The new Red Scare
First a tragedy, second a comedy, third a farce.
Palmer 1919. McCarthy 1950. 2026: a faceless memorandum. How Washington declares its own opposition a foreign network.
The current wave of Red Scare propaganda and red-baiting from the American government is nothing more than a rehashing of past tactics to silence the American left and the American anti-imperialist movement. The current Red Scare is one that has been impending for years now. Ever since the explosion and surge of interest in and support for left-wing causes after the 2015 Democratic primary, the eventual state-sponsored blowback was inevitable. Before, the political establishment and ruling class of America could rely on rigging its electoral process to disadvantage and push back against socialists running for office. In 2015, it was endless smears and back-room scheming against Bernie Sanders for merely offering social democratic reforms. It happened again in 2019, when socialists attached to the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, began to win seats. A tidal wave of funding by organizations like AIPAC was summoned to unseat socialists like Cori Bush and did so successfully. However, after the victory of Zohran Mamdani and a wave of electoral wins by socialists and progressives in New York and elsewhere, the political establishment finds itself unable to stem the wave of support for left-wing candidates at the ballot box. Titles, calls for dialogue, and organizations normally assigned prestige no longer sway even the most moderate voter.
The old order of American politics is decaying and collapsing. Voices that were once seen as effective deterrents to Donald Trump are seen as ineffective and half measures. Americans now increasingly look to the American left and American anti-imperialist movements to effectively fight back against Trump and the rising tide of reaction in America. The cognitive dissonance of upholding a liberal order while overseeing a genocide in Palestine and falling to Trumpism twice is breaking. The issue of supporting ICE, Israel, and multibillion-dollar corporations setting up data centers has become a pivotal point in American politics. Moderate and centrist Democrats are now being forced to take questions regarding AIPAC donations to them, their opposition to abolishing ICE, and uncritical support of not only Israel, but support for the war against Iran while signing on to give more subsidies and support to military contractors and tech corporations responsible not only for a genocide and war in the Middle East, but also for the rising militarization of American cities. This became clear after New York saw a swing towards the DSA with incumbent candidates losing their seats to their more progressive counterparts in the Democratic Party due to their support for ICE, Israel, lackluster response to Trump, and lackluster political performances that haven’t materialized concessions nor reforms for the American working class.
Radicalization to the left in America is now all but an inevitability. Not only due to the war in Iran, Israel’s influence on American foreign policy, but due to what has been deemed the “affordability crisis.” Prices of commodities in America have been rising, especially fuel, since the war in Iran.
This is partially due to Trump’s tariffs, but this has been a growing issue in American political economy. What is occurring in America is a form of re-proletarianization. Over 40% of Americans hold a college degree of some kind according to U.S. census data. This, combined with fewer and fewer college-educated people obtaining a job in the field they are educated in, the growing underemployment this causes, and rising costs of living, means that a slow but steady downward mobility amongst young people is beginning. People who 10 or 20 years ago would have been described as middle class now find themselves in a lower economic status than before, despite their education. Almost 50% of college-educated people, specifically young people, find themselves underemployed in this fashion. This means they have a job that doesn’t match their education and find themselves overqualified at the job they are at. The absence of the stable industrial jobs that once existed in America now forces this downwardly mobile class of young people into service worker jobs. The conservative anti-intellectual talking point in this fashion begins to ring true. Americans are increasingly getting worthless degrees only to find themselves working at Starbucks. Not only is there an underemployment issue in America with regard to young college-educated individuals; 1 in 5 are also defaulting on their student loans. A record 9.5 million haven’t been able to make a payment in over nine months to their student loan provider. In terms of sheer numbers, of the 1.7 trillion dollars owed by Americans for college loans, 233 billion are in default.
In this fashion, socialism and progressive reforms find a sound basis of support amongst these individuals, as policies like debt-free college, Medicare for All, and other policies resonate with this cohort of the population. It is in these issues and factors that organizations like the DSA find their victories electorally. As the American empire’s internal economic condition worsens, it allows socialists to win elections easily by rallying around these reforms. Reforms that the more conservative wings of the liberal Democratic Party are in opposition to, and the reactionary Republican Party is in total rejection of. It is due to these underlying issues and victories that the American political classes find themselves in conflict with their own constituents and competing political organizations in the halls of Congress. Either party could easily combat this rise by doing New Deal reformism and try to defeat socialists electorally by offering their own reforms. After all, when Franklin Roosevelt was asked why he carried out his New Deal reforms, the answer was to fight against the rise of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party USA. The New Deal was a program of co-opting left-wing rhetoric and policies in order to not only save capitalism, but fight the rise of left-wing parties in America.
