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Now that the Cuban regime celebrates the “foundation of the Communist Party of Cuba” (PCC) in October 1965, its propaganda machinery reproduces a carefully crafted narrative to hide what was actually a political operation for absolute control: the forced dissolution of revolutionary plurality and the construction of a one-party state based on obedience.
In speeches and the official press, it is often stated that the PCC was born from the “unity of the forces that made the Revolution”. However, the real history, documented and verified, shows that this “unity” was imposed through exclusion, denunciation, and internal repression.
The creation of the PCC was not the natural result of the ideological convergence between the July 26 Movement, the March 13 Revolutionary Directory, and the Popular Socialist Party (PSP). Rather, it was the outcome of a series of political betrayals and internal purges orchestrated to ensure that only one will—the will of the autocrat Fidel Castro—prevailed at the pinnacle of power.
The foundational lie: A "new" party built on old ruins
The Communist Party did not emerge in 1965. It had already existed since 1925, when Carlos Baliño and Julio Antonio Mella founded the Communist Party of Cuba (Section of the Communist International), which was later renamed the Popular Socialist Party (PSP).
This party survived the republic, endured repression under Gerardo Machado and Fulgencio Batista, but also made agreements with both at different times, especially in the 1940s, when Lázaro Peña and Blas Roca defended a pro-Soviet and unionist line, while on the world stage, the alliance of the U.S. with the Soviet Union under Iósif Stalin was materializing to defeat Nazism.
At the triumph of 1959, the PSP was weakened but had an organizational structure and ideological cadres that the July 26 Movement lacked. However, Castro was wary of the old communists.
He considered them bureaucrats, subordinate to Moscow and lacking in heroism or patriotism. Nevertheless, he needed them to provide some ideological (Marxist) legitimacy to his revolution and to manage their political capital in the future alliance he sought with the USSR, which ultimately turned the Island into a satellite of Moscow while consolidating his totalitarian power.
The official history omits that the first act of revolutionary unification was the elimination of the remaining political actors. In just three years, between 1959 and 1962, the Revolutionary Directorate, the Movimiento 26 de Julio itself, and the PSP disappeared as autonomous structures.
What the regime presents today as "unity" is actually forced assimilation and political dismantling.
From the ORIs to the PURSC: Laboratory of Total Control
In 1961, Castro created the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI), an experiment to merge the M-26-7, the PSP, and the Directory. The official discourse spoke of "revolutionary coordination," but in practice, it was the first step towards ideological centralization.
The PSP, with its organizational experience, took on an important role in the ORI, under the leadership of Aníbal Escalante, a seasoned, disciplined, and efficient communist. However, Escalante made the mistake of acting independently.
In March 1962, Castro publicly accused him of "sectarianism" and "personal ambition." He expelled him, sent him into exile, and dismantled his network of leaders. This was the first internal purge of the new regime, and its message was clear: no one should hold power independent of the Commander in Chief's control.
The next step was the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba (PURSC), created in 1962 from the remnants of the ORI, following the opportunistic "declaration of the socialist nature of the Cuban revolution."
This structure eliminated any possibility of internal debate. Local and regional committees became mechanisms of ideological surveillance and social control. Every member had to report to their superiors, and criticism turned into a moral offense. The "revolutionary unity" was already a reality: a unity based on fear.
The Ordoqui case and the "microfraction": When the Revolution devoured its own children
The myth of the Party as the “synthesis of the best of the Revolution” crumbles in the face of the internal purging processes of the 1960s. The case of Joaquín Ordoqui in 1964 marked a turning point.
Ordoqui, a general and veteran of the PSP, was accused of covering up espionage and treason. He was removed, detained, and silenced. His wife, Edith García Buchaca, a cultural leader and a member of the old guard communist party, was also purged. Neither received a public trial; both were erased from the official narrative.
The Ordoqui case was the prelude to the process of "micro-fraction" (1967–1968), the largest ideological purge in the history of the PCC. Dozens of activists—intellectuals, officials, and former members of the PSP—were accused of maintaining "links with foreign powers" and conspiring against Castro's leadership. There were arrests, forced self-criticism, dismissals, and imprisonments.
The real objective was not to eliminate conspiracies, but to destroy any remnants of autonomy within the Party. With the "microfaction," Castro eradicated the last vestiges of pre-1959 Cuban communism and consolidated a party fashioned in his image: militarized, vertical, and personalistic.
From political party to instrument of absolute power
On October 3, 1965, at the Chaplin Theater (now Karl Marx), Castro announced the creation of the Communist Party of Cuba. During the same event, he read Guevara's farewell letter, named the first Central Committee, and presented the new official newspaper, Granma.
The set design was meticulously planned: the Party was presented as the legacy of the Revolution, when in reality it was its authoritarian reformation.
Since then, the PCC became the backbone of the State, lacking electoral legitimacy and political competition. Pluralism was abolished, independent press was prohibited, and dissent was reduced to treason.
In the name of "unity," the principle of a singular thought was established, monitored by the State Security organs.
The 1976 Constitution enshrined what had already been a fact since the sixties: the PCC would be “the leading force of society and the State”. A phrase that sums up six decades of single-party dictatorship.
Unity as a pretext for terror
The history of Castro's PCC is the story of how a plural revolution turned into a machinery of control, and how a charismatic leader transformed the promise of social justice into an ideological dictatorship. The "revolutionary unity" was not an ideal, but a tool of power.
Under its mantle, purges, executions, censorship, and silences were carried out. Political parties were destroyed, union leaders were persecuted, intellectuals were crushed, and society was disciplined. Unity was, and still is, the official name of fear.
The discourse of the so-called "continuity" supposedly led by Miguel Díaz-Canel celebrates that "the essences are the same," but it obscures an uncomfortable truth: the Communist Party did not emerge from unity, but from submission. It was the triumph of silence over diversity, and of one leader over all others.
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