Death
At the time of his death he was a Cuban marxist revolutionary in Mexico trying to organize the overthrow of the Cuban government of General Gerardo Machado. This cause was an embarrassment to the Cuban Communist Party which was trying to gain power by establishing a modus vivendi with Machado. What further disturbed the Cuban communists was that they felt he had fallen under Leon Trotsky’s influence. Mella was assassinated on January 10, 1929, while walking home late at night with photographer Tina Modotti. The Mexican government tried to implicate Modotti in the murder, even releasing nude photographs of her by Edward Weston to try and generate public opinion against her. Muralist Diego Rivera played a very active role in defending her and exposing the Mexican government's crude attempt to frame her, for this crime that the Mexican authorities felt correctly or incorrectly to have involved her. It is unclear whether Mella was murdered by the dictatorial Cuban government, if his death had been brought about by Trotsky-Stalin Communist Party feuding, or by combination of these mutual interests. It is widely speculated that he died by the notoriously bloody hand of Vittorio Vidale.
Read more about this topic: Julio Antonio Mella
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