Journals

From an early age, I've always been nagged by my father that getting good grades shouldn't be done in his favor, but for mine, which has impacted the relationship I've had with my grades. Last year was an especially weird year, changing my perspective on a lot of things, including grades. I wasn't at my best, as this can probably relate with most people. I easily got distracted, leading to a loss of understanding which directly affecting my grades. It was the first time I've ever felt horrible about myself over a long period of time, and not only because of my grades. Those numbers accurately represented my work ethic, and it made me realize how important grades were to my social wellbeing. If I demonstrate my best self, I get the best results I possibly can from my grades. If not, it reflects my laziness and lost will.

I don't have any memory that pops in mind, but all the good times I remember in school are all the ones I had with friends. Whether it was school trips, tests, or labs done with them, all those memories remain in my mind. No matter what we may be going through, the times spent with people whom I feel comfortable around and enjoy spending with are always the best. As for memories outside of school, they're always the ones where I spend my time doing things I enjoy, as simple as it is. The bike rides with my dad, the family movie nights, and the nightly walks on the beach are memories I know I will cherish until I'll fall into the inevitable doom of old age forgetfulness.

Coming into school, I like to think about my future, and what exactly I'll end up spending most of my energy on. Recently, I've been given the task to research and look into colleges I might be interested in. For now, the European University Institute and the University of Bern have piqued my interest. I've also been looking into Universities in the USA, but the only problem I have with them is the cost. Unlike European Universities, the ones here in the "land of the free" have an average tuition cost of about $35,331, according to Melanie Hanson who reported her research on Education Data, and this only entails those first four years of undergraduate college. Now compare this to the average tuition cost for European nations, and you find that almost none of them exceed a cost of 30,000 USD. Either way, before I can complain about the costs, I should focus on getting accepted, which means succeeding both in my numerical grades and getting into AP classes. It means leaving high school with a feeling of accomplishment, both in my academic achievements and my social ones as well. I want to leave having found a passion I know I can carry through my college years, and things I do well in that leave not only and impact to the ones around me but also to people to who come after me.

The first thing I thought of when pondering on things I hate about schools was grades, and ironically it's the same for when I think about what I love about school. Before COVID hit at the end of my freshman year, I used to despise how numbers were all we cared about. It was a motivator for sure, trying to constantly hit those high 99's, but it also sucked out all the enjoyment of learning. Instead of taking my time and appreciating the fact that I had an opportunity to understand a concept I never even heard of before, I would scramble through it, memorizing the definitions and formulas. The test would take place, and then for the next unit, I would forget everything from the previous unit, falling into a cycle of memorizing and forgetting. Then, at the end of freshman year during COVID, grading policies changed. Instead of numbers, you would get DEL (demonstrates evidence of learning), NEL (no evidence of learning), and NYS (not yet submitted). One could have numerically earned a 75 on a test and get a DEL same as one who would have earned a 99. I no longer had the motivation to work my best because I knew that even if I fell short of my best, it would be sufficient for a DEL. And that's all I needed. Looking back, I knew it was a horrible way of approaching this difficult time, but I found it difficult to get out of the rut. In all honesty, the rut almost felt comfortable. The stressing over grades, and the huge self-value I placed myself on numbers just vanished for those few months, and it felt like a guilty pleasure.

My older sister took EMC² during her senior year of 2020-2021, and although the work did seem exacting, the thing that stuck with me the most was the concept that one could choose to cover whatever topic they desired. I had finally found something that I knew I wouldn't ever get fed up with. I've had phases of interest, moving from astronomy to climate change and music. They've all lasted max one year, never more. Marxism, and just the general study of the role politics and economy play in society, has always stuck with me since seventh grade. Though there are some ups and downs in my level of interest, it has never dropped below the point where I got sick of it. The only problem is that I never had the will to actually sit down and create a research project of my own. Yes, I would read and inform myself on Marxism and other social philosophies, but I never wrote down and created a final understanding of my own.

