Sunday, August 23, 2026

On this day 58 years ago, Fidel Castro backed Russia's imperial venture in Czechoslovakia

 Today, thousands of Cuban troops are fighting for Putin's imperial venture in Ukraine.

Castro backs Brezhnev invading Czechoslovakia 29 years after Hitler-Stalin Pact.

Today marks two anniversaries. It is the “Day of Remembrance for Victims of Totalitarian Regimes,” and it is also a day to celebrate the “Baltic Way.” These two observances are connected through history, but the Castro regime has a connection to the first that is not well known.

Eighty seven years ago on August 23, 1939 Josef Stalin signed a treaty with Adolph Hitler formally known as a “non-aggression pact” but it came to be known after the names of their respective foreign ministers, V.M. Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Eventually it also became known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

It contained secret protocols to invade and conquer Poland, and split up the rest of Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of influence for Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union.


 Nine days later on September 1, 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II started. Sixteen days later the Soviet Union, exercising its secret agreement with the Germans, invaded Poland from the East and met their Nazi allies on September 22, 1939 in a joint military parade in Brest-Litovsk to celebrate their victory.

 The Nazi-Soviet alliance continued

230,000 Polish soldiers and officers and thousands of military service representatives were taken captive by the Soviets. On March 5, 1940 the order to shoot the prisoners was signed by seven members of the All- Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) authorities: Joseph Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria (proposer), Kliment Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan, Mikhail Kalinin and Lazar Kaganovich. Thousands of Polish Army officers and intellectual leaders were taken into the Katyn Forest near Smolensk in the Soviet Union, shot in the back of the head or in the neck and buried in mass graves.

Months later, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed the Baltic States in June 1940.

 How the alliance ended in 1941

This arrangement ended on July 22, 1941 when the Nazis double crossed their Soviet allies and launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. This alliance cost the Soviet Union 22 to 28 million Russian lives in World War Two.

However it also ended with the Soviet Union retaking and absorbing the Baltic states for decades, and Poland firmly under Soviet control as a satellite state. This was a legacy of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that did not end until fifty years later.

Czechoslovakia, a Soviet satellite since 1948, had its Prague Spring in 1968, a moment when reformers in the government sought socialism with a human face and it was ended on August 21, 1968 with the arrival of Warsaw Pact tanks on Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s orders followed by an occupation that crushed the reformist initiative.

Fidel Castro backed Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia on August 23, 1968

Two days after the Soviet led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 23, 1968 Fidel Castro publicly supported the invasion and occupation of the central European country.


 Castro’s support of Soviet imperialism on the 29th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact revealed the true nature of his regime in Cuba.

The Soviet empire collapsed through nonviolent resistance

On June 4, 1989 the Solidarity labor movement won in free elections and the Polish people finally regained their sovereignty from Soviet domination through nonviolent means.

The End of Molotov Ribbentrop

Thirty seven years ago today two million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands together in a giant human chain stretching 370 miles on August 23, 1989. Fifty years to the day after the treaty that brought them so much grief had been signed. This non-violent act of defiance was a crucial event that led to the liberation of the Baltic States and their restored independence in 1991.

It was the end of the last vestige of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Black Ribbon Day

Today, the European Union observes Black Ribbon Day. This anniversary is observed to honor the memory of all the victims of totalitarianism and authoritarianism in the world. This includes the victims of communism in Cuba.

Sadly, the Castro regime continues to back Russian imperial ventures in Europe, this time in Ukraine, and its own ventures in Venezuela to frustrate the sovereignty of their respective peoples.

Since 2022, according to Ukrainian intelligence, 20,000 Cubans have fought in Putin’s imperial war in Ukraine. There are currently between six to seven thousand Cubans fighting on the frontlines. Estimates are that up to 300 Cubans have been killed in the fighting.

The Center for a Free Cuba has prepared a CubaBrief to observe Black Ribbon Day.


 In Washington D.C. last year a delegation from the Center for a Free Cuba formed part of a human chain in McPherson Square in observance of the Baltic Way anniversary. Celebrating the nonviolent victory over Russian imperialism by the peoples of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.


 Tomorrow, Monday, August 24, 2026 at 2:00pm in Washington DC at McPherson Square join the Joint Baltic American National Committee – JBANC, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the Embassy of Estonia, Embassy of Latvia to the USA, and Embassy of Lithuania in Washington, D.C. for this commemoration of the Baltic Way anniversary, which marked the beginning of the end of the last remnant of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that was finally achieved in 1991.


