page_title: Julio Antonio Mella
section_title: Foundation of the "internationalized" Cuban Communist Party
hierarchical_section_title: Julio Antonio Mella / Foundation of the "internationalized" Cuban Communist Party
caption_attribution_description: Español: Fotografía del dirigente cubano estudiantil Julio Antonio Mella
context_page_description: Julio Antonio Mella McPartland was an activist and is known as one of the founders of the "internationalized" Cuban Communist Party, in 1925 by leaders of the party in Moscow, Soviet Union.
  After becoming a political activist, Mella had studied law in the University of Havana but was expelled in 1925. He was working against the government of Gerardo Machado, who became a dictator of Cuba.
  Mella left the country, reaching Central America. He traveled north to Mexico City, where he worked with other exiles and communist supporters against the Machado government. He was assassinated in 1929, but historians still disagree on the parties behind his death.
  The 21st-century Cuban government regards Mella as a communist hero and martyr.
  Some historians believe that Mella was a victim of the Stalin-Trotsky struggle, which played out internationally. Former leader Leon Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, ultimately settling in Mexico City. He was assassinated there in 1940.
context_section_description: Cuba had a number of communist and/or anarchist parties, especially in Havana and in the eastern area of Cuba, at least as early as the beginning of the Cuban Republic. Possibly the first was founded in 1906 near Manzanillo by Agustín Martín Veloz (Martinillo).
  The original "internationalized" Communist Party of Cuba was formed in the 1920s when Gerardo Machado was president and then dictator of the country. 
  This organization is said to be related to several fronts, including the anti-imperialist league and its anti-clerical analogue. This party was formally recognized by Moscow in 1925.  Contacts with Moscow representatives were said to be made in a restaurant at 687 Compostela Street, at the corner of Luz Street in Havana.
  The founders of the Cuban Communist Party are listed as: Julio Antonio Mella, Juan Marinello, Alejandro Barreiro, Carlos Baliño, Alfonso Bernal del Riesgo, Jesús Menéndez, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Lázaro Peña, Blas Roca, Rubén Martínez Villena, Anibal Escalante, Emilio Roig and Fabio Grobart.
  Fabio Grobart (aka Abraham Semjovitch; Alberto Blanco) was born in Bialystok, Poland, in 1905 and died in Cuba on October 22, 1994. He was a member of the Soviet-dominated Comintern and was often considered a covert, Moscow-appointed leader of the Communists in the Caribbean area. 
  Other founders also used pseudonym: Mella used such names as Cauhtémoc Zapata, Kim (El Machete), and Lord McPartland in his writing. The revolutionary known as Blas Roca was born Francisco Calderío.
  Alejandro Barreiro is sometimes considered an anarchist, although the Communist Party of Cuba claims him as their own. Barriero is said to have gone mad in 1929, when Mexican police raped his daughters after searching his house.  The pseudonyms chosen by some of these "actors" often included historical references. For instance Fabio or, in English, Fabian, referred to Roman consul Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, known to have used stealthy tactics. Fabian Socialism was an English socialist movement, to which playwright George Bernard Shaw belonged, which advocated stealthy democratic change.
  The Cuban Communist Party was later renamed as the People's Socialist Party for electoral reasons. Its policy was dictated from Moscow. At one time, it supported the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. Later it supported  Fulgencio Batista, in whose government Dr. Juan Marinello and Carlos Rafael Rodriguez were ministers without portfolio. Although covert communist support was given to Castro and Che Guevara in the Sierra Maestra, the People's Socialist Party was officially critical of Fidel Castro's rise to power until the summer of 1958.
caption: Mella in 1928
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