Last Friday, the 8th, the newspaper Granma, published an extensive anonymous two-page work taken from Olive-Green Editions*, about the plural legacy of Marti, titled: “The idea of a single party is a legacy of José Martí.”
It is not a new complaint. The argument is that Marti created a party and only one party for the independence of Cuba. Marti put all his energy into organizing the ideal of independence, in taming the will of the patriots of the great war, drawing lessons from that defeat, facing reformism and annexation, which he considered inadequate and damaging to Cuba.
Once the objectives of the struggle were obtained, and the new republic achieved, it would open a space for the formation of parties that could channel the political leanings of the Cuban people. These quotes make clear the Marti’s concept of a republic with all and for the good of all:
“… Or the Republic is based on the whole character of each one of its children, the habit of working with their hands and thinking for themselves, the full exercise of and respect for family honor, the full exercise of the others: the passion, finally, for the decency of man…
“…Or the Republic is not worth one of our women’s tears, not a single drop of blood of our brave. A people is composed of many wills. The republic … will not be the unfair dominance of one class of Cubans over the other, but open and honest balancing of all the real forces in the country and of the free thoughts and desires of all Cubans. Every public party must fit with its people.
“The Revolutionary Party, whose transient mission will cease the day Cuba achieves its part in the war and there is an accord on the island, will have no leaders that rise up, nor old or new bosses that put themselves over the country, nor pretensions that would overtake the prior rights of the first republic and the new and supreme law of the land.”
These last two quotes are important for a man whose command of language is recognized, because they demolish the thesis that Martí supported a society with a single party. If there are politicians who have created more than one party, it would have to be a curiosity.
The will that leads to the creation of a new political force obeys the lack of the same, or a rupture within an existing organization. Marti created a pro-independence party, because no party existed that matched his objectives. To legitimize the current one-party rule through Marti’s ideology is nothing but a manipulation of history.
Translated by: L. Rodriguez
*Note from Translator: Verde Olivo [Olive-Green] Editions is an editorial house that is part of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (Revolutionary Armed Forces) of Cuba. They publish books related to military topics.
April 13, 2011
