THE CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY PARTY,
JOSE MARTI'S EXEMPLARY CREATION*
Juan Marinello
* Speech given at the Lazaro Pena Theater, of the
Central Organization of Cuban Trade Unions.
on the evening of December 5, 1975.

Our people, our Party and our revolutionary government have rendered, over the past days, a sincere, broad and profound tribute to Jose Marti, recalling with deep-felt emotion, one of his most timely, original and important tasks: the creation, in 1892, of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. With this evening's ceremony, the tribute, which has been closely linked to the history, the present and the future of Cuba, comes to an end. In fulfilling the honorable instructions of the Political Bureau of our Party, with distinct pleasure I am going to briefly discuss the reasons which give meaning and depth to the now concluding tribute.

The founding of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, as we are about to see, is the full expression of the genius of the leader of 1895. Every day, researchers here and abroad - from all countries and continents - recognize and affirm the universal and prophetic force of our liberator. If the knowledge of his literary work provokes the unexpected admiration of the most demanding critics because of its fullness and its consistency, its depth and ingenuity, its roots and fruits, his political thought and revolutionary message are increasingly seen as the richest and most current of that time in the Americas.

Viewing the undertaking in its entirety and analyzing its seemingly secondary details, the founding of the Cuban Revolutionary Party is an accomplishment of singular brilliance that compiled and merged decisive experiences and convictions giving rise to the definitive liberating battle which consumed Marti's life and evoked his death. The preparative tasks for the party's founding and its public platform and secret statutes reflect superior political mastery. The subtle skill and sustained perspicacity in the service of the immediate and possible goal dominates the entire endeavor but not so excessively that revolutionary principles are overridden, nor with the laxity that encourages the friend's weakness or the enemy's malice. This balance between acute awareness of the present and resolute determination make the Cuban Revolutionary Party a masterpiece of revolutionary strategy and tactics.

Marti's experiences leading to the founding of the Cuban Revolutionary Party are extensive. Among the most diverse sectors our eloquent hero ex

posed how the political parties disguise and betray the truth. In the Spain of his youth, Marti had become familiar with the parties of the Madrid government and their superficial variations of the same misleading rhetoric. He learned through the experience of others and sometimes directly of the loathsome inner workings of the parties which in his America - Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela and the Antilles - served to organize the hoax or impose tyranny. In the United States, where he refined his skills and his interpretation of events, he discovered that the political parties fully obey the monopolies which are bent on oppression and plunder within the country and abroad. His enthusiasm for Henry George's initiative soon dissipated. It became increasingly more clear to him that the parties generally could not serve as models or examples of what was needed to organize and advance the real liberation of his island. Thus originated the idea of a party with a different character and a new structure.

Freedom Through Armed Action

It is important to point out that the creation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party occurred not only when Marti defined and established the main aspects of its liberating action, but also when he determined, with a precise sense of reality, that these aspects had gained the needed momentum. The Cuban Revolutionary Party could not have emerged neither before, nor after 1892.

The time involved in the leader's development of the central ideas - that is, the definitive clarification that Cuba's destiny could not lie in the autonomist solution nor in annexation, but rather in true freedom obtained through the sacrifice of its sons and daughters in armed struggle - was indispensable. We already know that Marti held this conviction long before it was decided to found the party of the Cuban revolution, but his keen political judgment discerned the moment that the independence efforts should take on a single, effective direction.

The awareness of the disagreement and conflicts in the waging of the Ten Years' War which led to the Pact of ZanjOn, as well as the testimony of the veteran fighters accompanying him in the exile, convinced Marti of the need to found, at the right moment, a body to lead the task that it would embark upon in the necessary war. Such a body would have to be §trong and flexible at the same time, the advocate of a precise and clear revolutionary line and, moreover, it would have to evolve new organizational forms, products of a particular concept of a political party closely adapted to the Cuban situation.

To know when Marti developed the idea to form a party of a new type, capable of carrying forward armed action and later, after the victory, of ensuring the democratic society he wanted for his country, suffice it to refer to a letter he wrote in 1882, that is, ten years before the party s founding, from New York to General Maximo Gomez, then in Honduras. Let's read the letter:

To whom does Cuba turn at the decisive moment, now at hand, of losing all new hopes which the war's end, Spain's promises and the liberals' policy have encouraged? It turns to all those who have spoken of a solution outside of Spain. But, unless a revolutionary party is ready, well-spoken, upright and organized, a party that inspires, through the unity and modesty of its men and the prudence of its ideas, enough confidence to respond to the country's hopes, to whom does it turn, if not to the men of the annexationist party which will then emerge? How do we prevent all those favoring an easy liberty, those who believe that such a solution will save both their wealth and their consciences, from following them? That is the serious danger. That's why it's now time for us to come forward.

