Did Fidel Castro say: “The next war in Europe will be between Russia and fascism, only this fascism will be called democracy”?

The leader of the Cuban revolution is attributed to a quote “predicting” the development of European history and rhetoric, which politicians will use during key events. We checked the correctness of such an attribution.

Starting from the end of June 2022, dozens of groups on VKontakte published a quote attributed to Fidel Castro. Among the largest publics - "Donetsk DPR LPR News Donbass Russia Novorossia" (279,000 subscribers at the time of writing this analysis), "Russia | Z o v | General Staff reports " (277 000), "USA - sponsor of world terror (16+)" (264,000), "Patriots of Russia" (176 000), "The art of war" (172 000) and "For mother-Russia" (105,000). Some of these posts specify that the long -term head of Cuba said these words in 1992.

July 17, with this alleged statement, Castro began fast In his Telegram channel (165,000 subscribers), an orientalist and a regular participant in political talk shows on Russian federal television Yevgeny Satanovsky. On the same day, his publication was retold, mentioning the quote of Castro, Life.ru, "Sight", "Economics Today", SM News And "News Yakutsk". A loud statement was attributed to Fidel Castro and other Telegram channels, for example "Unofficial Bezosonov Z" (238,000 subscribers) and "Alexander Semchenko" (181 000). It is also easy to find in other social networks (for example, in Facebook* And Twitter).

Unlike many quotes of famous people who walk on social networks for years, the words attributed to Castro are a kind of novelty. The earliest Mention, which we managed to detect on VKontakte, dates from April 9. Then the statement was placed in the group “Society of Cosmic Marxists-Darwinists”, and until the end of June, only the authors of single posts mentioned the quote. Russian -speaking users Twitter is also the first time mentioned In April.

Foreign Internet users began to massively attribute Castro quotation about the “next war in Europe” before it became popular in the Russian media space. In April 2022, she was published on Serbian, English, French, German and (especially often) Spanish languages. For example, on Twitter, she first appeared precisely in Spanish in a post, published on April 6.

We were not able to find a single resource in the search for Google that would publish a quote of Castro until the spring of 2022. Google Books led to similar results. In a fairly extensive collection of quotes, interviews and public performances of Castro, collected The University of Computer Sciences in Havana, this phrase is not there either.

The author of one of the early tweets with a quote of Castro, published In German, April 7, gives a phrase with reference to Max Forester Menendes - Cuban journalistwho has been living in the United States since the beginning of the 1960s. We could not find a note or a book in which the forester Menendes would lead the words of Castro about the "next war in Europe." However, the journalist very actively leads the Facebook page and regularly publishes photos of commandant or his thoughts about him. For the first time the forester Menendes brought In the social network, a quote of its idol only on July 4 (then it has already become widely known). At the same time, the journalist claims that the leader of the Cuban Revolution personally told him these words in 1992.

In the Spanish -language segment of Facebook, you can also find quite a few same records published at the end of March 2022. Their authors write: “Max Forester Menendes A few days ago He wrote: "When the Soviet Union broke up, Fidel once told me: the next war in Europe will be between Russia and fascism, only fascism will be called democracy." Moreover, in some tweets published in April, Approvedthat the journalist betrayed the statement of Castro publicity yet A few years ago. None of these posts refer to the circumstances in which the forester Menendes shared his memory, as well as about the details of that conversation.

Our colleagues from the German project Correctiv Sent Electronic letter to Max to the forestry Menendes with questions about the origin of Castro quote. So far, the journalist has not answered him.

Thus, the widespread quote to the commandant is known only from one source - statements by journalist Max Forester Menendes, and about the words of Castro, deceased In 2016, for some reason he remembered only in the spring of 2022. In other sources, the statement attributed to Castro is not recorded.

*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Photo on the cover: Wikimedia Commons

Most likely not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

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