Farewell, comrade! Frank Fernández

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Farewell, comrade!

Last Sunday, January 18, just as the sky was beginning to darken, our beloved comrade Francisco Fernández (1932-2026) passed away. Paco, to his family and close friends. Frank, in the avatars of the struggle of the anarchist camps against authoritarianism, fear, and exile. He died as a result of a pernicious infection that forced him to be rushed to the intensive care unit at a hospital in South Florida. He always maintained that Anarchy was nothing more than the constant struggle for life. Consequently, he remained in that battle until his last breath. At the age of 92, his vital organs ceased to function, which is why he was disconnected from all mechanical support and transferred to «palliative care». Incredibly, with the almost stubborn attitude that characterized him, his tremendous physical strength allowed him to fight death for 72 hours.

Without a doubt, his passing leaves us with an uncomfortable void, one that demands filling his immeasurable stature. A historian of anarchism in Cuba, Frank Fernández was above all a self-taught man committed to the anarchist ideal. He was a tireless researcher who never settled for repeating established narratives or replicating the «embellished» versions of the victors. His historiographical contributions opened up new paths—invariably uncomfortable ones—that today are unavoidable if we want to understand the decisive role played by Cuban anarchists between the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century in the development of the labor movement's struggles on the island. He never wrote from the sterile distance of academia or as an egotistical exercise in erudition, but from the vital involvement of someone who is aware that history is a potent battlefield and not a cold mausoleum.

He relentlessly defended the ideals of freedom that guided his life and for which he suffered a long exile. However, he never played the victim because of it. His prolonged exile was a consequence he accepted consistently and which never dented his anarchist integrity. He was active in the Cuban Libertarian Movement in Exile (MLC-E) and co-founded the editorial collective of the anarchist magazine Guángara Libertaria, a trench in which he remained unscathed for thirteen years (1979-1992), despite «the indifference or outright hostility of a place as inappropriate as Miami in those years [...] a difficult mark to match if we take into account the reactionary and violent environment that surrounded us [...] the pressure and harassment from our enemies, both in Miami and in Havana».i

Those who knew him will remember that he combined sarcastic humor with the firmness of principles of someone who did not know how to give ground with alchemist-like precision. Perhaps the best description of Frank's character and personality was recorded in an interview conducted by M.G. Blázquez and F. Martín for the anarcho-syndicalist newspaper CNT, on the occasion of his visit «to the ruins of Spanish anarchism» in Madrid: «White beard, quixotic air, and a cigar as inseparable from him as irony and easy speech».ii  The only thing missing was an emphasis on his deep obsession with capturing that «easy speech» for the sake of «the other history». In other words: «Not the history of wars, not the history of patriots, but the history of slaves, the history of women [...] we must write history by eliminating the epics, the leaders, and the stars of the statues».iii

In essence, that was Frank Fernández, which is why he insisted time and again, sometimes jokingly and other times with his harsh and even aggressive tone, that the history of anarchism in Cuba could not be reduced to a footnote in official books or a collection of romantic anecdotes about our defeats, but rather needed to be told by its protagonists. That is why he always demanded a thorough review of the facts based on a careful reading of anarchist publications edited with courage and lucidity since colonial times and on the recovery of the experience of the makers of history: workers who embraced «the idea» against all odds; intellectuals who put their pens at the service of the struggles, typographers who gave their lives among linotypes; irreducible unions that consolidated themselves without hierarchies, anarchist women who not only confronted the State and the Church but also the machismo of their comrades; affinity groups that drove the insurrection against all power to its ultimate consequences; tobacco factory readers who spread anarchist praxis among cigar rollers; Athenaeums that taught reading and thinking at the same time; and internationalists who, consequently, gave their lives for emancipation. These stories—of flesh and blood—nurtured his historiographical work.

Author of the books La Sangre de Santa Águeda (The Blood of Saint Agatha)iv and El anarquismo en Cuba (Anarchism in Cuba)v (translated into German, French, English, Italian, and Portuguese), as well as countless articles published in Guángara Libertaria and other anarchist media in Spanish and English, Frank left us an invaluable legacy of historiographical research and a clear invitation to continue on the path to emancipation through uncompromising anarchist reaffirmation. This call is expressed with singular clarity in the final paragraphs of El anarquismo en Cuba, one of his best-known works. There he set out his aspirations for the captive island, which today resonate with disturbing relevance: «It is premature to bury libertarian ideas and declare them dead when they are still valid and, above all, have fertile ground, fertilized with the blood of several generations, where the thoughts of a lofty archetype of the human condition and, above all, of the individual and collective freedom of an entire people will be reborn with greater force».vi

An old adage attributed to Abraham Lincoln says: «Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend four sharpening the axe». That was also Frank Fernández's vision. All his texts were written with the diligent care of someone sharpening an axe, aware that it would be used countless times. Now, in his absence, far from empty liturgies and occasional tributes, there is no room for easy consolation. We are left with the task, yes, of living up to his legacy and consistently accepting that his work is not finished. Every piece of research that revisits his work, every reading of his texts, every discussion in dialogue with his reflections «sharpens the axe» and prolongs his memory in a concrete way. Perhaps that is the most anarchic way to say goodbye and thank him for his ever-present camaraderie.

Farewell, comrade Frank!
Farewell, friend Paco!
Salud and Anarchy!

Gustavo Rodríguez,
January 20, 2026.

Comments

Gustavo Rodríguez (not verified) Sun, 01/25/2026 - 17:51

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Although I was NEVER part of the Guángara Libertaria (GL) editorial collective due to theoretical and practical differences, I was a member of the Cuban Libertarian Movement in Exile (MLC-E) at that time --a few years later, the group within the MLC of which I was a member founded the anarchist publication A-Mayor, which was published in parallel with GL--. I can assure you that the position of the MLC-E was the same as that held by the anarchists of the Argentine Libertarian Federation (FLA). In fact, most of the views expressed in GL about the conflict that appeared in its pages came from members of the FLA: "rejection of the Falklands War, criticizing both the military action of the Argentine dictatorship and British imperialism. Under the slogan Ni la Junta ni Tacher (Neither the Junta nor Thatcher). Unfortunately, since the 1960s, the vast majority of anarchist groups had been infected by the nationalist left, which invariably gave rise to “anti-imperialist” rhetoric. (What we read today seems like déjà vu).
As homework, I invite you to review Castro's dictatorship's support for the Argentine dictatorship in the same nationalist-anti-imperialist vein:
“Cuba reiterates its unrestricted support for the legitimate right of this nation to sovereignty over the Malvinas, which are part of its territory. Our position is very clear: the Malvinas were, are, and will continue to be Argentinean.”
"The Secretary for Malvinas, Antarctica, and the South Atlantic of Argentina's Foreign Ministry, Guillermo Carmona, thanked the government and people of Cuba for their support."
Or would you rather not talk about that?

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/26/2026 - 09:11

This is useful and instructive. And no, I am not going to bat for state capitalism in Cuba. I'm against wage labor, commodity production, nationalism and the state.

Lisette (not verified) Thu, 01/29/2026 - 11:06

Rest in power Frank, you were an inspiration to all cuban American anarchists. We'll keep fighting the good fight in your name con corazón. Te llevo conmigo siempre. 🖤

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