From the content of this letter, so important to understanding the origins of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, the author's central aim is established: to destroy forever the annexationist current through the work of a party which, as heir to the determination, sacrifice and heroism that ignited the great war, will win through its honesty, its foresightedness and its understanding of reality, the people's decision to renew armed action. Although in his letter to Gomez Marti asserts that it was time to come forward, he was to meditate for a decade on the character and strategy that would support the vital revolutionary party. This meditation, enriched by untiring and diverse activity, bore exceptional fruit. The Cuban Revolutionary Party had a function, a strategy, tactics and a structure until then unknown in the political history of the Americas. We shall try to refer to these unusual elements which commend the revolutionary magnitude of our great man within the time restrictions of a tribute speech.

We have always thought that a comprehensive study of the Cuban Revolutionary Party should minimally encompass three main aspects. The first would refer to the political message found in its platform and secret statutes. The second would treat both the original characteristics of the concept of the party as well as its specific structures. And the third part of the study, which would require intensive analysis, would address the latent perspectives in the tasks contained in the statutes and the platform, perspectives which were ignored and contradicted by the interference of well-known factors.

Maximo Gomez( 1836-1905). Outstanding general of the Liberation Army during the Cuban War of Independence.

Caution and Judgment

The platform of the Cuban Revolutionary Party should be seen in its full significance but with an awareness of the times in which they were drafted and of the sense of judgment needed to make them public in an environment bristling with powerful enemies, such as the United States.

The platform fulfills its objective which is that of calling on all Cubans to join ranks to unleash the armed struggle for the enslaved homeland. Thus, it is stated in the platform that the party was formed "to achieve absolute independence for the island of Cuba, and to aid and encourage that of Puerto Rico, through the combined efforts of all men of good will." The central aspects of Marti's ideology are affirmed in this brief sentence: the absolute independence of Cuba and solidarity with his America, reflected by the intent to work for the independence of Puerto Rico. Interrelated concepts present throughout Marti's speeches take on a single thrust in the platform: the people united to build a democratic society, born of a war waged with republican methods and spirit. Another objective present throughout the hero's thought is the party's responsibility to destroy the colony's authoritarian spirit and bureaucratic composition and replace them with "the frank and cordial exercise of man's legitimate capabilities in a new and sincerely democratic nation." He rejected the possibility of the island's victorious occupation by an emboldened group of despots, a concern that constantly troubled and distressed the leader and which, one day, led to a confrontation with Gomez and Maceo.2 The war had to be waged, as Article 5 states, "for the integrity and welfare of all Cubans, and to give all Cubans a free country."

Article 6 of the platform repeats a goal frequently expressed by Marti, that of founding a cordial and wise homeland. It warns against domestic and foreign dangers threatening it. Article 7, whose mentioning is virtually compulsory, states that "The Cuban Revolutionary Party will take precautions not to attract, with any indiscreet act or declaration during its propaganda, the or distrust of nations whose prudence or affection counsels or imposes the maintenance of friendly relations."

Section V of Article 8 contains the following objective: "To discreetly establish with friendly nations relationships which tend to hasten, with the least possible bloodshed and sacrifice, the successful outcome of the war and the founding of the new republic that is indispensable to the American balance of power." Whoever has extensively read Marti's revolutionary thought will be able to discern the text's several implications. Let's recall the occasions on which the leader of 1895 attributed to the free and cordial democracy the role of a balancing force, that is, the entity which puts an end to the imbalanced continental coexistence caused by the overwhelming oppressiveness of U.S. imperialist capitalism.

2 Antonio Maceo (1845-1896). Cuban general and eminent figure of the Independence War.

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We all know that before and after the founding of the party of the Cuban revolution the denunciation of imperialist voracity was a true and firm constant in Marti's speeches and writings. The threat of U.S. finance capital invading his island was a burning concern for Marti during his last years. This issue influenced the underpinnings of the platform and statutes of the party built with his keen foresight and the success of the undertaking hinged on his discretion for a temporary period of time.

The best explanation of this necessary and useful precaution is given by Marti himself in the well-known letter which he wrote to his Mexican friend, Manuel Mercado, on the eve of his heroic death. In the letter he said:

I am in daily danger of giving my life for my country and duty... of preventing the United States from spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from overpowering with that additional strength our lands of America. All I have done so far, and all I will do, is for this purpose. I have had to work quietly and somewhat indirectly, because to achieve certain objectives, they must be kept under cover; to proclaim them for what they are would raise such difficulties that the objectives could not be realized.