It's Okay To Not Be Okay is a K-drama TV series that has a lot of sentimental meaning to it. It shows many different sides to human nature, from the struggles we all deal with mentally, and those concerning societal pressure. From mental disorders to mental illnesses, it shows how people cope from a realistic point of view. This series follows the growth and development of three characters and their ways of coping with past trauma. Moon Gang-tae, a health worker who works at OK Psychiatric Hospital, and Moon Sang-tae, who is diagnosed with autism, are both brothers. From a young age, their mother was murdered and it was witnessed by Moon Sang-tae, who has suffered all his years trying to not let this hold him back. Meanwhile, Ko Mun-yeong, who's a children's storybook writer, is another character brought in the series. She has an antisocial personality disorder, which affects her ability to sympathize. She is introduced as a potential love interest for Moon Gang-tae, which brings a lot of tensions between the relationships of all three.

This story touches on a lot of messages through its complexity. From how society treats people with disabilities, to how everyone has a struggle in their own unique way, and finally learning and understanding that loving others is just as important as loving yourself. The series depicts how Sang-tae while dealing with his past trauma, was able to navigate through the world even with his autism. The brother, Gang-tae, on the other hand, is often seen treating Sang-tae as if he were someone in need of help. This kind of perspective towards those suffering from mental disabilities is prevalent in society, often interpreted as pity. We also see the stark contrast between the personalities of Gang-tae and Mun-yeong, with the former being the more gentle-hearted and the latter being more antisocial. Gang-tae has trouble thinking about himself and is overly preoccupied with others. Mun-yeong instead has the struggle of showing emotion towards others, especially when it comes to love. It's also really artistic how the directors used the children's book stories as a way to relate back to the story at hand, and how such a simplistic book can be used to accurately summarize a complex situation.

It's okay to take a break and heal no matter the circumstance.

People who aren't successful in a task often overestimate their abilities, and those who are tend to underestimate themselves. This is what David Dunning and Justin Kruger concluded from a social experiment they conducted. I've tried to apply this in many aspects to my life, from academic subjects to my athleticism. Understanding the balance between egotism and cowardice takes a lot of self-reflection by understanding your limits and how you compare to your potentiality. For my self-reflection on what I know about Communism, it helped a lot to discuss with someone who has background knowledge on it and isn't scared to set me straight. This person was my dad for the past few weeks.

There were some things that I already knew before discussing, such as the time period which influenced Karl Marx's philosophy behind The Communist Manifesto. I also knew the mass-spread propaganda against Communism which the United States put through to their citizens during the Cold War against the USSR, often referred to as the Red Scare. (Wikipedia). I know many leading figures that took inspiration from Marx's philosophy like Lenin, Mao, and Che Guevara (Investopedia). They each had their own individual interpretation and modifications, but they still all derived from that end goal of achieving a world where the means of production were in the hands of the state rather than private organizations. I know that Marx explained his philosophy on the oppressed and the oppressor and the solution, but he never gave a detailed explanation as to how society ought to transition from a capitalistic to a socialistic and finally a communist system (The New Yorker). I know that Communism, in its ideal form, is stateless, money-less, and classless, compared to its rival, Capitalism, which needs states, money, and class in order for it to function because it relies on competition (Medium). I know that a hugely used critique against Communism is how do we assure ourselves that society will still function without that motivation for money (Stanford)? I know that Marx was not an avid believer in religion, and he had a certain take on it when relating it to Communism, saying it was the "opium of the people", meaning the drug for those who didn't want to face reality (Revise Sociology).

My dad did point out many arguments which I have never thought about or even knew. It really showed me how I may think to know so many things, but in reality I've only scratched the surface. When it comes to the things I think I know, they're often the things I will say in order to elevate my argument, but when challenged, it will fall weak. I think I know that Cuba under Fidel Castro's reign began on the right foot. With free education, social security, and many other privileges given to every citizen, I think that Cuba was going in the right direction. Then, I think with the involvement of the USSR and the Cuban Missile Crisis, that's when things took off for the worse. I think that if Castro hadn't accepted the USSR's aid with their missiles, they could've potentially ended up differently. I think that in order for Communism to succeed, it'd either have to be done in a small, independent community or initiated by a big and financially stable country. With Globalization and the free market being adapted in many corners of the world, I don't think a communist nation would survive, especially since participating would essentially contradict its ideologies. I think that although Capitalism does have its pros, Communism is inevitable if humanity truly wants a society where all people are given the same opportunity. I think that in order to live under Communism, we have to give up a lot of trust to the government. I think that Marx believed that having religion practiced under Communism wasn't possible, and I think he critiqued it as such, saying it would only dissolution people, which would prevent the progression in society.

