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CUBA mourned the death in December of Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, aged 84, former Political Bureau member of the pre-revolutionary Cuban Communist Party and Deputy Prime Minister of Cuba who was responsible for negotiating the island's integration into COMECON during the 1970s.
A tireless revolutionary to the end, Carlos attended the whole of the 5th Congress of the Party just weeks before his death, despite failing health.
He was a renowned writer and journalist and economist as well as the strategist of the Party who was sent to the mountains to talk to Fidel during the insurrectionary war. His diplomacy at that time healed relations between the Communists and Fidels July 26th Movement and forged a unity which saw the two organisations combine to overthrow Batista.
Born in 1913, he struggled as a student against the Machado dictatorship joining the Communist party when it was founded in 1933. An outstanding scholar, he won the national prize for the being the best in his year.
In 1939 he became a member of the National Committee of the Communist Revolutionary Union and subsequently of the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), until the latter was integrated with the other revolutionary forces in 1960.
As editor-in-chief of Hoy newspaper, in the early years of the Revolution, he made outstanding contributions to the education and mobilisation of the people, in addition to the long hours he spent on the university reform and the creation and direction of its Economics Faculty, where he also gave memorable lectures.
He was president of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform, minister president of the National Commission for Economic and Scientific and Technical Co-operation, and as Cuba's permanent representative on the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.
As Deputy Prime Minister and a member of the Party leadership, he guided the country's foreign policy and brilliantly represented Cuba in numerous international events. A tireless promoter of unity among revolutionaries, he actively participated in the integration of all forces and occupied important positions in the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba from its formation.
Speaking at his funeral, National Assempbly President, Ricardo Alarcon said: "Carlos Rafael has been and is what he wanted to be: a militant, a communist, an exemplary revolutionary. Those who fight all their lives never stop fighting and never stop living."