When one studies the two texts, the Cuban Revolutionary Party's platform and statutes and the political testament, the letter to Mercado, what stands out is the wisdom of the leader who paves the way, with necessary prudence, for the fulfillment of his key objectives. It was not his fault but rather that of those who betrayed his thought that for some time, for too long - from 1898 to 1959 - his judgment, clear-sightedness and courage were ignored.

In discussing the characteristics which lend unique importance to the Cuban Revolutionary Party, one has to single out as essential the fact that Marti centered his activity faraway from the country he wanted to liberate. Neither Bolivar, nor Hidalgo, nor Toussaint Louverture, nor San Martin, nor Artigas directed activity at a distance from their countries. It's true that Bolivar wrote his historic letter from Jamaica, but he led and organized the armed struggle from within his country. Is it not a new thing in the continent's revolutionary movements for the party founded to achieve a country's freedom to lack organic representation on its territory?

In all fairness we should say that it has been our comrade historian, Sergio Aguirre,3 who specified with great precision the reasons for this peculiarity of the party created and organized by Jose Marti.

The characteristics of the situation are well defined in his analysis.

The development of the party in the United States and its organic lack of existence on the island to which it belonged is yet another proof of the builder's profound understanding of how to coordinate principles with revolutionary practice.

3 Author of several works on the topic.

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Wasn't the irregular and precarious nature of the expeditions to arm the Liberation Army a relevant factor in the failure of the Great War? Could the needed arms have been obtained outside the United States? And could such vital aid have been guaranteed without zealous and organized emigres committed body and soul to such an important task?

The Role of the Emigres

There is another significant reason, as mentioned by Marti in the pages of Patria: the possibility of achieving in the United States, without being pursued by the Spanish colonial police, adequate organization of the party, an unavoidable requisite to obtaining the funds that had to be invested in the necessary war. Without a large, active and convinced rear guard imbued with burning commitment to the enslaved country, it would return to stagnation, disunity and impotence. It must be said that the Cuban Revolutionary Party's objectives were fully achieved: the war's victorious advance, with Marti's presence, is more than enough evidence.

The party's communication was not effected, as we have said, through its organization but rather by way of delegates who received and fulfilled direct instructions from Marti. We already know that among the individuals were Cubans the stature of Juan Gualberto GOmez.4 The concentration of power within Marti, which I will address shortly, established direct and precise links in the war preparations. In this way suicidal dissentions and espionage were prevented.

The organic structure of the Cuban Revolutionary Party was not only original, but also evidently effective. Let's recall its main features.

As is known, the bases of the party were associations located throughout the U.S. territory and, occasionally, in other places on the continent. According to the secret statutes, the associations were composed of their presidents, advisory boards which acted as intermediaries and, at the top, a delegate and a treasurer, elected annually by the associations. Let's concentrate on the nature of this distribution of authority and responsibility.

Democracy and Centralism

In line with the associations' broad sense of democracy, citizens of all nationalities, races, professions and social classes who accepted the platform and statutes were eligible for membership. They designated their president who, together with his counterparts, formed the Advisory Board. The members of the associations elected the head of the party, which Marti occupied with the modest title of Delegate. But, this free play of opinions and wills led to an executive leadership possessing the most extensive powers in the exercise of its function.

4 Cuban Revolutionary Party delegate for the western part of the island who received the order for the armed uprising on February 24, 1895.

The joining together of a number of groups – instead of individual members – convened for the widest debate and the existence of a power. wielded with unrestrained rigor has led many comrades to think of the essential similarities with the party conceived and constructed by the brilliant Lenin. However, all comparisons and similarities are invalid given that the guiding thought and the character of the objectives were very different. But it is correct to assert that both parties rejected the traditional patterns designed to ridicule the will of the people and to maintain domination by the most powerful and oppressive groups.

It's undeniable that Marti's leadership was rather personal and inflexible and that the tone of the orders transmitted to delegates on the island reflects this. This tone fed the criticisms and accusations of overt and covert enemies of Cuba's independence, such as annexationist Jose Ignacio Rodriguez. They were incapable of understanding the value of personal leadership when it transmits, with the requisite force, orders derived from the freely expressed partisan will. For other purposes, a form of democratic centralism clearly existed. In the case of Marti, like that of Lenin, the clear definition of purposes was united with supreme leadership capability strengthened by impeccable conduct and zealous support.

The Revolution of the Republic

We said that the study of the Cuban Revolutionary Party should be undertaken with a precise understanding of its role as an instrument designed to pave the way for national liberation taking into account the circumstances surrounding its appearance.

