Julio Antonio Mella

His father was Nicanor Mella Breá (1851–1929), a tailor and son of Dominican revolutionary Matías Ramón Mella Castillo, one of the Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic, and a leader of the Dominican War of independence and the Dominican Restoration War.

Mella's mother was Cecilia McPartland, daughter of Irish immigrants.

Although Cecilia was not married to Nicanor senior, they initially named Mella after his father.

As children, Nicanor Mella and his younger brother Cecilio went to New Orleans with their mother while she convalesced from lung troubles.

Later the boys returned to Cuba to live with their father's wife Mercedes Bermúdez Ferreira.

She acted as their stepmother.

At that time, Mella's name was changed from Nicanor to Antonio, and his younger brother was renamed as Nicasio Mella.

Antonio Mella engaged in secondary studies at Chandler College in Marianao, Havana, and Colegio Mimó.

Julio Antonio Mella McPartland (born Nicanor McPartland; 25 March 1903 – 10 January 1929) was a Cuban political activist, journalist, communist revolutionary, and one of the founders of the original Communist Party of Cuba.

Mella was born Nicanor McPartland in 1903 in Havana.

Possibly the first was founded in 1906 near Manzanillo by Agustín Martín Veloz (Martinillo).

His step-mother, Mercedes Bermúdez Ferreira, died in 1915.

After visiting the US again in 1917, Mella returned to Cuba.

He prepared for the University of Havana at Academia Newton before being sent to boarding school at the prestigious Escolapios of Guanabacoa.

The original "internationalized" Communist Party of Cuba was formed in the 1920s when Gerardo Machado was president and then dictator of the country.

This organization is said to be related to several fronts, including the anti-imperialist league and its anti-clerical analogue.

The 21st century Cuban government regards Mella as a communist hero and martyr.

After being expelled from here, Mella finished his secondary studies at the public Instituto de la Habana and/or Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza of Pinar del Río, in 1921.

Mella became a political activist and was first arrested during the democratic rule (1921–1924) of Alfredo Zayas.

He studied law at the University of Havana, emerging as a radical leader.

Students forcibly occupied Havana University and sought power through demands for changes to improve their education and academic independence, including: modernization of textbooks, autonomy for the university, free education for all, and more unusually, for students to serve as head of the university for a day.

Mella was soon involved in the political struggle against Gerardo Machado, a future Cuban president.

The student organized the formal founding of the Moscow-directed, "internationalist" Partido Comunista de Cuba.

At this time he was also associated with women radicals Rosario Guillaume (Charito) and Sarah Pascual.

He was expelled from the University after being arrested and accused of a bomb plot.

Mella studied law at the University of Havana but was expelled in 1925.

He had worked against the government of Gerardo Machado, which had grown increasingly repressive.

Mella left the country, reaching Central America.

He traveled north to Mexico City, where he worked with other exiled dissidents and communist sympathizers against the Machado government.

After being released from jail in late 1925, Mella fled to Central America in early 1926, and headed north to Mexico City.

Cuba had a number of communist and/or anarchist parties, especially in Havana and in the eastern area of Cuba, at least as early as the beginning of the Cuban Republic.

This party was formally recognized by Moscow in 1925.

Contacts with Moscow representatives were said to be made in a restaurant at 687 Compostela Street, at the corner of Luz Street in Havana.

The founders of the Cuban Communist Party are listed as: Julio Antonio Mella, Juan Marinello, Alejandro Barreiro, Carlos Baliño, Alfonso Bernal del Riesgo, Jesús Menéndez, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Lázaro Peña, Blas Roca, Rubén Martínez Villena, Anibal Escalante, Emilio Roig, Dr Celestino Hernandez Robau, and Fabio Grobart.

He was assassinated in 1929, but historians still disagree on which parties were responsible for his death.

Fabio Grobart (aka Abraham Semjovitch; Alberto Blanco) was born in Bialystok, Poland, in 1905 and died in Cuba on 22 October 1994.

He was a member of the Soviet-dominated Comintern and was often considered a covert, Moscow-appointed leader of the Communists in the Caribbean area.

Other founders also used pseudonym: Mella used such names as Cauhtémoc Zapata, Kim (El Machete), and Lord McPartland in his writing.

The revolutionary known as Blas Roca was born Francisco Calderío.

Alejandro Barreiro is sometimes considered an anarchist, although the Communist Party of Cuba claims him as their own.