In recent posts we have documented the fact that Communist activity in Cuba and Venezuela did not begin with Fidel Castro, let alone Hugo Chavez.

Communism did not arise in Cuba as a reaction to Batista or in Venezuela in revulsion to Gómez or Pérez Jiménez. Nor did it come because of the “horrors” of the United States’ invasion of Cuba or her “exploitation” of Venezuela (or insert any south-of-the-border country). The usual shibboleths insisted upon by our betters simply will not hold under more than casual examination.

Communistic ideals, preached in the Paris communes in the 19th century predated the Spanish American War as did Lenin’s radicalism and destructive activism as well as his admiration for the French Revolution. His initial hateful attitude was directed to the Russian Tsarist regime. His glee at the outbreak of the First World War had nothing to do with the United States, which entered that cavalcade of horrors towards its end. He wanted war and mayhem because he was convinced it would enable the overthrow of the Tsarist dynasty and the consolidation of power under a Communist regime. In this he was correct.

But the United States did not enter into his fevered dreams at that stage.

Neither did she enter into the fevered imagination of another admirer of the French Revolution: Simón Bolívar. Like Lenin, Bolívar was an acolyte of the Jacobins and, initially, of Napoleon, who was seen as the one who would ensure the Revolution would endure and advance. If one is to judge Bolívar by his fruits, one would inevitably be confronted with the parallels between the bloodshed and mayhem in France and that in South America. One would see that in both cases, the fruit was bitter, and the deleterious effects, long-lasting, persisting to this very day. The power and glory of late 18th and early 19th Century France and South America are no more, and no comeback is on the horizon.

And neither, at the time, vocalized any blame to America for their own disastrous policies and actions. The rationalizations and blame-game came much later by way of their advocates and fellow travelers seeking to justify the savagery and terror as well as their own consolidation of power and overarching control over people: their own and others. (For this, American universities and high schools will One Day give an account.)

So, as for instance, we have the Cuban, Paul Lefargue (Lefargue), one of the most influential Communists who predated the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Lefargue was born in Cuba in 1842 and died in Paris in 1911. He married Karl Marx’ daughter, Jenny, and the two of them were indefatigable in their successful promotion of the Communist virus in France and Spain, from whence it sailed back to the Caribbean and South America where the successful infiltrators, the Polish Comintern agent, Fabio Grobart (1905-1994), and the Venezuelan Comintern agent, Gustavo Machado (1898-1983) (agents) both were enthusiastic carriers, having promoted the objective conditions necessary for its propagation: hatred for the colonial past and for the United States present.

Hugo Chávez was born in 1954. His first overt coup attempt was in 1992. However, to understand him, his actions, and the worldview that motivated them, one must review well over a generation before, as this blog has striven to do.

Fidel Castro was born in 1926. His first overt coup attempt was in 1953 (ignoring the aborted 1947 attempt to overthrow Trujillo in the Dominican Republic). However, here too, one must provide a broader context well beyond Castro, to understand his actions and motivations, setting aside the psychological aspects. 

Absent the actions and evangelistic fervor of Paul Lefargue, Fabio Grobart, or Gustavo Machado, there would have been no Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, or Nicolás Maduro regardless of what the United States did or did not do. Special mention must also be accorded to Douglas Bravo, the Venezuelan guerrilla and erstwhile Castro ally, whose long-term strategy of infiltration of the Venezuelan armed forces and the use of Simón Bolívar as a euphemism for Marxist ideology enabled and ensured the rise of Chávez and Maduro and continues to pay dividends to this day. (Gustavo Machado had the same idea but was discovered during the Gómez dictatorship, resulting in his exile.)

Of course, these men did not act alone: the Comintern keenly sought and aided their success in the Americas; women of means and influence as well as United States reporters, bureaucrats, academics, and politicians were devoted disciples and promoters. Whether knowingly or duped is irrelevant; the results were horrible just the same.