An outstanding and essentially unique example providing modern, flexible and consistent leadership appropriate to its time, the party cannot be seen as an -exhaustive complete expression of the revolutionary thought of its inspirer, but rather as the necessary bridge for bringing about profound liberating changes in the recovered homeland. This is what gives rise to its pemanently exemplary character.

No one would deny that the Cuban Revolutionary Party fully carried out its function. The mastery of its creator infused it with vitality and dynamism. In several articles in Patria, Marti spoke of his joy at being a fulfilled father. The associations, the integral cells of the organization, multiplied with surprising rapidity. Its influence was felt in Santo Domingo, and in Venezuela, in Haiti and in Costa Rica, in Panama and in Mexico. And, in due time, in 1895, three years after its founding, the last American war against the Spanish crown began. Marti, as well as Gomez and Maceo, were to be militant and heroic protagonists in this war. The party had been true to its role as energizer, that of making available the elements vital to the liberation war evoked by its head.

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But the mediate, although not subordinate, objective, which inspired the party, that of organizing a free, democratic, cordial and just nation, was not accomplished within the expected time. We are all aware of how Marti's death at Dos Rios functioned as a decisive factor in the failure of his endeavor to fulfill the program for the liberated homeland he had been defining through years of brilliant thinking and heartfelt concern.

The content of the letter to Manuel Mercado is inextricably linked to Marti's statement to Carlos Milt°. Aware of the thinking of the man who was to be a founding member of the first Marxist-Leninist Party of Cuba, the hero of 1895 explained to Balifio that the revolution was not going to be made in the jungle but rather in the Republic. It seems clear that the revolution of the Republic couldn't be in the name of Marti's sincerity and courage, but rather it was an outgrowth of what had been defined and emphasized in his clear creative impatience. The Montecristi Manifiesto... and more. And if one day he had written the incisive phrase "Cuba must be free of Spain and of the United States," to impede new foreign domination on the doorstep, his numerous and powerful capabilities would then mobilize.

During the brief time in which Marti was a soldier in the insurgent army, he mentally organized the strategy to guarantee the basic changes. Without respite he struggled against stubborn caudillismo and persisted in the endeavor to block the Northern invasion; the letter to Mercado, the last to flow from his hand, was written at night at the Mambi encampment. He analyzed and weighed the weaknesses and resistance around him. And, in studying this culminating phase of his life - in which the writer and patriot reached his peak - we can only imagine what his presence would have meant at the Jimaguayit Assembly.5 His rich experience, his invincible words and his unimpeachable prestige would have dominated there and, perhaps, fighting on his own soil, he would have prevented the impending advance of intransigence and political defeatism.

Those who during Marti's life had hidden their seditious claws soon won ground in his absence. Isn't it telling enough that it was Tomas Estrada Palma, an early accomplice of the new servitude, who succeeded Jose Marti as the leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Party?

It was necessary for the dismebered Republic's beneficiaries tied to imperialism to want to pervert Marti's revolutionary thought when they were powerless to conceal it. It was the time during which the learned spokesmen of the defeatist regime gave us a misguided and celestial Marti, the "Apostle of Cuba," the "Saint of America," an entity with undeniable literary virtues, but with delirious political ideas.

5 Assembly held in the small easterh town of Jimaguayn, on September 13, 1895 during which the Republic in Arms was proclaimed.

The Validity and Triumph of Marti's Thought

Because Marti had grounded his views in the true knowledge of Cuban, American and universal realities - since he felt everything, as he said, with the heart of humanity - his predictions and his mandate remained alive in the people's consciousness, despite the official frauds. As it would occur, it was his legitimate continuators, those flagbearers of Marxism-Leninism, who heard his voice and picked up his weapons. It's no accident that Julio Antonio Mella was the first to stress the contemporaneity of his revolutionary concepts, neither is it strange that the party, throughout its entire existence, founded by Mella and Carlos Ba.lino was the true propagator of the ideas of Marti who was later seen as a radical revolutionary for his time, according to the apt statement of comrade Bias Roca. When the liberation movement led by Fidel Castro emerged, Marti was viewed as the inspirer, guide and teacher. If there remains any doubt regarding the permanent value of his example, the fact that no genuine revolutionary action has occurred in Cuba after his death which has not reflected its magnitude and contemporaneity should suffice to erase it.

For these reasons, the tribute which the Communist Party of Cuba has been rendering to the Cuban Revolutionary Party's creator is opportune and necessary. Marti is ours. He was not present at Jimaguayn, but he was there at the Moncada. That his revolutionary impetus disembarked from. the Granina has been reflected in all the victories of our Revolution and it raises its pure liberating banner before the 1st Congress of our Party.