 

 

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Black Ribbon Day 2026: The Hitler-Stalin Pact that started WW2 which communists want to erase.

 "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Milan Kundera


Eighty seven years ago on August 23, 1939 the world learned that Communist Russia and Nazi Germany had signed a non-aggression pact, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It was named after their respective foreign ministers, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop. 

Observers would have been even more horrified had they known of the secret protocols that divided Eastern Europe between the two totalitarian regimes. What they called a "peace treaty" in reality was a war treaty.

Nine days later on September 1, 1939 at 4:45 am Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II started. 

Rolling Soviet tanks and Nazi motorcyclists in Poland (September 1939).

Sixteen days later the Soviet Union exercising its secret agreement with the Nazis invaded Poland from the East and met their German allies in the middle of Poland.

Nazi and Soviet soldiers greet one another in Poland (1939)

On September 22, 1939 the German Nazi army joined with the Soviet Communist army in a military parade in Brest-Litovsk and the two sides celebrated together.

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in a October 31, 1939  speech spoke candidly about the Nazi-Communist alliance, and ridiculed its victims.

"The ruling circles of Poland boasted quite a lot about the ‘stability’ of their state and the ‘might’ of their army. However, one swift blow to Poland, first by the German Army and then by the Red Army, and nothing was left of this ugly offspring of the Versailles Treaty which had existed by oppressing non-Polish nationalities."

Approximately 230,000 Polish soldiers and officers and thousands of military service representatives were taken captive by the Russians. The Soviet precursor to the KGB was the NKVD. "From October 1939, the delegated NKVD officials from Moscow heard the prisoners, encouraged them to cooperate and collected data. Only a few of the prisoners agreed to collaborate. The commanding officers’ reports included opinions about hostile attitudes of the Poles and a minimal chance of them being useful to the USSR authorities."

The decision to shoot the prisoners was signed on March 5, 1940 by seven members of the All- Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) authorities: Joseph Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria (proposer), Kliment Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan, Mikhail Kalinin and Lazar Kaganovich.

Thousands of Polish Army officers and intellectual leaders were taken into the Katyn Forest near Smolensk in the Soviet Union, shot in the back of the head or in the neck and buried in mass graves.

Secret protocols of the Hitler-Stalin Pact not only partitioned Poland but also divided up Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Romania into Nazi and Soviet "spheres of influence." The Soviet Union invaded and annexed the Baltic States in June 1940.  

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov meets with Adolf Hitler (1940)

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in a speech delivered on August 1, 1940 while the Soviet Union was then still allied with Nazi Germany continued to describe their military alliance as a "non-aggression pact."   

 "A radical change for the better in the relations between the Soviet Union and Germany found its expression in the non-aggression pact signed last August. These new, good relations between the USSR and Germany have been tested in practice in connection with events in former Poland, and their strength has been sufficiently proved."

Another sign of Nazi-Soviet cooperation was the Soviet Union’s deportation of hundreds of refugees to Nazi authorities. Most of them were German anti-fascists, communists, and Jews who had sought asylum in the Soviet Union.

Soviet and Nazi soldiers fraternize in Poland. Their alliance ended in 1941.

This alliance ended on June 22, 1941 when Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, betraying his ally Josef Stalin.



"Stalin was shocked; he had received a plethora of warnings of an imminent invasion – notably from Winston Churchill, informed by British intelligence briefings. The communist dictator had refused to believe them," reported Agence France Press. Stalin preferred to rely on Hitler's assurances.

 

Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, Joseph Stalin, and Soviet foreign minister, Molotov

Communist apologists continue to defend Stalin and attempt to cover up this history of collaboration between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. It may also explain the real reason behind attacks on the legacy of Winston Churchill. His observation on the relationship between the Communists and the Nazis in his book The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm (1948) is damning and accurate.

"Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism… As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction." 

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the reckless strategy pursued by Stalin and the Communist International cost 22 to 28 million Russian lives alone in World War Two, and nearly led to the Nazi conquest and occupation of the Soviet Union.

Black Ribbon Day is also a day to remember the victims of totalitarianism. Below is a short thread highlighting some of the victims of Cuban totalitarianism.

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