Jesús Menéndez, the leader of the Cuban sugar workers, the “General de las Cañas” as the national poet Nicolás Guillén called him, was assassinated on January 22, 1948, by hitmen paid by the landowners and industrial magnates of the time, whom he always opposed.
Although he died in Manzanillo 78 years ago, the communist militant and combative leader in the defense of the sugar workers' interests amassed a rich revolutionary trajectory in his 37 years of life, and his funeral was an impressive demonstration of popular mourning.
In 1932, Menéndez founded the National Union of Sugar Industry Workers (SNOIA), became involved in the radicalization process of the National Confederation of Cuban Workers (CNOC), and in 1934 participated in the Fourth Workers' Congress, also known as the Congress of Trade Union Unity, which established a vertical leadership structure for the Cuban Labor Movement.
In 1936, he founded the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) with Lázaro Peña, and in 1939, by which time he was already the leader of that sector nationwide, he created the National Federation of Sugar Workers. For his work leading the sugar workers, he was appointed delegate to the Constituent Assembly on November 15, 1939, and in 1940, he was elected Representative to the House of Representatives for the Communist Revolutionary Union Party, transforming his work into a constant confrontation with the bourgeoisie and imperialism.
During the 1940s, he was repeatedly re-elected general secretary of the National Federation of Sugar Workers, making a decisive contribution to their unity and organization in defense of their rights and to the formation of their revolutionary consciousness.
In just seven years (1940-1947), thanks to his efforts, a total of $631 million was wrested from the ruling oligarchy for the benefit of sugar industry workers. His most significant achievements were the Sugar Differential, the Sugar Workers' Retirement Fund, and the Guarantee Clause, all of which benefited the Cuban economy and the workers' family income. He also secured overtime pay for workers, increased wages for sugar workers, their inclusion in the retirement system, improved sanitation in the bateyes (sugar mill settlements), and other social measures.
He also rebelled against the servile and subservient positions of those who bowed to the powerful foreign conquerors who had pushed through a law in the U.S. Congress that reduced Cuba's sugar quota. This represented an attack on the Cuban economy and an affront to the dignity of the nation, and he proclaimed that Cubans would never accept such humiliation and that the entire nation should unite against this offense. The child Jesús Menéndez Larrondo, born on December 14, 1911, in a typical Cuban rural dwelling made of palm planks and a guano roof in the town of Encrucijada, in the former province of Las Villas, into a humble working-class family descended from Mambí fighters, had become an enemy of the ruling bourgeoisie and imperialism.
Knowing Menéndez's indomitable, unwavering, and anti-imperialist character in defense of the workers, the government of Ramón Grau San Martín's Authentic Party decided to eliminate the sugar workers' leader.The infamous Joaquín Casillas Lumpuy, then captain of the Rural Guard, carried out the task at the train station in the city of Manzanillo, where he was arriving on January 22.
The funeral of Jesús Menéndez was an impressive demonstration of popular mourning. The social and political ideas for which he fought and died are confirmed today in the work of the Revolution, and Cuban workers pay him their well-deserved tribute on this date.