Artemisa, 1932. There was no luxury in his cradle. There, in the sweat of the people and the neighborhood, a young man was born whom history was waiting for. Ramiro Valdés Menéndez learned before he could even walk that the homeland is not asked for, it is built. His mother, a follower of Cespedes and Martí, placed in his hands, more than bread, an ideology.
Life made him a lineman. And from the top of the electric poles, he saw the map of injustices more clearly. He was not just any worker: he was a guardian of dignity. When the 1952 coup thundered through the Cuban night, he wasn’t in a bureaucrat’s office: he was at the sugar mill, machete slung over his shoulder and dirt caked on his shoes. But the mill wasn’t his destiny; the mountains were.
He answered Fidel’s call, just as he answered the mission entrusted to him the day the young lawyer—without having been given the address—suddenly appeared at his house to find out how many of his friends from the neighborhood he could count on to make Cuba dignified.
Like so many Artemisans who, on July 26, 1953, transformed the Moncada Barracks into the first resounding cry for freedom, he was there. It wasn’t just another assault: it was the baptism of fire for a generation that preferred prison to shame. A prisoner on the Isle of Pines, exiled in Mexico, a sailor on the Granma… the odyssey had only just begun.
In the Sierra Maestra, Commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara, whom he cared for like a brother, wanted him by his side as second-in-command of Column No. 8. And he didn’t disappoint him. There, amidst the fog and bullets, the mettle of a Commander was forged—a Commander who didn’t need rank to lead, because he led by example. When victory dawned on January 1st, 1959, Ramiro was already a legend.
But the Revolution wasn’t meant to be rested; The Central Region, State Security, the days of the Bay of Pigs invasion—each responsibility was a stepping stone in his commitment. Minister of the Interior, First Deputy Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Aide to the Commander-in-Chief, President of the Industrial Group for Electronics, Minister of Information Technology and Communications, Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Deputy Prime Minister… and in every position, the same word: loyalty.
But whoever thought that his title distanced him from practical matters didn’t know Ramiro. We, journalists, witnessed, on more than one occasion, his demanding nature. Not the demanding nature of someone who intimidates, but that of someone who meticulously monitors the operation of a thermoelectric plant or the progress of a key investment project for the country’s development with the patience of a watchmaker and the discerning eye of a military man. He didn’t raise his voice; there was no need. With the wisdom of someone who knows how to teach, he scrutinized every valve, every figure, every delayed schedule.
He asked about every detail like a seasoned specialist, because he was one. And in his questions, without fanfare, lay the deepest demand: that of someone who knows that time lost on a project is time stolen from the people; because Ramiro didn’t come from the lofty position of office, but from the lofty position of knowledge and history.
There was no higher mission, however, than the one that took him to Bolivia. To search for, locate, exhume, and transfer the remains of Che Guevara and his comrades was not a bureaucratic task: it was an act of poetic justice. Ramiro went to return to history what history had stolen from him.
Founder of the Central Committee of the Party and its Political Bureau, deputy to the National Assembly, he was, above all, a man of conviction. He knew neither discouragement nor betrayal. In every battle, in every trench, he stood by Fidel and Raúl, with a fidelity that transcends time and trends.
Today, when the news of his passing hurts like the loss of a father, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez lives on in every young person who holds a book, in every worker who builds a sugar mill, in every soldier who watches over the border. His example is not a statue: it is that youth that propels the country forward today.
Cuba, 2026. The Revolution loses one of its own, but gains a legend. And legends, like Che, like Fidel, like Camilo, do not die: they multiply. Ramiro Valdés, as he told a colleague in an interview, will continue to rise strong, through his example.