For this SDA, I did put in a lot of time, probably too much, but I think that I understand what I would need to fix for next time. I found a podcast site which I like and think is easy to use, so for the next time, I'm thinking of doing a podcast again, or something involving a voice over. For next time, I also know that I'll need to plan ahead accordingly, making sure that all my research needed for the next SDA is done before a certain amount of days before the SDA is due, so that it'll leave me with about half a week to a full week of planning. The Person/Place/Thing assignment definitely helped with my reflection on what I needed to research on. Recalling back to conversations with my dad concerning Communism helped me realize how much about Karl Marx I didn't know. Before the assignment, I had already started reading the Communist Manifesto, so I was already focused on Marx, but identifying what I know and didn't know guided me with having a set construct of what exactly I was looking for in the Manifesto. It also helped shape what exactly I want to research next, opening my mind to many different directions I can take this research. As for the directions, I think they were completely clear and I understood what my goal was supposed to be. The meeting one-on-one did help with clarifying any extra information, but regarding what I had to do and how I was supposed to do it was clear. I think the SDA was more of a self-assessment to see what you can do using the resources you have rather than a project of "can you understand the rubric."

My next question is, "How would you compare Marx's philosophy, specifically that of Communism, to philosophers who came before and after him? How would you contrast?" Compared to my first question, it does still focus on Marx and his philosophy, but instead of researching his philosophy, I'm going to be researching the basics of the philosophies that either impacted or were impacted by Marx. Some people I'm hoping to touch on is Hegel, Feuerbach, Lenin, Mao, and hopefully even Fidel Castro. I don't plan on digging deep into their philosophies, but getting a general idea on the fundamentals of each person's philosophy and contrasting it to Marx is my goal. I think it works as a transition to my next main goal, which is tackling Marxist-Leninism.

Thinking ahead for my project, I really want to understand other forms of Marxism, so I think a good way to go about it is by dipping my toes into various philosophies. I do plan on going in chronological order, but I think having a general overview of what's to come next helps with knowing what's most critical to understand. The sources I picked are both primary and secondary resources. Having secondary resources helps with the comprehension of the data, but I think that having primary resources is just as important, providing a challenge. They leave the interpretation up to you, and gives you a more self-gratification in the end.

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.

I think what fits good for this question is the "Today I Learned" SDA format. As a self-reflection from my previous SDA, I know that I need to work on summarization, so I think this format will provide that challenge. I intend to gather enough information to have a strong understanding of the general forms of each philosophy, but not too much where I overextend myself. Sort of like a warm up to a workout, I don't want to go too hard where I tire myself out, but I also don't want to hold myself back too much to the point where I risk injuring myself later on. The Teachings of Karl Marx by Lenin has about fifty pages in it, so the only challenge it has is the understanding and analysis it requires, but even then I relieved a bit of that pressure by having already read the Communist Manifesto and having a grasp on Marx and his philosophy. I also find that Stephen West, the host of "Philosophize this", provides a lot of analysis on Hegel's and Feuerbach's philosophy. He talks about Hegel's dialect, which had a massive influence on the manifestation of Marx's philosophy, and Feuerbach's religious views, which were often criticized by Marx. Lastly, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy showcases a lot of reliable details and facts about many philosophers, ranging from Hegel to Marx to Lenin. Sifting through the information will be challenging, but along with the primary resource and the podcast, I think that gradually I'll start picking up on overlapping information. Using these overlapping information, I'll pick and choose the most important for not only the comprehension of the topic, but also the vitality it will have to responding to the question at hand.

