CASTRO EMBRACES COMMUNISM

JFK+50:  Volume 6, No. 1784

CASTRO PROCLAIMS HE IS "A MARXIST-LENINIST"

Havana, Cuba (JFK+50) Fifty-four years ago today, December 2, 1961, Fidel Castro of Cuba announced in a televised address that he was a Marxist-Leninist* and added "and shall be one until the end of my life."

Castro went on to say:

"Marxism or scientific socialism has become the revolutionary movement of the working class."

Castro led successful guerrilla warfare against dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.  Within two years he became Prime Minister, survived an attempted coup directed by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and formed an alliance with the Soviet Union.

In a radio interview in the summer of 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald proclaimed that he was a "Marxist-Leninist" but in notes taken by FBI agent James Hosty at the interrogation in Dallas in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Oswald said he was a "Marxist", not a Marxist-Leninist.

According to Lenin...

"the Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true.  It is comprehensive, harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction or defence of bourgeois oppression.

It is the legitimate successor to the best that man has produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism."


*According to the New World Encyclopedia Marxism-Leninism is defined as "an adaption of Marxism developed by Vladimir Lenin which led to the first successful communist revolution in Lenin's Russia in November 1917 (and) formed the foundation of the world communist movement."

SOURCES

"Lenin's Collected Works," Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977.

"The Marxist-Leninist: a revolutionary communist website, www.marxistleninist.wordpress.com/

"The Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism," by Vladimir Llyich Lenin, Marxists Internet Archive, 1996.

Soviet Banner of Marx, Engels and Lenin
                  Image by Jgaray

COMMUNISM

On December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics replaced the Russian Empire to become the 1st national government based on Marxist Socialism.  The USSR grew to include 15 Republics & with its development of nuclear weapons became a "Superpower".

President Kennedy served at the height of the "Cold War" leading the "Free World" against the spread of Communism.  His administration confronted the USSR in Berlin in 1961 & Cuba in 1962.

JFK was certain freedom would prevail.  He said:  

"Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both."

On December 30, 1950, Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, who later was an adviser to JFK in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, declared the U.S. would "increase efforts to contain Communist aggression".

Acheson's statement followed the entry of Chinese Communists into the Korean War.  He said:

"No sacrifices are too great when the future of this nation is at stake."

On December 30, 1963, the US Congress 
             authorized the KENNEDY HALF DOLLAR.

December 30, 2010

THE MUSIC CITY BOWL

                  NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

My alma mater, the UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE Volunteers, will play the North Carolina Tarheels in post-season football this afternoon.  

Our state earned the nickname "Volunteers" in the Mexican War of 1848 when Tennessee sent the most volunteers to serve in the United States military.

Our mascot is a Blue Tick Coonhound named "SMOKEY".  Knoxville is in the foothills of the Great  Smoky Mountain National Park. Our team colors are "Orange & White".

GO VOLS! 

After I visited JFK's good friend Dave Powers in the 1980s, then curator of the JFK Library in Boston, I sent him an orange sweatshirt with TENNESSEE across the front.   

The Vols were to play Boston College that fall. He sent me a thank you letter & said:  "I will cheer for Tennessee & pray for B.C."  This was a play on JFK's comments in Ireland regarding two opposing teams.

 

P.S.  Congratulations to the Tarheels on their victory in Double Overtime.

Final Score:  NC 30  UT 27.  

It was a great game!