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Person/Place/Thing
Person/Place/Thing
Every Saturday morning, my sisters and I would go all the way to Berlin for our weekly piano lessons. During that one-hour ride, my dad would always press us to talk about our week of school. Some weeks I had nothing to talk about, and other times I took up half of the ride. Those lengthy conversations were always whenever I brought up something involving my social studies class. I would explain my opinion on whatever topic we were learning at the moment, from past wars to current political conflicts. At the age of thirteen, my opinions were nowhere near profound and well thought out. Morally, I would try my best to encompass everything I held true, but logically they were always a far stretch. Most times, my dad would challenge my opinion, which would show how feeble my argument was or vice versa.
Discussing communism with my dad was what brought it to light to me. It was never me who brought up the word communism, but my dad. Talking about current inequality and exploitation and relating it back to the industrial revolution was how the involvement of communism arose. He would give me brief but detailed examples and explanations of communism, and how it originated. Things from Karl Marx to the Kibbutz settlements in the early 1900's showed his wide grasp on the subject. One moment that remains with me, in particular, was the time when he explained all these various "communist" nations, and how one way they may be considered as communist and another as not. The USSR, created by Lenin, was a nation that was manifested following the Bolshevik revolutions. Led by Lenin, his views on communism were slightly different from Marx's, hence why his philosophy on it is called Leninism. Once the USSR was established, Lenin died and the torch was passed to Stalin. That's when what we know of the Soviet Union became its reputation. Under the dictatorship, I never considered the USSR as communist due to various reasons including the fact that there was a leader, to begin with. Under Marx's ideal communism, everyone is equal, hence why there should be no leaders.
Explaining all this to my dad, he responded by saying that it actually was a form of communism, following Marx's progression towards this egalitarian state. He believed that in order to acquire communism, a proletariat dictatorship was needed. This was the sample my dad gave me, which is what he often does. He explains something in a brief manner, one that is sufficient to understand, but also not too in-depth. He gives me enough to pique my interest, leading to my own research on this cause. He was the one who initiated my research on the Jewish settlements, the Kibbutz, and on Cuba, in particular the story behind Che Guevara. Now that we no longer have those one-hour-long drives on the weekend, I don't get much time to talk extensively with my dad about these issues. In replacement, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts from NPR's Throughline to Parcast's Dictators.
The Communist Manifesto.mp3SDA 1 (The Communist Manifesto)
Bibliography:
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Revision 813e2c8, Western Standard Publishing Company, 2013, Standard Ebooks, https://standardebooks.org/, Accessed Sept. 2021.
Wolff, Jonathan, and David Leopold. “Karl Marx.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 21 Dec. 2020, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/.
SDA 2 (Analogies on Marx)
Bibliography:
Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich. The Teachings of Karl Marx. International Publishers, 1969.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, https://plato.stanford.edu/.
West, Stephen. “Philosophize This.” Philosophize This!, 6 June 2013, https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcasts.
SDA 3 (The Cuban Story)
Bibliography:
Anderson, Jon Lee. "A New Cuba? The Fight to Define the Post-Castro Era." Foreign Affairs, vol. 101, no. 1, Jan.- Feb. 2022, pp. 173+. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A687663064/GPSu=nysl_ca_guild&sid=bookmarkGPS&xid=4aed3003. Accessed 26 Jan. 2022.
Benjamin, Jules R. “The Machadato and Cuban Nationalism, 1928-1932.” JSTOR, Duke University Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2512737.
Board, Editorial. “Fidel Castro's Terrible Legacy.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Nov. 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fidel-castros-terrible-legacy/2016/11/26/0659042c-b3de-11e6-8616-52b15787add0_story.html.
Cheng, Y. (2007). Fidel Castro and “China's lesson for Cuba”: A Chinese perspective. The China Quarterly, 189, 24–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741006000786
“Cuba Archive - Public Opinion.” American University, https://www.american.edu/centers/latin-american-latino-studies/cuba-archive-public-opinion.cfm.