1. Is Communism even possible in nations with mass populations (i.e. USA, India, China, etc.)?

2. What are the misconceptions on Communism, and why?

3. Why have most previous attempts to Communism never work?

For the first problem, I think it's more of a matter of personal interests. For a while, I've been fascinated by Communism and Marx's philosophy, specifically if it were even possible for the USA to develop into this system. I know about the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, and how they've claimed to execute Marx's ideology through their current nation. I know the terrifying things that are and have taken place in these "Communist" nations, even when leaders had good intentions behind it. The problem affects the people, mainly because Communism is a system made for the mass. I believe in democracy being the one true humanitarian system for the people, but specifically that which can be brought out through Communism. It doesn't take much to look around and see the failure of democracy under the current Capitalistic society, same as it failed under the Communistic one. However, just like capitalism isn't the only reason why not all can be represented properly, Communism also isn't solely to blame for the oppression that can be observed through many of such nations. I think it's more of a question as to whether or not it was even true Communism, and even more relevant, if we are even living in a true Capitalistic nation. I know this is a problem because we can see various successful socialist nations who were small in population and size, yet when we start looking at broader countries with bigger populations, such as the USSR and North Korea, we see the leaders becoming despots. Democracy is taken away from the public, along with free will. In this area, if I choose to go with it, I'd also want to research if the American narrative of individualism causes this notion of Communism to be impractical, along with the Red Scare that took place during the Cold War Era and even modern times today.

Felt, Alexandra. “Commentary: Why Communism Doesn't Work.” Granite Bay Today, https://granitebaytoday.org/commentary- why-communism-doesnt-work/.

The problems with misconceptions is then the quick spread of misinformation. It creates a general public opinion on something, taking it to the extreme of a "me vs them" mindset. No matter how sensable the other side may speak of their opinions, it will always be perceived as an attack. I've realized this for myself as well, which is why if I take up this problem for my midterm project, I want to focus on capitalism a lot more than I have been thus far. I want to see the pros and cons of both systems, and then try to approach the problem in the most neutral way possible. I do have a bias, a strong one on top of that, which I do think won't be changed by the end of this project. Though I recognize certain benefits Capitalism brings to communities, I can't ignore the drawbacks. We all want to live in a utopia, and my utopia would be a Communistic one, the one described by Marx. In this project, I think a lot of research would go into those philosophical questions that many still debate to this day, such as if humans are naturally greedy, or if it's the system that molds them to be this way. This problem mainly affects those who proclaim themselves as Socialists or Communists. The USA often associates Communism with an authoritarian government, so when someone comes out as Communist, it receives the same reaction as someone coming out as wanting to be the next Stalin or Castro. This doesn't denote the fact that there are Stalin-sympathizers and Castro-sympathizers, but they shouldn't be the whole representation of the party. I'd probably like to research into Mandela, Gandhi, and MLK in this problem, mainly because they are well-known virtuous people who were Communists. This problem can be easily spotted in the media and in the general opinion Americans have on Communism, especially those who don't necessarily do much research on it.

“The Basics of Socialism.” Socialism101.Com, https://www.socialism101.com/basic.

Lastly, I think this problem is probably the most important one for those who wish to not only debunk many misconceptions surrounding Communism, but also those who want to strategize a possible future for such a system. History is important because it allows humans, us, to learn and avoid mistakes done in the past. I like to think of society and the future like a scientific experiment. We have the hypothesis, that being Marx's philosophy, then we had experiments that failed horribly in some nations (USSR, North Korea, and China under Mao), while others managed to succeed for a small amount of time (Chile, Ghana, and Senegal). So, my question is, why did it succeed in some places while fail in others? And why do many people not know of these small socialist nations? I'll probably be researching how the leaders of the socialist/communist movements in these countries differed, and possibly find a reason behind the failure of the typically thought of Communist nations. I think it might be too broad of a question for now. I could take it in so many different directions, from researching on Cuba, to researching the USSR, and the staged coup attempts the USA's CIA set up during the Cold War Era. I will say that this question interests me the most, mainly because I recently found the CIA website, where certain classified documents were allowed to be released. Personally, I just think it's cool to be reading "CIA Top Secret documents" on the Cold War, and be able to use it in my project. I could use this resource with the other problems as well, I'm just not entirely sure if there are any released documents on the Red Scare propaganda the US government pushed on its people.

Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/.

I think my biggest weakness not being able to actually work on the things I need to work on for EMC, and instead getting distracted by other stuff. I admit that I am turning in this Journal entry late, mainly because instead of working on it last night, I went on an internet dive into CIA Top Secret documents and couldn't stop myself. Worst part is that once I did stop, I just moved on to watching a documentary called, "Fidel: The Untold Story". By the end of watching that documentary, it was 1 in the morning, and I was tired, so I went to bed. While this is a weakness of mine, I also think it can be a strength. I have the passion for this subject, but I think what's more important is that I have the curiosity to ask for more. One can have passion, but without curiosity, I think it can be a dead progression. I have passion for playing the piano, but I don't have enough curiosity to play more pieces, so I end up playing "La La Land" and Studio Ghibli soundtracks every day. My skills aren't progressing in that case, and though I don't think it's a bad thing, I still believe that a healthy individual should have curiosity for at least one thing. It gives them meaning and understanding to what they are doing and what to do. Although this curiosity can lead me to hours and hours of reading CIA documents, it also gives me that motivation to never stop learning.

For my journal today, I've been using the book Cuba: From Economic Take-Off to Collapse under Castro, written by Jorge Salazar-Carrillo and Andro Nodarse Leon. I found the book on the database of Syracuse University Libraries, and used the search terms "Cuba", "Fidel", and "Castro". Carrillo is a professor in the department of economics and the director of the Economic Research Center at Florida International University. He specializes his research primarily on Asia and Latin America, along with US macro and microeconomics. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics. Leon is the co-founder to the Managing Partner of LEON, MAYER and Co. He also founded LionGrove following LM in 2018. He graduated with a B.S. in Economics and a B.S.E. in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. The book was published in 2015, with the purpose of figuring out what exactly set Cuba on a path of economic failure. The beginning of the book focuses more on the past economic history of Cuba, setting up the potentiality Cuba had for their economic prospering in the future. Then they start detailing what exactly changed over the course of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, where Castro then took control. Towards the end of the book, they use data tables to compare the successes of Cuba compared to the rest of the world. As a disclaimer, this book focuses only on the economy of Cuba, not the social impacts Castro had on the population.

The difference between this book and the previous article is that this one gets more into the problems surrounding Castro's economic policies, and when comparing Cuba with other nations, it uses statistics rather than a personal take on what's similar and different. The previous article was also more preoccupied with explaining Mao's policies, and then using these to contrast to Castro's policies. The book did help a lot more with answering my question than the previous article, but I do think it came with a few flaws. The book would repeatedly say that was tarnished Cuba's potentiality was Castro's overregulation on the economy. They would restate his egocentric acts of wanting to have Cuba succeed on its own, without the USA's help. While I do agree, I think it's necessary to also acknowledge the political time period, and the faults the US had on Cuba's failure as well. The book seemed to place all the blame on Castro and his "ego", without referencing the Red Scare and McCarthyism taking place in America, which I think played a huge role in the USA's treatment towards Cuba. The authors proposed throughout the book that Cuba should pull back on any government regulation it has over its country's economy, and let a free market take place in order to restore its economy to where it could've been if Castro's "ego" hadn't gotten in the way.

Salazar-Carrillo, Jorge, and Andro Nodarse-León. Cuba from Economic Take-off to Collapse under Castro. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

