Peña, Lázaro (1911–1974)

Lázaro Peña (b. 29 May 1911; d. 11 March 1974), Cuban Communist Party leader and secretary-general of the Cuban Labor Federation. Peña, a black tobacco worker who was born of extremely poor parents but grew up to become a prominent labor leader, became a member of the Communist Party in 1930. Because of his activism, participation in strikes, and denunciation of the Gerardo Machado dictatorship (1925–1933), he was forced to serve a number of jail sentences. When army chief Fulgencio Batista sought for political reasons to woo organized labor as well as gain the support of the Communist Party, Peña was unanimously elected as the first secretary-general of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), a new labor confederation established in January 1939. He remained in control of the CTC for some eight years until he was ousted by the anti-Communist government of Ramón Grau San Martín (1944–1948). Peña fled first to Mexico, then to the Soviet Union, returning to Cuba when Fidel Castro Ruz took over in 1959. Although he once again became the leader of the Cuban labor movement, he was merely an instrument chosen by the revolutionary government to implement its policies.

See alsoCuba, Political Parties: Communist Party; Machado y Morales, Gerardo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lucinda Miranda Fernández, ed., Lázaro Peña, capitán de la clase obrera cubana (1984).

Additional Bibliography

Alexander, Robert Jackson. A History of Organized Labor in Cuba. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.

Córdova, Efrén. Clase trabajadora y movimiento sindical en Cuba. Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1995.

                                 JosÉ M. HernÁndez