Before the pathetic and sorrowful sight of a Republic under the capricious will of only one man rises the national spirit from the most profound souls of dignified men. It rises to continue the unfinished revolution that Céspedes initiated in 1868, Martí continued in 1895, and Guiteras and Chibás actualized in the republic era. In the probity of the men of Cuba is based the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

Before the defiant arrogance of the dictatorship and the conciliabulum and the ridiculous compromise of the leading politicians, the unbreakable probity of the Cuban people rises in the unanimous decision to reconquer its Constitution, its essential liberties and its inalienable rights, trampled without respite by the treacherous usurpation.

Before the chaos in which the Nation has fallen by the insistence of the most ambitious of all Cubans and the heartless interests of his followers, the Cuban youth, who love liberty and respect the decorum of free men, rises vibrantly in a gesture of immortal rebelliousness, breaking the insane pact with the concept of the past and with the present of grief and deceit.

Before the tragedy of Cuba, contemplated calmly by political leaders without honor, rises in this decisive hour, arrogant and potent, the youth of the Centenary, which does not maintain another interest that is not the decided longing of honoring with sacrifice and triumph, the unrealized dream of Martí.

In the name of the relentless struggles that have marked summits of glory in the history of Cuba, comes the new Revolution, rich in men without blemish, to renovate once and for all the unbearable situation which the ambitious and the improvised have submerged the country and, grasping the roots of the Cuban national sentiment, to the preaching of its greatest men and embraced to the flag of the solitary star, comes to declare before the honor and the probity of the Cuban people.

In the probity of the men of Cuba lies the triumph of the Cuban revolution. The revolution of Céspedes, of Agramonte... of Maceo... of Martí... of Mella and of Guiteras, of Trejo and of Chibás. The Revolution that has not triumphed yet. By the dignity and the decorum of the men of Cuba, this Revolution will triumph.

The Martí Centenary culminates its historic cycle that has marked the continuing progression and retrogression of the political and moral realms of the Republic: the bloody and virile fight for liberty and independence; the civic struggle among Cubans to reach political and economic stability; the unfortunate process of the foreign intervention; the dictatorships of 1929-33 and of 1934-44; the unrelenting struggle of heroes and martyrs to make a better Cuba.

The purpose of finding the true course was dawning in the Cuban life; the consciousness of the citizenry was in a state of giving its best fruit, conquered by the sacrifice of the life of one of its most famous statesmen and by the mandate of his admonishing voice; when, at the command of the most ambitious of all Cubans, a ridiculous minority seized the country, dissipating illusory promises and deceptive propaganda. Their purpose was to make the sensible people believe that treacherous coup in the heart of the institutions, was capable of engendering social progress, peace and work.

To the collar of blood and infamy, of unmeasured lust and plunder of the national treasury, that was linked to the name of the new ruler, was linked to the large chain of violations against Cuba: institutionalization of the "coup d'etat" to secure regimes of force; bribery of the Congress and of the puppet presidents; physical destitution of various Presidents; imposition of castes and privileges; dissolution of the Congress; illegitimate appointments of persons in the Judiciary; destitution of Councilmen and Mayors; physical trampling and abuses of peaceful citizens, and the placing of an inglorious flag next to the most glorious flag.

The present grew in excess, a short time after the treacherous coup, the calamities, the anguish, the eviction and hunger that are unmistakable signs of the ambitious Chief of State and his main cohorts. The harsh paralyzation of the popular desire by the abuse of force, brought as a consequence the gravest situation engendered by a Cuban political event in any era: the industrial production decreases; the discontent of the workers or expulsion from their work centers; persecution and imprisonment of students for their civic protest against the Regime; isolation and division of the political parties; sudden disappearance of money in the street; flight of the frightened capital; imprisoned those who dared to publicly protest the trampling of the Republic; dissolution of the Civil Code and death of the Constitution and its rights. On the conscience of the author of all of this falls the contempt of free men and the cutting edge of the sword of justice.

In the chaos sprung on our people, wounded, but never dead, fell other tardy ambitions. Those who could not make of the country what they promised a thousand times when they were in power... those that, not having drowned the serene expression of liberty, also did not contribute to make it just and eternal for our country, to pull out of the roots of our history the tragic unaccustomed coup; they then came as apostles, trying in vain to reconquer past glories. Another idea can not triumph in the spirit and the conscience of the people that is not the total disappearance of this latent state, of this infected chaos that we have been subjected to not only those guilty of the dawn coup against the national institutions, but those who have been able to watch the crime in calm. It is not honest or just to attempt against the heart of the Republic, nor is it just or honest to climb on her to let the others attempt.

Before the political situation of Cuba are rejoicing the wretched dictator and his cohorts who have climbed on the head of the people in their anxious eagerness to loot. Before the pathetic situation of Cuba the venal politicians are associating to create the new pantomime. Fossils of Cuban politics publicly expound the most retrograde ideas, the most useless thoughts while the people's longing, which is never wrong, awaits the clarion call of alert, the defense of its most sacred rights, of its tricolor flag and of the eternal idea for which the most illustrious and disinterested citizens have died.

