Fidel Castro Pays His Respects at Lincoln Memorial

Castro at Lincoln Memorial [via Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub]

Click here for background on this fascinating photograph of Fidel Castro at the Lincoln Memorial in 1959.

“Long Live Lincoln!”

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8 comments… add one
  • London John Oct 12, 2013 @ 3:06

    There’s nothing surprising in Castro’s honouring Lincoln. All Communists basically view history as progress, in which the American and French revolutions, the Union cause in the Civil War, the Paris Commune etc, are all steps towards the Russian Revolution. I believe very many non-Communists take a similar view, except for the Russian Revolution bit. I don’t think I know anybody who’s thought about it who doesn’t regard the ACW as of world-historic importance – just as Stalingrad, for example, is important for all of us.
    There’s a rather good statue of Lincoln in Parliament Square in London. I gather it’s a replica of a St Gaudens job in Chicago. It was intended for the centenary of the Treaty of Ghent, but the British were a bit preoccupied by that time so it was unveiled in 1920.

  • Al J Oct 11, 2013 @ 12:23

    At least he removed his hat!

  • Rob Baker Oct 11, 2013 @ 7:45

    I think it is simply amazing how many people hero-worshiped Lincoln and attempted to make him their own. Here is a picture from the Communist National Convention (US), 1939 [I think]

    http://historicaltimes.tumblr.com/image/53114886149

    • Andy Hall Oct 11, 2013 @ 8:10

      Rob, recall that many of the Americans who went to Spain to fight Franco and the fascists during that country’s civil war were left-leaning, even openly Communist sympathizers. They were organized as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Political allegiances and iconography are complex things, and don’t always look so good in retrospect.

      • Rob Baker Oct 11, 2013 @ 8:20

        No, I agree with you. I am simply amazed at the pedestal mentality people assume with historical figures.

  • Scott A. MacKenzie Oct 11, 2013 @ 5:50

    There’s a bust of Lincoln in Havana, of all places. It dates back to the 1928 Pan-American Conference. I’m amazed that the 1959 Revolution did not remove it.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/45958601@N02/5337414148/

    Odd how there are none of him in certain parts of the U.S., and plenty in others. That said, the heroic view of Lincoln abounds in other countries. There ought to be one in Canada as a memorial to the 40,000+ men who fought in the Civil War, to the Underground Railroad, and to one hundred and fifty years of North American peace and cooperation.

    • Kevin Levin Oct 11, 2013 @ 6:16

      Thanks for sharing, Scott. I’ve never seen that one.

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