Education
Cruz was educated in Luanda, the capital of Angola, which was then ruled by Portugal.
Cruz was educated in Luanda, the capital of Angola, which was then ruled by Portugal.
He is considered one of the most important Angolan poets of his time. He wrote poems in Portuguese and Angolan languages. He took part in the fight to free Angola from Portuguese rule.
As a young man in 1957 he went to Paris, where he met Mário Pinto de Andrade, another Angolan poet and politician, who helped with his political ideas.
The MPLA was not in Angola at this time, but was first in Conakry (the capital of Guinea) and then later in Leopoldville, Congo (now Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC). Cruz became secretary-general of the MPLA. After some time he and others did not agree with the party leadership, in particular with president Agostinho Neto, and this led to fighting in the streets of Leopoldville.
In the 1960s, following the fighting in the MPLA, Viriato da Cruz went to Beijing, China, where he was well known as having helped create the MPLA. However, Cruz"s ideas were not the same as those of the Maoists. This was counter to the Maoist idea of world revolution.
Cruz wanted to leave China and return to Africa, but the Chinese government would not allow him to go.
The last years of his life were unhappy and difficult. Cruz was weak and without much food, and he died on 13 June 1973. His body was taken away in a military vehicle and was buried without ceremony.
In 1956 they helped create the group called the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA—from the Portuguese name Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola). At first, the Chinese government welcomed him. They wanted him to help them bring Maoist socialism to Africa.
He believed that stronger countries could not impose a socialist revolution on other places, and he would not change his ideas.