1. Ventura García Calderón (1885-1959) was a Peruvian critic and poet born in Paris.

2. Julio Antonio Mella (1903-29) was a student leader who fought against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado (see ch. 3, n. 9), became a Marxist, traveled to the Soviet Union, and was assassinated in Mexico by political opponents. Rubén Martínez Villena (1899-1936) was an attorney and poet. He dedicated his life to denouncing U.S. intervention in Cuba and other parts of Latin America, and to proselytizing Marxism among students and workers.

3. Jorge Mañach (1898-1961) was a writer, politician, professor of humanities at the University of Havana and Columbia University, minister of education, and head of the Cuban Department of Cultural Matters. He wrote, among other important books, the first full biography of Martí. Convinced that the Castro regime had betrayed the Cuban Revolution and people, Mañach emigrated to Puerto Rico, where he occupied a university chair until his death. Félix Lizaso (1891-1966) was a scholar and writer, author of one of the best biographies of Martí, in addition to many other valuable studies on Martí's life and works.

4. Juan Marinello. See ch. 3, n. 1.

5. Carlos Rafael Rodriguez is an attorney, writer, member of the Cuban Communist Party since 1937, vice-prime minister of the Castro government, and member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. Blas Roca is a Communist militant of the old guard, member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Cuba, and president of the Secretariat of the Commission on Legal Studies. Raúl Roa (1909-77) was a writer, professor of social sciences at the University of Havana, founder of the Directorate of University Students there in 1930 (an organization that fought against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado [see ch. 3, n. 9]), and minister of foreign relations in the Castro government.

6. Ignacio Ramirez (1818-79) was a Mexican writer and liberal politician who founded the National Library and served as a justice on Mexico's Supreme Court.

7. Fermín Valdés Domínguez (1852-1910) was a classmate of Martí in Havana and at the University of Saragossa. He was Martí's most loyal friend. Valdés Domínguez fought in the 1895 war for independence and rose to the rank of colonel. Serafín Sánchez (1846-96) was a friend of Generalísimo Máximo Gómez and other veterans of Cuba’s earlier independence wars. He served as Martí's liaison with those figures. Sánchez was killed in battle, having attained the rank of general.

8. Gonzalo de Quesada. See ch. 3, n. 23.