With this assignment, both SDA 3 and 4, I realize that I've never used databases as thoroughly as I did then. I recall back in middle school when the teachers would introduce such tools, but to use them as extensively as I did for these two projects, I have never done. I've never read scholarly articles before these assignments to the full extent I did. Typically, if I used a scholarly article, it'd mainly be a quick read on one small section and then move on. For this assignment, I found it way more helpful to read the whole article and fruit out as much information as needed. Scholarly articles have a credential behind them that not all published research-based texts have. As a scholar, you are presenting your research either from a professional and credentialed place or as an upcoming professional and one that was overlooked by someone with valid credentials. While scholarly articles can be very helpful, I found them also challenging to be valuable to my specific research. I believe it did hinder my progress as the search for a well-developed, thought-out, and unbiased article took time. Not only did I need to look for an article that would sufficiently answer my question, but I also had to critique it and recognize any type of bias it may have on the subject at hand. As for my curiosity, I think the articles helped a lot. Not often would I find an article that would answer head-on what I was looking for, filling the research with a lot of extra information. Names, dates, and terms I never saw or needed to understand would be introduced, leading me into a rabbit hole of research on top of research, even on things that concerned with Cuba but didn't necessarily answer my question in any meaningful way. For my research skills, it did help in the sense that they forced me to adapt and figure out ways to use the sources and manipulate them in ways that fit with my aim. Most articles on this topic typically are structured in argumentative ways, so through the readings, I had to filter through all the biases for the informative sections, while still keeping them in the back of my mind. All in all, I found this good source called JSTOR, a website full of primary resources and research articles that are easily accessible through the Syracuse University login. The discovery of this website helped me so much in being more time-efficient for when I looked for resources. Other than that, what I found most interesting in the scholarly articles was the difference in their setup compared to how books are usually formatted.

As for the SDA, what I found most difficult was a tie between the animation in SDA 3 and the setup of SDA 4. It was pointed out how confusing the timeline and structure of my fourth SDA got, and I completely agree with it, especially since I was conscious about it while organizing it. I wasn't sure how to go about it, whether links back to some previous slide would've helped, or if that would've just made things even more confusing. The question I aimed to answer was, "Why did Cuba fail its attempt to Communism economically, socially, and politically?" and whether or not it was answered could honestly be up for debate. Cuba, along with everything else involved in the Cold War, is rather primarily derived from interpretation. I have my own opinions, just like most other people who are informed on its situation, and that can greatly influence the answer to my question. Throughout my research, I did come to realize that there wasn't a one for all answer. A few things, such as the fall of the USSR, are known to have affected Cuba's GDP, while other things, such as Castro's policies, are really up to the individual. I thought that the best I could do was present it from various aspects, but especially from the Cuban one. My audience, I'm assuming, would primarily be from the US, so they'd be taught from the US perspective about the Cuban crisis. Of those forms, there is a spectrum of both extremes, but what we don't often really take into consideration are those who stuck behind in Cuba, never left, and still look up to Castro almost as if he were a God. Why they do, not many people know. It's such a complex dilemma that I don't think it's ever possible to feel accomplished or satisfied. When you feel as if you've reached what you've wanted, you just find yourself with double the amount of questions. Did the Cubans who remained in Cuba only praise Castro because he was a symbol of someone who stood up against the US? What about those who fled to Florida, have their lives improved significantly? What's the relationship between Cuba and Russia like today? I think it's this endless cycle of questions upon questions that helps make my curiosity the strongest C (communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, curiosity). I'm always wondering and wanting to know more, adding as much as possible to my notes and assignments. My weakest C would be communication, mainly because I tend to spend more time on a project than anticipated, and often forget to reach out to my coordinators about my delay.

My goal for next month is to probably continue with Cuba. Through this research, I was able to figure out that more was needed to understand Cuba. The complexity and various outside forces each have their own stories, things that need to be uncovered to have a full grasp around Cuba and its development to today. I began this project intending to only focus on the Cuban economy, how it was before the revolution to how it became after. Through the research, it was hard to contain all the information presented to only economical ones, since the Cuban Revolution impacted so many different things from the economy to society and politics. Every change made would indirectly affect something else since that's how history works. Marx's publication of the Communist Manifesto indirectly affected the Bolshevik Revolution, the ideologies of Guevara, the Red Scare in the US, the Cold War. History is often explained as this happened, which then caused this reaction to occur, which when it's done to get a basic sense of something, it's understandable. But to use it in an argument, or to apply criticism on an event, such as the conflict currently taking place between Ukraine and Russia, one has to have a more complex understanding of the situation. I strongly believe that if I want to make a reasonable argument for Cuba and Marxism, I'll have to have a more complex understanding of the situation—take into account the social, political, and economic impact Castro, the US, the revolution, and the Cold War had, and how each was translated and manifested into what we now know as Cuba today. Hence why I'm caught at a crossroads between two questions: what formed the Cuban Revolution and its ideology and how does Fidel Castro's ideology compare to that of Marxism? The former one focuses more on an historical perspective, and how the ideological turn of events that occurred during the Revolution still has profound impacts on Cuban identity today. The latter, instead, takes on a more ideological stance. I'd be going back to presenting and researching my information as I did towards the beginning of the year, where I uncovered a lot of Marx's and other philosophers thinking. The major people that I'd be analyzing would be Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, Juan Almeida Bosque, and Che Guevara.

