From the eyes of Pablo de la Torriente.

First Máximo Gómez, later Pablo, history reveals to us the lives of so many men embodied in the same word that few can embrace, although almost all of us understand it. Solidarity leads some to give whatever is necessary, no matter if it is another land, in that touching amalgam of justice and brotherhood.

Pablo De la Torriente Brau, had not been born in Cuba, although he was immediately due to it, he pursued the same ideals of Mella, he joined the events of September 30th, 1930 and denounced from the pages of the newspaper Ahora the exploitation suffered by the peasants of Realengo 18; he was not Spanish either, but he assumed the political functions in a battalion during the Spanish Civil War and died fighting in Majadahonda against fascism on December 19th, 1936.

His life is one of those exciting stories that reveal a fearless journalist, against vice and corruption, against everything that was determined to make people miserable. When he arrived on this Island he was just a child, but his mind and body soon turned to the sharp and uncomfortable pen for oppressors and tyrants.

El Nuevo Mundo and El Veterano (1920) were witnesses of his undisputed talent; Rubén Martínez Villena as well. Both young men were very clear about their political ideas against the dictator Gerardo Machado and wrote valuable pages on the Revolution of 30. Pablo went to jail for this reason and came out of it with such vigor that he circumvented the censorship and published in El Mundo the reports 105 days in prison.

For him it was a destiny that could not be postponed, his eyes had been made to see extraordinary things, and his machine to count them. That was all, as he himself assured. It didn’t matter if for that faithful vote to journalism and dignity he had to spend almost another year behind bars and then be deported.

But he returned after the fall of Machado and again wrote, conspired, fought with the same impetus from Cuba, then from New York. There, even without a job, or with a poorly paid one, he counted the pennies to survive, while safeguarding and distributing the funds collected for political activism as part of the Cuban Revolutionary Anti-imperialist Organization (ORCA).

Pablo de la Torriente Brau was a tireless dreamer, but one who worked tirelessly to achieve the impossible. And he loved music, he loved the classics, he had a special sensitivity for the plastic arts. But he knew how much he risked with his sparkling and unhypocritical words.

Even so, his eyes also went to denounce hatred and evil beyond his own continent. And he wrote as much as he could with the same impetus and ingenuity as he had always done, until he also felt the need to embody the soldier and fight with all his body, with all his strength, even if he offered his life forever.

Written by Jeidis Suárez.