What Can I Do to Fight Communism

  

Every age has its bogeyman.  If you grew up in 1950s and 60s America you would have been bombarded with anti-communist propaganda. In hindsight it is perhaps easy to raise a wry eyebrow.  Yet at the time the threat was taken very seriously indeed. Here, hysteria intact, are a few of the stranger messages delivered to the American people. 

   

  

If nothing works, tell them that they are going to steal your women. Just in case that doesn’t work tell them that they are going to be sterilized in to the bargain. It's little wonder that the word socialist can still be flung at someone in the US as an insult.

I Fell For a Commie by Senator Joe McCarthy

A 1950's propaganda ad from Radio Free Europe, printed at Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

The average citizen couldn’t exactly go out and ‘fight communism’ in any real way, but they were given plenty of small ways to support the cause. The public was asked to donate “truth dollars” to support causes like Radio Free Europe, which aimed to “keep up the morale of the Communist-ruled peoples, and express the kinship of the free nations, with the captive peoples.”

  

  

Two Faces of Communism 

32 page anti-communism comic produced by the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade (CACC)

What Can I Do to Fight Communism?

Published by the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, c. 1962

  

Fidel Castro, the communist leader who stole Christmas, received three popes

After Cuba was officially declared a Socialist state in 1961, the Catholic University of Villanueva was closed, 350 Catholic schools were nationalized, hundreds of churches were expropriated, and 136 priests were expelled. In 1969, the communist leader abolished paid Christmas holidays, claiming he needed everyone to work on the sugar harvest.

It wasn’t until 1976 that a new constitution guaranteed freedom of worship, but it was restricted to Church premises. 

The first papal visit to the island in 1998 was a pivotal moment and one which quite literally brought Christmas to Cuba, since as a welcoming gift the government announced the reinstatement of the holiday.

  

 

  

Cuba claims Trump's election caused death of Fidel Castro [satire]

  

Fidel Castro Pretending to be a Human

 

Awww Monday : Pups and Stuff

Why don't dogs make good dancers?

(Because they have two left feet!)

How does a dog stop an alarm clock

(He presses the paws button!)

Fidel Castro the Human

Rare and Amazing Photographs of Fidel Castro from His Childhood to the 1940s

Fidel Castro has his beard touched during a visit to his hotel by youngsters who attended a Queens school with his son. The boy was secretly living here while his father led the Cuban revolution.

Fidel Castro's Cuba full of his offspring after years of womanizing by El Commandante 

  

Fidel Castro gets a taste of America as he wolfs down hot dog at the Bronx Zoo on April 22, 1959

Fidel Castro tried to win over Cubans in speeches that sometimes lasted more than seven hours.

A four-hour and 29-minute spiel in 1960 earned Fidel Castro the Guinness Book of Records title for the longest speech ever delivered at the UN.

Gladys Feijoo, 19-year-old Miss La Prensa of 1959, kisses Fidel Castro as he signs his autograph for her collection

Cuban leader Fidel Castro is presented with an invitation to the New York Press Photographer's Ball, New York City

Even New York’s Finest couldn’t resist mugging with Fidel Castro

 

Fidel Castro sledding while on a visit to Moscow

Ernest Hemingway and Fidel Castro

In the 1950's, the American Major Leagues had a Triple-A minor league farm team, for the Cincinnati Reds, in Cuba, under the name "Havana Sugar Kings". The Sugar Kings were consistently at the top of the International League rankings and were a source of Cuban nationalistic pride. So when Castro took power in January 1959, he took steps to promote and protect the team, which was deeply in debt (and which would be cut off from the US Major Leagues in 1960). Castro formed an exhibition team made up of government officials (all former guerrillas) that would play before scheduled Sugar Kings games to raise money for the AAA team. The exhibition team took the name Barbudos, Spanish for "the bearded ones"--the nickname given to the anti-Batista guerrillas during the revolution. It was never an actual league team, it never played any games against any league team (all of its games were played against another exhibition team from the National Police), and it only lasted for a short time. Fidel himself only played in one game, on July 24, 1959, when he pitched one inning (he struck out two and gave up no runs). The Sugar Kings went on to win the International Championship for 1959. 

"Fidel Castro is either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline. My guess is the former." - Richard Nixon 

Fidel Castro: Timeline