Martí fought to promote the Cuban project of a prosperous, free and united nation. Along this path, he worked incessantly to structure the humanist cultural dimension of the Revolution. Of course, for this it was necessary to solidly structure that social project with the decolonizing, independence, -anti-Spanish and at the same time anti-imperialist, Latin-Americanist political project, so that it would truly be foundational and clear the way for a republic «with everyone and for the good of everybody”; a democratic, just, equitable republic and forger of the new man.

Hence, most of his key writings and speeches that sprouted from deep inside in the United States, in the 80s of the 19th century, focused on trying to forge that pride of Cuban self-recognition. Hence also that the Master, from time to time, mentioned key figures in our history such as Varela, Luz Caballero, Heredia, among others. And he will insistently recall the luminary date of October 10th, and other events in our history, such as November 27th.

Céspedes and Agramonte

Now, Martí was not alien to human miseries; from the mistakes of past struggles; of the ravings of men of ’68; of the naive glances of some Cubans dazzled by the “wild and turbulent North.”

The Master assessed the distances and obstacles interposed between some leaders of the past war; of the aftertaste and imperfections of not a few of those brave fighters who had not feared Spanish bullets; and from the brutality of the ruthless war that had consumed families, property and fortunes.

How did he managed to summon people to go to all of that again? What paradigms to cite to make the resentful and fainthearted ride again? How to unite the disbelievers of that utopia of a republican nation? The convening examples were Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Ignacio Agramonte.

Céspedes and Agramonte summon the Cuban soul

Martí knew that by mentioning the names of the two essential men of ’68, no thoroughgoing revolutionary would resist the ’95 call. They were two symbolic men still mentioned with anointing in the Greater Antilles and in the bosom of patriotic emigration in the United States and in Latin American lands; wherever there was a worthy Cuban, such as in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Jamaica, or Panama…

For the unity of the scattered mambisado, there is nothing better than to make the name of the Bayamés and “that of Camagüey …” resonate. On October 10th, 1888, in the early morning he would put the final touches on his article entitled “Céspedes y Agramonte” and which would appear in the New Yorker newspaper El Avisador Cubano, exactly when the 20th anniversary of the national date was commemorated and the XV of the fall in combat of Major Ignacio Agramonte, on May 11th, 1873. There Martí would put aside the errors of the “volcano that comes tremendous and imperfect from the depths of the earth” and of the “capricious” being criticized by General Quesada.

They had been the symbolic men of Cuba. And they still are in some way. They had sufficient convening power to once again raise the island in arms, found the democratic Republic, and to make the independent nation possible.

And their names have the same power of convocation to call us to fight without failing “For a Better World”, to work and to defend our project of a socialist, independent, free, prosperous, sovereign and united homeland with the world.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García