Fredi Valdéz

Year of birth unknown; died Jan. 27, 1950. Founder of the Communist movement in the Dominican Republic.

With General Trujillo’s advent to power in 1930, Valdéz joined in the active struggle against the newly established dictatorial regime. In the mid-1930’s he emigrated to Cuba, where he took part in the struggle against the Machado dictatorship. He became close to Cuban Communists and joined the ranks of their party. In 1939 he returned to his native land and founded a series of Marxist-Leninist groups, on the basis of which the Dominican Revolutionary Democratic Party was founded in February 1944. This party later was renamed the Dominican Popular Socialist Party and later became the Dominican Communist Party. Valdéz was frequently arrested for his revolutionary activity. He was brutally killed while in prison.