1865 - Enters a preparatory school in Havana. By the end of the year, he was writing in local periodicals and already in his writings, one could observe the character of an advanced thinker.

1868 - Enters the Professional School of Painting, Sculpture and Graphics.

1869 - For patriotic reasons, Carlos emigrates to the US to be reunited with his father who had previously escaped confinement from the Canary Islands (due to his father's political agitation against the Spanish government). He began working as a "escogedor de tobacco" in various factories in Florida.

1870 - Establishes a residence in New Orleans.

1889 - Collaborates on a publication in Key West, Florida, "La Tribuna del Trabajo".

1891- Leaves Key West and moves to Tampa.

1892 - Participates with José Martí in the inauguration of the Liceo Cubano in Key West. Takes part with Martí in the founding of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, signing the Bases and the Constitution.

1893 - Goes to Thomasville, Georgia to organize Cuban tobacco workers.

1894 - Establishes the Municipio de Marti City with fellow workers. At this time, an important document was written, a letter to a fellow patriot named Rafael Serra in which he denounces North American imperialism in Cuba and makes public his lifelong profession of his socialist faith.

1895 - Travels back to Key West and other places, enlisting support for the struggle for Cuban independence.
1896 - Translates into Spanish the work by H. Davis("The New Slavery") in which Yankee imperialism in Cuba is denounced.

1897 - Helps to publish the "Nueva Republica" under the direction of Pablo Rousseau. Hosts a number of socialist-oriented conferences for Cuban emigres in Tampa and elsewhere in Florida. Moves and works for a short time in Jacksonville, Florida.

1902 - Returns to Cuba. Collaborates on several socialist periodicals, such as El Proletario, El Mundo and other working-class newspapers.

1903 - Founds the Socialist Propaganda Club on the island of Cuba, which studies and disseminates Marxism.

1904 - Criticism and collaboration with the Partido Obrero, a Havana-based workers' group.

1905 - Publishes an important pamphlet, "Verdades Socialistas", which is the first Marxist-socialist document of its kind in Cuba.

1905 - The Club of Socialist Propaganda and the Partido Obrero (Worker's Party) are merged into the Workers' Socialist Party and Baliño is a key player in its political direction.

1906-1911 - During this time, he is very active in the workers' movement.
1917 - Pays homage to the Russian Revolution in an article.

1918 - Writes a number of poems and articles in honor of the Great October Socialist Revolution in the Soviet Union.

1921 - Translates into Spanish the book by Scott Nearing, "The American Empire".

1922 - He is a key figure in establishing fraternal ties to the Communist International and directs the publication of the "Revista Espartaco", an organ of socialist thought.

1923 - Establishes the Agrupación Communista in Havana, the first Marxist-Leninist organization in Cuba. Collaborates with Julio Mella on the magazine, "Juventud".

1924 - "Class Struggle" is formed, a Marxist-Leninist periodical.

1925 - Participates with Julio Mella in the Cuban Section of the Anti-Imperialist League. Also, the Cuban Communist Party is officially formed and Baliño is elected into the Central Committee.

1926 - 18 June. Baliño dies at the age of 78 in Havana, in the midst of a brutal repression against the Cuban Communist Party by the Machado dictatorship.

 
The first years of Carlos Baliño's life  -- fundamental years for his revolutionary development -- they are wrapped in relative obscurity.  What we can look at, then, are some documents and assorted data which yield certain information in an indirect manner.  This refers, fundamentally, to the revolutionary activities of his father's conspirative character, Carlos J. Baliño y Piloto.  The atmosphere at home played a decisive role in the man's revolutionary character, who was beside Martí in
1895 and Mella in 1925.  The revolutionary path of Baliño is gestated in the cradle and is concluded at the grave. Carlos Benigno Baliño y López was born in Havana, February 13, 1848, according to proof from an existing file in the National Records (Public Instruction, File 934, no. 59-440).  This documentation, presented as part of a process of admission into a career as a general engineering contractor, proves that Baliño was not born in Guanajay, as generally believed and we ourselves have affirmed in a work published in 1964.  This file includes the certification that Carlos Benigno Baliño was baptized in the Church of the locality, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Within the city of Havana, his paternal grandparents, acting as godfathers, Gaspar Baliño and Petrona Piloto.  Their parents Carlos J. Baliño, native of Cayajabos, and Dolores López of Guayabal, lived therefore, in Havana.  Also, the one we are interested in declares that he is a native of Havana, at the time that he was requesting to be allowed to enroll in the Preparatory and Professional School of Havana.