Fidel Castro self-declared himself as a Marxist-Leninist in 1961, just a few years after the Cuban Revolution. This declaration, along with the nationalization of US businesses in Cuba, was the trigger for the years and years of hostility between the US and Cuba. Marxist-Leninism falls under the orthodox Marxism, an adaptation or interpretation manifested by Vladimir Lenin on Marxism, or Marx's ideology. Where it gets confusing is the multitude amounts of terminologies, and trying to understand what's different and what's similar between each one. For terms, we have Socialism, Communism, Marxism, Anarchism, Leninism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Democratic Socialism, Social Democracy, and Revisionist Marxism, just to name a few. In this post, I'm going to be defining and contrasting only the terms related to this next project. These are all definitions from the Marxist point of view, and are going to be what I refer to for my project when using such words.

Socialism: The stage of economic and social development that takes place in between the transition from Capitalism to Communism. It follows the Proletarian Revolution, when the workers rule over the replaced bourgeois. It is the workers responsibility to properly rearrange society in a way that can then easily transition into Communism, which is why this stage often entails a lot of redistribution of wealth. It should be noted that any type of nationalization of private businesses is not Socialism if done under a Capitalist regime. This section is often left up to interpretation, mainly due to Marx's vague explanation. He gives full detail into Capitalism and Communism, but often overlooks the detail concerning the steps needed to transition between one to the other. This is where Orthodox Marxism often occurs, such as Leninism, Maoism, and Trotskyism.

Communism: A socio-economic system that is the antithesis to Capitalism. Theoretically, it is a borderless, moneyless, classless state, with an abolition of bourgeois private property. A bourgeois private property does not entail personal belongings, but rather the property brought on by the bourgeois, such as money and the monetization of natural resources that haven't yet acquired that level of labor value. It is also the final stage of societal evolution, which begins with Capitalism, transitions to Socialism, and finalizes itself into Communism. I also think it's vital to note what Marx said in his Communist Manifesto that, "Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society: all it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation." It is said that Communism was born out of Marxism, and it is a tangible concept that can be implemented. The Marxist definition of Communism has never been successfully achieved in history. I would say that the kibbutz foundation in Israel would be one of the closest to a Marxist Communism society.

Capitalism: A socio-economic system that is primarily based on the private ownership of production and exploitation of labor. It contains a free, unregulated market in modern times, which tends to benefit those in more privileged classes. The only way for this system to operate is with a class system, in which Marx identifies two distinct classes: one being the bourgeois and the other the proletarians. The bourgeois are the exploitative class, who owns the capital under this system, while the proletarians are the exploited class who serve only as the labor force. The US has experienced Capitalism's most purest form in its laissez-faire capitalist era during what historians refer to as the Gilded Age.

Marxism: Economic, social, and political theory developed by Karl Marx, a German philosopher who lived in the 19th century, that primarily utilized historical materialism in its critiques. While Marxism includes detailed explanations behind Marx's Communism, it also is heavily filled with critiques on Capitalism. A huge pillar to his critiques is his labor theory of value. While the theory itself isn't unique to him—that the value to a commodity is objectively measured by the average amount of time spent on producing it—he does introduce a unique spin to it. He introduces the cost and value of labor power—the capability from the worker to produce—which depended on the average labor hours it took from society to adequately reinforce people with the capability to work the next day. The question left to ask is where do capitalists manage to make profits? This is where surplus value comes into the equation. If the average labor time needed to reinforce people was five hours, and the wage per hour were two, then ten dollars a day would be what we'd consider the "minimum pay". His next pillar of criticism was alienation, an alienation that is driven into the working people through competition.

