationalisation of important sectors of the economy. After the "government of 100 days", Guiteras became even more radical and founded Joven Cuba, a proletarian political organisation inspired by anti-capitalism and the nationalism of José Martí.

In his account Cuba: A New History, the leftist historian Richard Gott summarizes Guiteras's beliefs and methods:

He died in Matanzas, Cuba: Guiteras and several of his conspirators died in a gun battle with Batista's army on May 8, 1935, at the abandoned Spanish Fort Morrillo in the Valley of Matanzas. Guiteras was waiting there for a boat that was to take him and his companions across to México, where he hoped to continue his work for the people of Cuba.