We ignore data of the period going from 1848 to 1865 in the life of Baliño.  We know, however, when entering into the Preparatory School, that he had studied arithmetic elements and algebra, up to and including equations of the second degre, the theory and application of logarithms, elements of geometry and rectilinear
trigonometry and knowledge of line drawing including the drafting of several architectural designs.  These subjects were studied in Havana with José del Morales y Bermudez.  The Baliño family, as it seems, had settled in Guanajay, where the father worked as a general (engineering) contractor.  It was there that the son
returned home one day when he got sick, as this is documented in his file, in 1867. Baliño's father enjoys a reputation in this city that makes us suppose that sometime before that date he has moved with his family into the town.  His occupation, in a country where architecture as a university career did not exist, allows him to have a comfortable life, although he doesn't seem to have had more than two mortgaged houses, in 1869, according to Julio Rosas -- the period in which the son would make his first works of poetry --  As a contractor of bridges on the roadway from Guanajay to Mariel, Carlos Baliño's father used his earnings in buying rifles.  These were dedicated to arousing a rebellion in Vuelta Abajo (1), in that way incorporating this region into the war begun by Cespedes.  Although the story of Rosas is rather literary, it is not exempt from errors.  These statements, and those which suggest that Baliño was the main one who was making the plot, they coincide with documents that we have been able to gather.
 
The insurgency in Vuelta Abajo was not Carlos J. Baliño's exclusive project.  The Revolutionary Junta of Havana had prepared several actions with the purpose of instigating rebellion in the western region.  These failed in their entirety due to the quick reaction by the Spanish authorities and to the lack of authentic support on the part of certain members of the Junta who went on the way to emigrate instead of personally commanding these uprisings.  Thus, the Junta had ordered the insurrection in Jaguey Grande, sending all the money that was needed and [dispatching] two Mexican commanders, colonels José Inclan and Felipe Gonzalez.  It also approved the uprising that was initiated in Guines, sponsoring it with 2,000 pesos.  It assisted the Jaruco plotters, combatants for Francisco Peralta.  The Junta bought weapons and equipment, deposited them in Havana, San Antonio and Guanajay; the difficulty of that resulted in the life of León and Medina in Havana, and the exile of Baliño and others involved in the plot in Guanajay.  The imprisonment of these last ones caused the uprising to fail, an uprising that was projected to occur in Vuelta Abajo by the Junta of Havana, with Carlos J. Baliño's collaboraton and of Carlos Garcia Sosa -- a bandit with much experience in the area-- one
who would have been of practical service.

Carlos J. Baliño -- with a large number of armed men -- was to have waited in the Candelaria mogote (a hillock or small hill) for the colonels José María Aurrecoechea and Mariano León, led by Carlos García.  Aurrecoechea and their men had left Guira de Melena, arriving at the place of the appointment on February 20. There the twelve men that were in the initial group, waited unsuccessfully until, convinced that they would not find any support, they broke up and left.  Baliño had been stopped on the day of February 7, in company with Francisco Sanchez Lubian, a lawyer and proprietor; Ramón Fences, an administer of
gas(lights); Félix María Calvo and Diego José Riva, proprietors; and Francisco Sotolongo, a farmer.  Others who were implicated were stopped on other days.  As for Carlos Benigno who participated in the undertaking -- according to what his father says in a letter to Hilario Cisneros, mentioned later on -- we have not been able to follow the printing.  As it seems, he would hide, escaping later on to the United States, where he was living, with his family, in January of 1870.