Leninism: A political ideology established by Vladimir Lenin, a Marxists political thinker who led the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, also known as the October Revolution. It doesn't differ much from Marxism, other than the fact that it's a practical theory which focuses primarily on the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a step that Lenin found necessary for the transition from Capitalism, or as he had it Czarism, to Communism. Leninism is at its essential core the morphing of Marxism to fit the view of what Russia was in 1917. Under Marxism, the theory goes that a revolution brought by the proletariat would occur under an industrialized and capitalized state. Leninism instead implements the revolution to fit in a time when the state isn't yet industrialized nor capitalized. Marxism also theorized that a revolution would be inevitable, since the bourgeois class would never permit the state to progress into socialism. Lenin disagreed, speculating that a capitalized state would be powerful enough to delude the public into thinking they were progressing into socialism, effectively suppressing the revolution. What I think sets the two most apart is the fact that Marx believed in a spontaneous revolution, out from a collective recognition between all working classes of their status. Lenin believed in the need of an "intellectual group" who would guide the revolution, rather than the working class. Hence the creation of the Bolshevik party, composed of those he considered intellectual, such as himself.

Democratic Socialism vs Social Democracy:

The definitions I used were from the Marxist view-point. Considering our current political climate, everyone will have their own interpretations on how Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism functionally work. Some equate the USSR with Communism, while others take the Marxist ideological definition of Communism, which is what I refer to when mentioning Communism. The word Socialism is throw around a lot in today's media, used to describe lockdowns, universal medicare, minimum wage, and just pretty much any progressive act taken by the Democrats in Congress. It's also used as a descriptive term for European social systems, which typically are more "advanced", from the progressive standpoint, than that of the US'.

Works Cited:

https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-marxism-and-vs-leninism/

I'm mainly torn between the first two. I think the third one is too ambiguous, and even wrong in its assumptions since it would require Castro to have followed Marx step-by-step. At the end of the day, while people can critique Marx as harshly as they want, it's never been successfully fabricated the way Marx envisioned his idealistic ideology to come about. As for the first two, if I pick the first one, I'd already have a sort of platform to it since my fifth SDA was kind of centered around that theme. My second one would require more critical analysis from my behalf since I'd have to collect everything I know about Marx and everything I understand about Castro and his policies, and then critique them through a Marxist lens. That might just be the reason why I'm leaning more towards the second one since I think it'd be interesting and fun to do something different, while also applying a bit more of "me" into the argument.

I'd probably connect the second idea to the theme of The Greater Good by delivering it with a "we learn from our mistakes" sort of manner. At the end of the day, everyone has made up their own ideas and conclusions on Castro and his policies, but I think majority can come to a consensus that this Marxist ideal is a utopia, a land which in itself is unachievable, but is still strived for. From Lenin, to Ho Chi Minh, to Castro each presented themselves striving for this utopia, whether or not they actually cared for it. We all want a better world for everyone, and Capitalism (in my opinion) just isn't the right answer. That care idea is what drove me to research on this topic, mainly with the curiosity of whether or not Socialism and Communism were truly the only other alternative to Capitalism, and if so, why have they never succeeded? If the majority can come to agreement that a better world for everyone is the end goal, and both Socialism and Communism present themselves as the solution to this, how did the USSR, China, Korea, and Cuba fail? What about Marx, or about Castro, fail? And, most importantly, is Marxism a dead ideology, one that should be forgotten due to its unattainable and unrealistic standards in humanity? I probably won't touch on all of these during the symposium, but I do want the audience to walk away not only with more of an open mind, but with more questions and curiosity, just like I did and still do on this topic.

My biggest worry for the symposium is probably the speech itself. I think that while my delivery skills are not the best, they're manageable. As for my writing skills, it lacks in not only grammar, but even a cohesive element. I'm worried I'll either be too vague or too complex. I want the speech to be light and entertaining, but also serious and even a tad bit cynical. I think by presenting my speech with pessimism will enforce that need for change, whether it be from an individual level or a societal one.