The Commander-in-Chief referred to another agreement, "even more important", in his opinion, adopted by the Central Committee, on the name that the governing organization of Cuban society should bear: Partido Comunista de Cuba
Author: Granma | internet@granma.cu
April 9, 2021 9:04:41 PM
Front page of the first issue of the Granma newspaper. Photo: Granma Archive
That October 3, at the Chaplin Theater, when introducing the people to the members of the Central Committee, Fidel would emphasize that “there is no heroic episode in the history of our country in recent years that has not been represented there; there is no sacrifice, there is no combat, there is no heroic or creative feat —the same military as civil— that is not represented; There is no revolutionary, social sector that is not represented. I'm not talking about organizations. When I speak of the sector I speak of workers, I speak of young people, I speak of peasants, I speak of our mass organizations.
The Commander in Chief referred to another agreement, "even more important," in his opinion, adopted by the Central Committee, on the name that the governing organization of Cuban society should bear: the Communist Party of Cuba. He also alluded to an absence from the Central Committee of someone who possesses "all the merits and all the virtues necessary to the highest degree to belong to it." And he went on to read Che's farewell letter.
During his speech, Fidel informed the people that it had been decided to merge the newspapers Revolución and Hoy into a single official organ, "which will bear the name of Granma, symbol of our revolutionary conception and of our path."
Once the event at Chaplin was over, Fidel went to the office of the Hoy newspaper, in Prado and Teniente Rey, where Editora Abril is based today. In a meeting with the workers, he expressed the confidence that the Revolution and the Party placed in each of them to make a partisan newspaper of the people and for the people. He took advantage of the moment to introduce the person who would assume the direction of the new newspaper, Isidoro Malmierca, and to offer a well-deserved farewell tribute to Blas Roca, who had been the director of Hoy until the night before.
On October 4, the first issue of Granma was printed, the circulation of which reached 498,784 copies, "many thousands more than that of the twenty capital newspapers combined before 1959," according to Oller. The 12-page diary contained 31 photographs.