That summer day, two generations of Cubans came together in an embrace that was a utopia, a demand for justice and a dream for the future. The first Communist Party of Cuba was born 99 years ago, led by the “Old Oak” Carlos Baliño, and by Julio Antonio Mella, a new pine tree standing tall in the concrete jungle of the neocolony.
The house number 81 on Calzada Street, in Vedado, where today culture shines in the Hubert de Blanck theater, hosted, on August 16 and 17, 1925, the constituent congress of the vanguard political organization, in the midst of the obligatory clandestinity due to the suffocating climate imposed by President Gerardo Machado.
Less than 20 delegates and participating guests elected José Miguel Pérez as the first general secretary, and agreed to follow the Third International, defender of proletarian internationalism.
At the same time, they distanced themselves from the Socialist Group of Havana, aligned with the Second International, whose leaders supported their respective bourgeoisies in the First World War.
Along with the most progressive ideas on the planet, the first Communist Party deepened the roots of national independence, elevated in the legacy of the Apostle. Baliño met him in person and collaborated in the Cuban Revolutionary Party, while Mella tried to rediscover him for the youth of his time, through works such as Glosses on the Thought of José Martí.
In the newspaper Lucha de Clases, the organization demonstrated its desire to balance its own emancipatory traditions and those of the world: “With Lenin’s teaching, we will make Martí’s postulate a reality, adapted to the historical moment: With everyone and for the good of everyone.”
The Party developed a program for the study of Marxism-Leninism and the use of the workers’ press, while it began the battle for proletarian and peasant demands, and the rights of women and youth. Despite the small attendance at this inaugural meeting, it was enough to sow the seed that was one of the antecedents of the current Communist Party of Cuba, the vanguard of the Revolution.
