Cuban Revolutionary Party: Vital to the Necessary War

On February 24, 1895, the Necessary War, conceived by Jose Marti, began and for the first time the pro-independence forces were led by a superior organization: the Cuban Revolutionary Party, which brought together the experience of veteran leaders, along with the new generations of patriots to avoid many of the problems that had caused the failure of the two previous struggles.

To that effect, the Apostle proclaimed the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC) on April 10, 1892 "to achieve with the united efforts of all men of good will, the absolute independence of the Island of Cuba and to promote and assist that of Puerto Rico".

That day was chosen as a symbol of continuity since on the same date, but in 1869, the first Constitution of the Republic of Cuba in Arms was approved.

The PRC would have among its main bases to found "a new people of sincere democracy", with methods that banished authoritarian practices in politics and economy.

Marti knew from his long exile and pilgrimage in US and Latin American countries, the harmful actions as instruments of ambitions of politicians, who exploited the false populism and demagogy to lead the people.

Therefore, unlike those structures, he conceived a different Party, attached to the principles of independence with truly democratic methods that would prevent serving petty interests and that would unite all generations of patriots.

That was Marti's main conception to initiate the preparations for the Revolution, saving it from the internal divisions of the previous independence campaigns in Cuba, and from the sad realities in which the emancipation processes of South America ended, submerged in the caudillismo and between the survival of the own evils of the colony.

The statutes of the PRC were secret to protect the clandestine work that would lead the independence movement inside and outside the country, hence in the first order would undertake a gigantic task of material and conspiratorial preparation of a war under the nose of the Spanish empire, and in defiance of U.S. imperialist interests that did not coincide in the desire for freedom of Cuba.

In addition, its highest figure, the Delegate, would be elected by the base established in the independent associations and clubs, which in the person of their central figures would form territorial bodies as an intermediate structure that would take the indications and tasks to the patriots.
The Patria newspaper was also founded, which would play a transcendental role in the mobilization and unity of the patriots.

At the end of the Necessary War and with the US intervention, Tomas Estrada Palma, who replaced Marti and betrayed his ideals, collaborated in the dissolution of all the representative bodies of the independence fighters, mainly the Liberation Army and the Cuban Revolutionary Party, as an indispensable premise to establish on the island a colony with the deceptive form of an independent republic.
However, that action provoked the rejection of prominent Cubans and PRC base delegations in exile and Juan Gualberto Gomez, friend and close collaborator of the Maestro, considered that "in the future of Cuba, where freedom, progress and the principles of true democracy, all bases of our program, must be ensured, the Cuban Revolutionary Party is still the only one that will be able to implement and sustain them".

That Marti's legacy defended by Juan Gualberto transcended time and was very present during more than half a century of revolutionary struggles by several generations of Cubans that preceded the definitive triumph of January 1st, 1959.