Carlos Rafael Rodríguez Rodríguez was a Cuban politician, economist, diplomat, journalist, and revolutionary, born on May 23, 1913. He dedicated his life to fighting for his ideals and building socialism, holding various government positions and serving as a leader of the Communist Party of Cuba.
In his 84 years, Carlos Rafael, as he was popularly known, was a founding member of the Popular Socialist Party (PSP) and led the party's clandestine struggle against the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista. In June 1958, he was appointed the PSP's representative to Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz in the Sierra Maestra mountains.
He returned to Havana two months later to coordinate the support his party members would provide to the rebel troops planning an invasion of western Cuba, led by guerrilla commanders Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. He returned to the Sierra Maestra where he remained during the final months of the insurrection. He was a member of the National Executive Bureau of the PSP until its dissolution in 1960, and was director of the party's newspaper, Noticias de Hoy, from 1959 to 1962.
After the revolutionary triumph of January 1, 1959, he was a member of the National Directorate of the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI) and later of the National Directorate of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba (PURS), between 1960 and 1965. In the government, he held the important position of President of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA) between 1963 and 1965. He was a member of the Governing Council of Socialist Cuba between 1961 and 1967. He served as Minister-President of the National Commission for Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation from 1965 to 1976 and was Cuba's Permanent Representative to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) from July 1972.He was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs from November 1972 to December 1976 and was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) from its creation in October 1965, and of its Secretariat from 1965 to 1976. At the First Congress of the PCC (December 1975), he was elected to the Central Committee and, by its decision, to its Political Bureau and Secretariat.
On November 2, 1976, he was elected by the Cienfuegos Assembly as a deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power (ANPP). On December 3, 1976, the ANPP elected him Vice President of the Council of State and Vice President of the Council of Ministers.
As a diplomat, he played a significant role in the delicate unofficial contacts that took place between the governments of Cuba and the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. In November 1981, amidst the aggressive anti-Cuban campaign of the Ronald Reagan administration, he held a secret meeting in Mexico with Secretary of State Alexander Haig, where he reaffirmed Cuba's principled position on issues related to aiding revolutionary movements in Central America and Africa.
Carlos Rafael was born in Cienfuegos, where he completed his primary and secondary education. At the age of 17, he joined the struggle waged by the University Student Directorate in Cienfuegos against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado, for which he was imprisoned in 1931. He enrolled at the University of Havana and completed two degrees in just four years, graduating first in both. He was one of the founders of the "Ariel" literary group and the magazine "Segur" (1934), and he graduated with a doctorate in Civil Law and in Political, Social, and Economic Sciences from the University of Havana in 1939. He was a leader of the University Strike Committee (1935); assistant editor of the weekly "Resumen," founded by the Communist Party of Cuba and shut down by the government in 1935; a member of the Editorial Board of the magazine "Universidad de la Habana" (1935); and co-founder, with Nicolás Guillén, José Antonio Portuondo, Ángel Augier, and other leftist writers, of the magazine "Mediodía" (1936). He was a member of the Constitutional Studies Commission of the National Directorate of the Communist Party and founded the publishing house "Páginas" with Juan Marinello and Ángel Augier.
He died on December 8, 1997, in Havana, Cuba, at the age of 84, having received numerous national and international decorations throughout his life. His funeral took place on December 9 at the Pantheon of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in the Colón Cemetery in Havana, where he was accompanied by Fidel and Raúl Castro, along with the top leadership of the Revolution and thousands of Havana residents who came to pay their last respects.