First Communist Party of Cuba, an inescapable path of struggle

Carlos Baliño, an experienced fighter who had created the Cuban Revolutionary Party together with José Martí in 1892, and the young university leader Julio Antonio Mella, established the First Communist Party of Cuba on August 16, 1925, when such an organization was already essential as a source of national patriotism.

Of course, neither of the two leaders—very well known in the working class and within the thriving student movement, respectively—hid the Marxist orientation of the political entity.

Not only was the Party very important to bolster ideological and patriotic unity in such key sectors of society in a country that needed to make urgent social changes and become sovereign; it also intended to use mobilizing methods in which the unions and the workers' movement had gained experience, based on Marxism and the already flourishing ideas of justice promoted by the first left-wing communist party.

According to many historians, 1920s Cuba saw a revival of national patriotic conscientiousness that paved the way for the revolutionary struggle that shook the foundations of the nation in the following decade, but the cause had to wait a long time to achieve the expected results. However, it is considered as the most honorable predecessor of the current Communist Party of Cuba, founded in 1965 after the triumph of the Revolution with Commander in Chief Fidel Castro at its head.

Back in 1925, the so-called Communist Groupings laid the foundations of the organization created by Baliño and Mella, whose constantly persecuted members spread the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism despite every effort by the tyrant Gerardo Machado and rekindled Marti's ideology, a doctrine joined later on by other outstanding patriots like Blas Roca, Juan Marinello and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez.

The Party joined the Third International, founded by Vladimir Ilich Lenin and deployed a sound program to vindicate the demands of the workers and peasants, as well as those of women and young people, as Machado, unsurprisingly, cracked down on the communists using increasingly vicious and violent means, so the Party had to go underground.

After the deportation of its main leaders and the tyrant’s vile order to assassinate Mella in Mexico in 1929—the same year when Baliño died of natural causes—the Party members had to survive by fire and sword.
Then came another unforgettable figure, Rubén Martínez Villena, who was not the Party secretary-general but became a leader of the Cuban workers' movement.

In the late 1920s, both the Party and the National Workers Confederation of Cuba played a key role in the fight against the tyrant, who was supported by U.S. in his attempts to perpetuate himself in power through constitutional reform. Repression was growing, but also the mobilization of workers and the people.

However, it was not until August 12, 1933 when the revolutionary forces managed to topple the dictator following a wave of strikes, a circumstantial victory that failed to have the expected impact—for reasons not relevant at this time—but served to appraise the titanic effort of its protagonists in their eagerness for the redemption and conquest of the rights of Cubans.

The First Communist Party of Cuba somehow became the Popular Socialist Party in the years leading up to the triumph of the Revolution and for tactical and strategic reasons during the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, another murderous ruler who emulated Machado in terms of savage repression.

It re-emerged with new vigor some time later, with the triumph of the Revolution, as an expression of combat and unity of the Cuban people in defense of freedom, sovereignty, social justice and internationalism.