First Communist Party, an important step in struggle

Ninety-eight years ago, under a strong climate of repression and in a residence on Calzada 81 in the capital's Vedado neighborhood, where the Hubert de Blanck Theater is today, representatives of several groups met to found the first Cuban Communist Party on August 16 and 17, 1925.

All precautions were taken by the organizers of this event that led to the radicalization of the workers' struggles, in view of the oppressive environment established by the recently elected president Gerardo Machado, who in a trip to the United States guaranteed to the business circles with interests in the Island that under his mandate "(...) no strike would last more than 24 hours".

The unity of the movement was decided in early August itself, when at the closing of the 3rd National Workers' Congress in Camagüey, the Executive Committee of the Communist Groups of Cuba issued a call for the constitution of the first Communist Party from the 16th to the 20th of the same month.

In the summer of 1925, the revolutionary movements entered a boom stage, known as the awakening of the national conscience, led mainly by young people, among them prominent figures of the standing of Julio Antonio Mella, as well as Carlos Baliño, workers' leader and companion of Jose Marti, main figures of the historic event that represented the union of the pro-independence generations with the new vanguard.

Those in charge of fulfilling this historic agreement were around 13 representatives of the first communist and workers' groups, among them the Canary Islander Jose Miguel Perez, Alejandro Barreiro, Venancio Rodriguez, Miguel V. Emilio Rodriguez and the young Pole of Jewish origin Fabio Grobart, representative of the Third Communist International founded by Vladimir I. Lenin in 1919. Lenin in 1919. The Mexican Communist Party also sent its leader, Enrique Flores Magón, to assist in the meeting.

One of the first agreements of the meeting was that the Communist Party of Cuba should affiliate to the 3rd International and elaborate a program of struggle that would include workers' and peasants' demands, for the rights of women, youth, and strengthen for all these actions the work with the unions and student organizations and create in turn a plan for the study and dissemination of Marxism-Leninism and the use of the workers' press.

The Canary Islander Jose Miguel Perez y Perez, deported shortly after to Spain by Machado's dictatorship, was elected as general secretary, and Mella, Baliño, Barreiro, Venancio Rodriguez and Grobart were part of the Central Committee, besides other working structures were created.

Thus began the difficult and heroic trajectory of the 1st Communist Party in extremely difficult conditions, due to the anti-communist hysteria and the harsh repression. Nevertheless, they did not prevent the seeds of Marxist-Leninist ideas from being sown during more than 30 years of the Republic, which were taken up by the Cuban Revolution with the founding in 1965 of the current Communist Party of Cuba.

Fidel Castro, Historical Leader of the Revolution, considered that foundation as one of the most relevant links on the road to independence and said: "That Party, throughout its 36 years of struggle, left countless martyrs along the way: in the Machadist era, in the Batista era, in the era of the corrupt governments of Grau and Prío, and in the final stage of the bloody tyranny of Batista.

"(...) This was the Party of Mella, of Ruben Martinez Villena, of Jesus Menendez, of Jose Maria Perez, of Paquito Rosales and of countless other martyrs...", he emphasized.