“Cuba Sanctions - United States Department of State.” U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, 20 Aug. 2021, https://www.state.gov/cuba-sanctions/.
Ferrer, A. (2021). Cuba: An American history. Scribner.
Gawande, Atul. “The Human Cost of Crippling Castro.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 1 May 1998, https://slate.com/technology/1998/05/the-human-cost-of-crippling-castro.html.
History.com Editors. “Fidel Castro.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Nov. 2009, https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/fidel-castro.
Mesa-lago, Carmelo. “There's Only One Way out for Cuba's Dismal Economy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Mar. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/opinion/cuba-economy.html.
“Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Democratic Dinner, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 6, 1960.” Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Democratic Dinner, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 6, 1960 | JFK Library, https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/cincinnati-oh-19601006-democratic-dinner.
Salazar-Carrillo, Jorge, and Andro Nodarse-León. Cuba from Economic Take-off to Collapse under Castro. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.
SDA 4 (Opposing Sides)
Bibliography:
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar (Nov 01, 2006)Topics: MarxismPlaces: Latin America. “Cuban Doctors in Pakistan: Why Cuba Still Inspires.” Monthly Review, 6 Jan. 2013, https://monthlyreview.org/2006/11/01/cuban-doctors-in-pakistan-why-cuba-still-inspires/.
Administrator. “Special Period and Recovery.” Cuba History .Org, https://www.cubahistory.org/en/special-period-a-recovery.html.
Author: Raúl Castro Ruz | internet@granma.cu, and Raúl Castro Ruz. “Central Report to the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba.” Responsive Image, 22 Apr. 2021, https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2022-02-15/central-report-to-the-eighth-congress-of-the-communist-party-of-cuba.
Author: Yisell Rodríguez Milán | informacion@granmai.cu, and Yisell Rodríguez Milán. “The U.S. Invests More for Subversion in Cuba than It Gets in Return.” Responsive Image, 4 Feb. 2022, https://en.granma.cu/mundo/2022-02-04/the-us-invests-more-for-subversion-in-cuba-than-it-gets-in-return.
Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/cuba/#economy.
“Cuba Archive - Public Opinion.” American University, https://www.american.edu/centers/latin-american-latino-studies/cuba-archive-public-opinion.cfm.
“Cuba .” Data, https://data.worldbank.org/country/Cuba.
“Cuba Embargoed: U.S. Trade Sanctions Turn Sixty.” National Security Archive, 6 Apr. 1960, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2022-02-02/cuba-embargoed-us-trade-sanctions-turn-sixty.
Cuba Poll - Florida International University. https://cri.fiu.edu/research/cuba-poll/2016-cuba-poll.pdf.
“Cuba Sanctions - United States Department of State.” U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, 20 Aug. 2021, https://www.state.gov/cuba-sanctions/.
“Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966.” Immigration History, 1 Feb. 2020, https://immigrationhistory.org/item/cuban-adjustment-act-of-1966/.
Mesa-lago, Carmelo. “There's Only One Way out for Cuba's Dismal Economy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Mar. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/opinion/cuba-economy.html.
nintendo87. “Che Guevara on Face the Nation (1964).” The World History Archive and Compendium, 21 July 2019, https://worldhistoryarchive.wordpress.com/2019/07/21/che-guevara-on-face-the-nation-1964/comment-page-1/.
Norman, Jim. “Majority of Americans View Cuba Favorably for First Time.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 13 Aug. 2021, https://news.gallup.com/poll/189245/majority-americans-view-cuba-favorably-first-time.aspx.
U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499.
Zimmermann, Matilde, et al. “Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution.” Latin American Research Review, vol. 34, no. 3, Latin American Studies Association, 1999, pp. 197–208, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2503969.
SDA 5 (Castro and Marx)
Bibliography:
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