Fidel Castro Quotes
It is hard to build a communist state while reformers are slandering socialism, destroying its values, discrediting the party and liquidating its leading role, doing away with social discipline, and sowing chaos and anarchy everywhere.
In the latter part of 1989 there were major reforms in the Eastern European communist countries.
Fidel Castro, Cuban Premier, Speech, December 8, 1989
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Vladimir Lenin. While Lenin was of this view, Stalin and other hard liners disagreed. They not only imposed their brand of communism on their own people via force with terrible consequences for any dissidents, but the Soviet Army imposed Communism on most of the states of Eastern Europe, and those states in turn used their Armies and secret police to impose it on their own citizens.
Vladimir Lenin. Some anti-democratic, rabid opponents of communism used this quotation to argue that democracy was just a step on the way to Communism and thus democracy was a part of the communist conspiracy—an extreme form of Red Scare.
So often in America, citizens and government officials have made alliances or joined organizations under the theory that “the enemy of my enemy must be my friend.” It has almost always been a mistake ranging from joining the Communist Party in the 1930s to supporting the dictators or the Middle East, Asia, and South America. In the 1930s Fascism was growing and already on the march and neither America nor England—the leading democracies were not doing anything to combat the threat. America was emerging from the Great Depression, had a string Isolationist movement, and a small but influential group of Fascists and Hitler enthusiasts. Also, no one outside of Russia knew about the Stalin atrocities.
This is a very important historical, political quotation. The conservatives have since the Russian Revolution conflated socialism and communism. However, here in 1932 the leader of the American Socialist Party had already described the Communist Revolution in Russia as a failure of founding an acceptable modern state. Nonetheless, even into the 21st century many conservatives describe Thomas as a Communist. See {626692} for his distinction between Communism and Socialism. The difficulty of modern nation building was explained by Thomas and others but was really not accepted until the many attempts of the early 21st century, some supported by America like Iraq and Afghanistan and the Balkans and others like the “Arab Spring.” Then his early wisdom on this point became more appreciated.
So many Afghans thought very differently and resisted Amin’s Government and the Russians, that the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan.
This memo was written a few days before his death and it was the last document he wrote. The communists tended to use the word “socialist” so they could make it seem that the Soviet Bloc was allied or part of the same grouping as the Scandinavian countries, India and other countries that were neither ideological communists nor controlled by the Russian or any other Communist Party. Those nations, in contrast tended to use the word, “socialist” to distinguish themselves from the Communist countries. This mostly confused many Americans. Some conflated the socialist countries and the communist countries making no distinctions. Others, like most European politicians kept the distinction in mind. Most Americans were confused as the Red Scare perpetrators tended to conflate, and the liberals tended to distinguish.
Vladimir Lenin. Most did not and the Communist government was brutal and murderous in forcing them into the Communist culture, outlook, and behavior. See {640096} for a description of some of the effort.
Immediately after the Russian Revolution, the provisional government appointed him as Ambassador to the United States. However, the provisional government was supplanted when the Bolsheviks took over. Not enamored of Communism, he stayed in the United States with many other Russian refugees.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz better known internationally as Fidel Castro, was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