The father -- not the son as has been suggested -- he was deported to Fernando Poo(in the Canary Islands) together with his colleagues and other unfortunate Cubans of the most diverse social origins.  From the 21st to the 28th of March, they all shared the difficult voyage on the steamship San Francisco of Borja.  In the island-prison he survived the great transformation of his livelihood until he could escape August 4 -- thanks to a bribe -- together with 11 more men.

On December 13, 1869, Carlos J. Baliño is in New York, in the company of several escapees from Fernando Poo, to which some would find themselves to be ill.  Days later he writes Juan Duggan, going over the journey of events which took them from Liverpool to Paris, from Paris to Liverpool and to that last city in New York.  Duggan, -- also a deported fugitive -- had offered financial assistance to his colleagues, on behalf of the Cuban Junta of New York, Baliño went to inform him of the necessities of the same, some of those which, as his comrade Felipe Pérez, were sick and without any resources.  He, on the other hand, was without resources, although in January 18, he is still in New York, without the Junta having to support him.

In this last date Carlos J. Baliño writes José Morales Lemus--who represented the Revolution abroad -- requesting to him that they be reminded of him and a son which he has in New Orleans (Carlos Baliño), in order to offer anything which can serve the cause, mainly in Vuelta Abajo.  And he tells him:  "If you have come to
loose track of me out of forgetfulness and for that reason my son and I had not lent service to the homeland:  even when Cuba might become free I won't return to her as long as it would be at a loss of being in the company of fine patriots."  This concern to return to the homeland is reiterated in a letter to Hilario Cisneros -- of February 8, 1870 -- where Baliño reminds his communicant of the promise that was made to  him, warning him if they tried to send an expedition back into Vuelta Abajo in Cuba." "I would also be happy" -- he tells him -- "that I could go to the same, with seven of those that today one year ago had started the uprising in Bueltavajo, of which there are two in New York and five other ones who live with me, of which one is my son."

In 1874, the family Baliño lived in New Orleans, dedicated to revolutionary activities.  Dorila Baliño was president of the society, "Daughters of the People", and in that position she participated in the rally of February 22, organized to collect aid for Francisco Vicente Aguilera's expeditionary plan.  In the list of contributors appears the two Carlos Baliño names and of another son, Gaspar.  In May of that year we lose the trail of Baliño, in what can be referred from the documents.  In 1882, Carlos Benigno resides in Key West; of the father we have not found any more information.  The revelant data, however, is enough to prove Carlos Baliño and his family's revolutionary position during the Ten Years' War.

The father invested his savings in arms for the insurrection in Vuelta Abajo.  His two mortgaged houses was his only capital, according to proof from the file of assets issued in his name, and he didn't hesitate to buy weapons so that he and his son were inclined to practice in the use of them.  In exile, his maximum aspiration -- and that of his son, as it is reiterated in two letters -- was to return to Vuelta Abajo, to start a rebellion in this region.  None of the Baliño's ever saw their desire fulfilled, but this in no way demerits their revolutionary record.  No expedition arrived in the Occidente region for the duration of the war; and to enter surreptitiously into Cuba was anything but easy.

Carlos J. Baliño's revolutionary ideas had a decisive influence on  his son, who incorporated those ideas in 1895 with the partisans of Martí during emigration.  Carlos B. Baliño knew perfectly well the necessity of making a social revolution later on, because the national liberation had been his aspiration from 1868, when, being a 20 year-old youth, he followed his father in his activities.  In youth's rebellious years, the home was the best revolutionary school.  In him, a vertical revolutionary lineage was gestated, one that drove Carlos B. Baliño into the social stuggle, without breaking away from the national reality, as a militant in the first socialist organizations in the Republic and of the first Communist Party in 1925.

(1) Vuelta Abajo district, c.90 mi (140 km) long and c.10 mi  (16 km) wide, Pinar del Rio prov., W. Cuba, along the southern piedmont of the Organos Mts.  Famous for the fine quality of its tobacco, which is some of the world's best, Vuelta Abajo supplies a large proportion of the total Cuban crop.