Julio Antonio Mella McPartland (25 March 1903 – 10 January 1929) was a Cuban political activist and one of the founders of the original Communist Party of Cuba. Mella studied law at the University of Havana but was expelled in 1925. He was working against the government of Gerardo Machado, which had grown increasingly repressive. Mella left the country, reaching Central America. He traveled north to Mexico City, where he worked with other exiled dissidents and communist sympathizers against the Machado government. He was assassinated in 1929, but historians still disagree on which parties were responsible for his death. The 21st century Cuban government regards Mella as a communist hero and martyr. Early life Mella was born Nicanor McPartland in 1903 in Havana. His father was Nicanor Mella Breá (1851–1929), a tailor and son of Matías Ramón Mella Castillo, one of the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic, and a leader of the Dominican War of independence. Mella's mother was Cecilia McPartland, daughter of Irish immigrants. Although Cecilia was not married to Nicanor senior, they initially named Mella after his father. As children, Nicanor Mella and his younger brother Cecilio went to New Orleans with their mother while she convalesced from lung troubles. Later the boys returned to Cuba to live with their father's wife Mercedes Bermúdez Ferreira. She acted as their stepmother. At that time, Mella's name was changed from Nicanor to Antonio, and his younger brother was renamed as Nicasio Mella. Antonio Mella engaged in secondary studies at Chandler College in Marianao, Havana, and Colegio Mimó. His step-mother, Mercedes Bermúdez Ferreira, died in 1915. After visiting the US again in 1917, Mella returned to Cuba. He prepared for the University of Havana at Academia Newton before being sent to boarding school at the prestigious Escolapios of Guanabacoa. After being expelled from here, Mella finished his secondary studies at the public Instituto de la Habana and/or Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza of Pinar del Río, in 1921. Mella became a political activist and was first arrested during the democratic rule (1921–1924) of Alfredo Zayas. He studied law at the University of Havana, emerging as a radical leader. Students forcibly occupied Havana University and sought power through demands for changes to improve their education and academic independence, including: modernization of textbooks, autonomy for the university, free education for all, and more unusually, for students to serve as head of the university