Our tribute to Marti is that of fulfilling his mandate, the essence of its spirit in keeping with our times. He held that complete, permanent and irreversible freedom and independence are indispensable to resolving all the country's problems in favor of the people; only our Revolution has achieved and maintained this. Marti fought for an independent economy benefitting everyone; our Revolution has organized this. He was untiring in the struggle against all discrimination based on race and color, relentlessly defending the Chinese, the Black and the Indian, calling the unjust oppression of our Black masses an offense against humanity and an attack on democracy; our Revolution has created real equality among all Cubans.

It would be difficult to convey all that our great man wrote on the people's health and education. Fulfilling his mandate in keeping with his guidelines, guaranteed access for all has been achieved in these areas. If no one is denied care for their body, then the development of the mind is within everyone's reach. And if Marti called for scientific and modern education, without privileges or exceptions, and also stressed the benefits of combined work and study - in which he was in essential agreement with Karl Marx - his country today is the only American nation which has fulfilled those conditions.

The Revolution's international policy is based on Marti's guidelines in general. Cordial relations with all peoples affirmed by the essential unity

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of man, a constant point stressed by Marti, is a principle of our Revolution, just as the firm and consistent rejection of any nation's domination over another is – also a principle of Marti. If his intense concern for and lifelong defense of fraternal countries made him the liberator of an entire continent in his time, those of us who have been influenced by his teaching fulfill his directive in establishing close relations with the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

If Marti united his struggle for the independence of Cuba with that of Puerto Rico, our people and revolutionary government continue his work without falter and without compromise. If he called on the peoples of his America for the second war of independence, our Revolution is loyal to this call in the victorious struggle against imperialism.

With his typical mastery in synthesizing ideas, Marti once wrote: "The future is one of peace." The Revolution believes in this future and works for its advent, but understands, like Marti, that international peace will only be stable and definitive if it is grounded in the clear and lasting recognition of the self-determination of all nations and the sovereignty of all states.

Marti gave the greatest lesson, that of his own work, in a creation of universal scope but nourished by the finest American traditions and communicated in the finest use of the language. Our Revolution maintains and advances this infallible relationship between the national, the regional and the human from which flows the greatest and longest lasting work.

The demands of the times and circumstances led Marti to call on all social classes to liberate Cuba. Nevertheless, he did not fail to denounce capitalist oppression of the working masses. He once wrote: "Really, in truth, as long as there is one man who sleeps in the mud, how can there be another who sleeps in a bed of gold?" If he paid tribute to Karl Marx "because he stood on the side of the weak," Marti was expressing in that now classic phrase his wish to throw in his lot with the world's poor. And in a key statement which stands for all time he put forward:

The slavery of men

is the worlds great shame.

A Congress Worthy of Jose Marti

We pay homage to Jose Marti, exemplary Cuban, hero of the Americas and citizen of the world, on an occasion of extreme significance – the eve of the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. We could say that the occasion, because of its magnitude, is worthy of the man we remember today, that the historic meeting is worthy of being part of his legacy for being the offspring of the people.

It's not hard to understand that the First Congress of our Party is the most important event for Cuba at this time. Firstly, it is the organic con-secration of the most thoroughgoing revolution in American history. If its basic objective is to strengthen the leading force of our society, its responsibility increases and multiplies in the work of legally organizing the Cuban socialist state. The two great tasks will be fully completed. We can guarantee this because of the decisive fact that the First Congress will be the culmination of a full, deep and untiring popular process. If we recall that Marti said that the people are the true masters of the revolutions, our First Congress will be, in essence, a congress of Marti. The delegates participating will be the very people, aware of the people's needs and problems, builders of their destiny, brimming with revolutionary enthusiasm and firm confidence in their Party and in Fidel.

Never has the memory of Jose Marti illuminated an undertaking so tied to his greatest dreams. Under his immortal banner the people advance toward the creation of a just, happy and creative coexistence embodying the heroism of a revolutionary decisiveness that surpasses the century.

In the name of Marti, we will triumph. With the firm revolutionary consciousness of the masses, with the invincible power of our Party, with the invaluable leadership of Fidel, with the continued, constant and generous support of the socialist countries with the great and beloved Soviet Union at the head, with the warm and growing solidarity among workers and peoples throughout the world, we proceed with the construction of a world which will give humankind unimaginable potential. In this future of immeasurable greatness, the prophetic and liberating voice of Jose Marti will be present, regardless of the magnitude of the changes.

Long live the Cuban Revolutionary Party!

Long live the revolutionary work of Jose Marti!

Long live comrade Fidel!

Long live the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba! Patria o Muerte!

Venceremos!

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