Coordinator of the 26th of July Movement turned National Bank president who debated the role of banking with Guevara
Born in Cárdenas, he joined the student struggle against Batista as an engineering student at the University of Havana. He entered the 26th of July Movement in 1956, became its national head of propaganda, and in January 1958 replaced the arrested Armando Hart as national coordinator of the Movement until the victory. After the revolution he was vice-president (1961–1963) and president (1963–1964) of the National Bank, then minister of foreign trade from 1964 to 1980, and sat on the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 to 1980. In 1964 he joined the Great Debate with "Development and Functions of Socialist Banking in Cuba".
Also known as: Marcelo Fernandez Font
Activities and affiliations
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1956–1959
Political and party leadership
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1961–1980
Cuba state institutionsPresident of the National Bank; Minister of Foreign TradeMain
Economy, finance and planning -
1965–1980
Political and party leadership
1964: debating the role of socialist banking with Guevara
As president of the National Bank, Fernández Font published "Development and Functions of Socialist Banking in Cuba" in Cuba Socialista in 1964. Under economic calculation an enterprise holds its own funds at the bank and draws bank credit, and the bank controls enterprise activity through credit and settlement; Fernández Font defended this role of the bank.
Guevara answered the same year with "Banking, Credit and Socialism". Under the budgetary finance system he ran, enterprises had neither funds of their own nor bank credit, and money deposited at the bank passed at once to the state. He criticised the relation between an economic-calculation enterprise and its bank as similar to that of a private producer who must explain his plans and prove his solvency to a capitalist bank. The commentary in the 1974 Barcelona edition of the debate counted this dispute over the National Bank's role among the "important parallel contributions".
Fernández Font later served as minister of foreign trade for sixteen years. His published works include The Great Debate on the Economy in Cuba, 1963/1964.