After graduating from the University of Havana Law School, Villena worked as a lawyer, and published poetry and short stories in newspapers and magazines from 1917 until the late 1920s.
In 1923, Villena was one of thirteen writers and artists participating in the "Protesta de los Trece" (Protest of the Thirteen), denouncing the government of PresidentAlfredo Zayas. This led to the foundation of the Grupo Minorista, a group of artists and intellectuals who became influential in Cuban culture and politics.[3]
After meeting Julio Antonio Mella, founder of the Communist Party of Cuba, he got more involved in the social struggle, against what was seen at the time as neocolonial governments subdued to the United States interests. In 1925 he was Mella's attorney in the trial for "insulting" President Zayas.
Jesús Arboleya The Cuban Counterrevolution -2000 - Page 18 0896802140 Joven Cuba was also created under the leadership of Antonio Guiteras,who planned for armed insurrection.Just one year later Guiteras was betrayed and died combating Batista's troops. Rubén Martínez Villena had also died some months before, a victim of tuberculosis, thus bringing an end to the revolutionary cycle that began in 1923...