Armando Hart

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Armando Hart (l.) With Gilberto Vieira (1963)

Armando Hart Dávalos (born June 13, 1930 in Havana , Cuba ; † November 26, 2017 there ) was a Cuban lawyer , revolutionary and politician .

His brother Enrique was also active in the revolutionary movement. His father, Enrique Hart Ramírez, was a judge. His father had emigrated to Cuba from Kentucky , USA .

Life

Armando Hart had been a member of the Juventud Ortodoxa (Orthodox Youth) since 1947 and was a member of the Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Movement), which was founded shortly after the Fulgencio Batistas coup in 1952 and led by Rafael García Bárcena . When he was arrested and charged in 1953 for the planned march to the military headquarters of Campamento Militar de Columbia , Hart was his defense attorney. In June 1955, Hart was a founding member of the " Movement of July 26 " proclaimed by Fidel Castro in Havana .

He took part on the side of Frank País in the organization of the uprising of November 30, 1956 in Santiago de Cuba , which was intended to support the landing of the guerrilla fighters with the yacht " Granma " in Cuba. He was also a participant in the first meeting between the parts of the Movement of July 26th in the Sierra Maestra who were fighting on the one hand in the urban underground and on the other hand in guerrilla warfare on February 17, 1957. He was a member of the National Directory of the Movement, which was established by País . After the attack by the "Revolutionary Directory" (Directorio Revolucionario) , which was fighting against Batista in parallel, on the presidential palace in March 1957, Hart was arrested along with other underground fighters without having been involved in the action. He was sentenced to one year in prison, but managed to escape at a hearing. After País' death in July 1957, Hart moved from Havana to the movement's headquarters in Santiago and took on the role of national organization head. In this role he was responsible for coordinating all actions of the movement underground and in exile. In addition, he represented the movement in its negotiations with the Association of Civil Society Institutions (Instituciones Cívicas) about their participation in a transitional government for the time after the jointly hoped-for overthrow of Batista. In August 1958 he was arrested again and sentenced to prison on Pine Island , where he remained imprisoned until Batista escaped.

From January 1, 1959, he performed various tasks: Minister of Education (1959–1965), Organizational Secretary of the PCC ( Communist Party of Cuba ) (1965–1970), First Party Secretary in Oriente Province, member of the Central Committee and member of the Politburo of the PCC, Member of the State Council , Minister of Education (1976–1997). He was married to the revolutionary Haydée Santamaría and had two children (Celia Hart Santamaría, Abel Hart Santamaría), both of whom died in a traffic accident during a hurricane on September 7, 2008.

The special merit of Hart in his long time as education and culture minister was the advancement of the literacy campaigns , so that today Cuba has the lowest illiteracy rate in all of Latin America (2001: m 3%, w3%).

As early as 1959, in the first months of Hart's tenure as Minister of Education, the traditional self-government of the Cuban universities, which had been enshrined in the Cuban constitution in 1940 after long struggles by the student movement, was suspended . The restoration of the constitution, recognized internationally as exemplary, was one of the main promises of Fidel Castro before Batista was overthrown and he came to power. Instead, the entire education system, including the hitherto independent student union (FEU), was subjected to complete government control. The universities thus lost their traditional role as one of the central independent pillars of Cuban civil society . At the same time, there was a thorough politicization: The university reform of 1962 established the principle that is still valid today that universities are only accessible to “revolutionaries”, which in the following decades justified numerous exclusions of Cubans accused of government criticism from studies, research and teaching. The political science department of the University of Havana was reserved for members of the Communist Party and its youth association UJC , Hart made the study of Marxism-Leninism compulsory for all university students in the country. In 1964, Hart introduced highly practice-oriented technical colleges, closely following the example of the Soviet Union , which he had toured in 1961.

From February 1997 he was director of the office of the Programa Martiano (after José Martí ). He died of respiratory failure on November 26, 2017.

Publications (selection)

  • Del trabajo cultural. 1978 (Spanish)
  • Cambiar las reglas del juego. 1983 (Spanish)
    • Changing the rules of the game: cultural policy under socialism. Weltkreis, Cologne 1987
  • Cultura en revolución. 1990 (Spanish)
  • Cubanía, cultura y política. 1993 (Spanish)
  • Perfiles: figuras cubanas. 1995 (Spanish)
  • Aldabonazo: En la clandestinidad revolucionaria cubana, 1952-58 Letras Cubanas, Havanna 1997 (Spanish)

literature

  • Elsa Carreras Varona: Armando Hart Dávalos: Un revolucionario cubano. Plaza y Valdés 2007 (Spanish)
  • Ernesto Che Guevara, 2002: Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria. Cuba 1959-1969 . Reimpresión La Habana.
  • Julia E. Sweig: Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2002 (English)

Web links

Commons : Armando Hart  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Julia E. Sweig: Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground. P. 6
  2. ↑ Sweig, p. 15
  3. ↑ Sweig p. 19
  4. ↑ Sweig p. 54
  5. ↑ Sweig, pp. 55ff.
  6. ↑ Julie Marie bunck: Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba. Pp. 33–35, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 1994 (English)
  7. ↑ Dimas Castellanos: Reforma universitaria sin autonomía, in: Diario de Cuba of January 16, 2012, accessed on June 2, 2014 (Spanish)
  8. ↑ bunck: Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba. P. 34
  9. ↑ bunck: Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba. P. 35
  10. ^ Fallce el intelectual y político cubano Armando Hart Dávalos. In: Cubadebate. November 26, 2017. Retrieved November 27, 2017 (Spanish).
personal data
SURNAME Hard, Armando
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hart Dávalos, Armando (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban revolutionary and politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana , Cuba
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 2017
Place of death Havana , Cuba