For defending these rights, for raising that flag, for conquering that idea, the present youth has its knees in the ground, youth of the Centenary, historic pinnacle of the Cuban Revolution, epoch of Martiism sacrifice and magnitude. To conquer it, the youth has its watchful eye at the entrance of the men of truth, of agile mind, giant spirit, who knew how to give it all for a Cuba worthy of the spontaneous blood of its sons, live in the consolidation of its inevitable destiny for the supreme dream of the Apostle.

Those who disregarded the lovers of liberty to carry out the coup d'etat, arise against them in this decisive hour, arrogant and potent, the Youth of the Centenary, echo of the honorable yesterday, cradle of a better future. Those who did not count with that honest and studious youth, capable of writing with sacrifice and triumph its best homage to Marti, do not know that in the hearts of all Cubans is the valor and the probity of the Fatherland and that we will place it in victory in the lofty palm fields. The justice of the people in this glorious year should be there. In 1853 with the birth of an illuminated man, began the Cuban Revolution; in 1953 it will end with the birth of an illuminated Republic.

A. The Revolution declares that it does not pursue hate or useless blood, but to save the probity of Cuba in its crucial year. Surging from the most genuine layers of national valor, the revolution of the Cuban people is born, with the vanguard of a youth longing for a New Cuba, clean of past errors and small ambitions. It is the revolution emanating from the men and new procedures prepared with the unredeemed power and the decision of those who dedicate their lives to an ideal.

The Revolution declares that it is the meditated front of insistence; pulling out once and for all the binds that link us to the corrupt past and all the myths that presently keep us in bitterness and pain.

B. The revolution declares itself free of binds with foreign nations and also free of influence and of the appetite of politicians and of self-styled personages. The revolution is a virile entity, and the men who have organized it and who represent it pact with the sacred will of the people to conquer the future that it deserves. The revolution is the decisive fight of the populace against all those who have deceived them.

C. The Revolution declares that it respects the integrity of free citizens and of the men in uniform who have not betrayed the national heart, nor have submitted their glorious flag nor have abjured their Constitution.

It salutes in this decisive hour all Cubans with probity, where ever they may be, and joyously embraces those who are decided to seek shelter on its arc of triumph.

D. The Revolution declared its energy and rigor against those who have only had energy and rigor to snatch from the people its sacred rights and institutions, violating liberty and sovereignty at a cost of the pain and anguish of the sons of Cuba.

E. The Revolution declares its firm decision to situate Cuba at the level of economic well-being and prosperity that would assure its rich subsoil, its geographic location, its diversified agriculture, and its industrialization, which have been exploited by illegitimate and spurious governments, by unmeasured ambitions and of culpable interest.

F. The Revolution declares that it recognizes and bases itself in the ideals of Martí, contained in his speeches, in the foundations of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and in the Manifest of Montecristi; and makes its own the Revolutionary Programs of the Joven Cuba, A.B.C. Radical and the Partido del Pueblo Cubano (Ortodoxo).

G. The Revolution declares its respect for the free sister nations of America who have known to conquest, at the cost of bloody sacrifices, the position of economic liberty and social justice that is the index of our century. And it vows, in this decisive hour, that the Cuban clarion call be one more star in the conquest of the Latin American ideals and interests, latent in the blood of our nations and the thoughts of our most illustrious men.

H. The Revolution declares its eagerness and decision to renovate, completely and totally, the national economic means, with the implantation of the most urgent measures to resolve the crisis and distribute honest work and equitable money to all the Cuban homes, a decision that is one and indivisible in the hearts of the men that defend it.

I. The Revolution declares its respect for the workers and students as accredited masses in the defense of the inalienable and legitimate rights of the Cuban populace throughout all of history, and it assures them and all the people, the implantation of a total and definitive social justice based in the economic and industrial advancement under a synchronized and perfect plan, fruit of thoughtful and meticulous study.

J. The Revolution declares its absolute and reverent respect for the Constitution given to the people in 1940 and reestablishes it as the official Code of Laws. It declares that the only flag is the tricolor of the solitary star and it elevates it as always, glorious and firm, to the din of combat, and that there is no other hymn than the Cuban national, renown throughout the world by the vibrant stanza: That to die for the fatherland is to live!

K. The Revolution declares its love and its confidence in the virtue, in the honor and decorum man and expresses its intention of utilizing all those who really are valuable, in function of those forces of the spirit, in the grand task of Cuban reconstruction. These men exist in all the places and institutions of Cuba, from the rural shack to the General Staff of the Armed Forces; and the watchful eye of the Revolution will situate them in the position of service that Cuba asks of them. This is not a revolution of castes.

Cuba embraces those who know how to love and build, and despises those who hate and destroy. We will build the New Republic, with all and for the good of all, in the love and fraternity of all Cubans.

The Revolution declares itself definitive, gathering the incommensurable sacrifice of the past generations, the unbreakable will of the present generations, and the life and well-being of the future generations.

In the name of the Martyrs.

In the name of the sacred rights of the Fatherland.

For the honor of the Centennial.

The Cuban Revolution

July 23, 1953