However, due to the neoliberal political order of the Democratic Party, it appears even FDR is too radical for them. In essence, the liberals in America have become so reactionary in their economic and ideological commitments that they now rally against the very legacies and reforms that gave them working class support in the 1930s, 1940s, 1960s, and even the 1990s. The only thing keeping the Democratic Party liberal is their positions on social issues. This makes the conflict between the DSA and the DNC entirely one of class and economic issues. It is a conflict in which the DNC cannot reform itself into an effective anti-left force. This pushes them to rely on more state-sponsored methods and identity-based rhetoric to fight their left-wing cohorts.
The American political ruling class and its lapdogs, unable to answer questions regarding their stances on these topics or to even offer moderate concessions and reforms, now look to close the ballot box to the socialists on their left flank. However, unable to stop voters from voting and unable to stop socialists from organizing successful insurgent electoral campaigns, they turn their heads to history and open the toolbox of fascism and reaction to stem the tide of socialism. In that toolbox, they find resentful Cuban expats (a majority of whom left Cuba when Fidel seized their casinos and plantations) armed with the State Department and a zeal of anti-communism that would make Joseph McCarthy blush. Individuals like Secretary of State and rumored 2028 presidential candidate Marco Rubio and former presidential candidate and senator Ted Cruz are some of the most pro-regime-change politicians on Cuba imaginable and have found success in their regime change agenda in Venezuela and through direct election interference in other Latin American governments. Despite the fact that both of their families had fled Cuba because of the Batista regime and not because of Fidel Castro. A fact that has eternally vexed them when trying to offer their anti-communist bona fides to the media.
This has happened before
However, this isn’t the first time this has happened. This isn’t the first state-sponsored slander and repression campaign run against the American socialist movement. To understand the full weight and possible consequences of the current campaign, we must first look to its first instances and the buildup to this current movement. This must be done not only to understand its tactics, but how to properly combat it and avoid mistakes made. First, an overview of past political repression, in particular left-wing repression amongst immigrants; second, the buildup to the current repression; and finally, the repression American socialists find themselves in today.
“Workers of the World! Awake! Rise! Put down your enemy and mine…. Yes! friends, there is only one enemy of the workers of the world and that is capitalism.”
These were the words cited to convict five Russian émigrés who advocated against the war effort of World War One and intervention into Russia by the United States. One of them was Jacob Abrams, whose name was used in the Supreme Court case upholding his conviction along with those of four others. They were printing leaflets and pamphlets supporting the Russian Revolution, denouncing America’s intervention to put down the revolution, and advocating a general strike to stop the production of weapons. In their pamphlet, they explained, very passionately: “With the money which you have loaned, or are going to loan them, they will make bullets not only for the Germans, but also for the Workers Soviets of Russia. Workers in the ammunition factories, you are producing bullets, bayonets, cannon, to murder not only the Germans, but also your dearest, best, who are in Russia and are fighting for freedom.”
These five among many others were prosecuted during the First Red Scare in America in 1917–1920. At the time, the United States passed the Espionage Act of 1917, Sedition Act of 1918, and Immigration Act of 1918. A series of laws that expanded the power of the United States to attack, censor, and investigate the American and international left. The method of repression was through wartime necessity. However, beneath this wartime justification was the justification to wage class war against the workers of the time. Class struggle in America was becoming a more and more evident reality. Beyond the fact that this was the Gilded Age of America, with historic levels of income inequality and poverty. It was also an era of violent labor struggles that made revolution seem closer to reality than some at the time wished to admit. Seattle had a general strike that saw 65,000 workers bring a major American city to a halt. The St. Louis Commune of 1877 was still fresh in many minds in the American South and Midwest. Oklahoma saw the Green Corn Rebellion, an armed uprising of anti-draftees, tenant farmers, and socialists in 1917. The Coal Wars were heating up and eventually in the 1920s, events like the Battle of Blair Mountain would see armed union strikers fight the U.S. government directly. The first scare is considered separate from those episodes in labor history due to the fact that the conflicts were at different intensities. Socialists who were victims of the first Red Scare saw themselves arrested and deported. While socialists in the Coal Wars saw themselves being shot by the National Guard. Nevertheless, the pretexts for their repression remained the same. Maintaining the capitalist order of America through legal or military means.
This kickstarted the first laws and agencies targeting the American left at the time. The Attorney General at the time, A. Mitchell Palmer, would create the new General Intelligence Division within the Department of Justice. This new division was headed by the future first FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and from this division the newborn cell of the FBI would emerge. An agency that would later under J. Edgar Hoover lead the Second Red Scare and the COINTELPRO operations against the civil rights movement in the 1950s–1970s. COINTELPRO was a series of FBI operations with the sole task of discrediting, slandering, surveilling, harassing, and arresting any political movement deemed subversive to America. Or deemed subversive according to J. Edgar Hoover, who was a committed anti-communist and opponent of civil rights. It infamously sent death threats and blackmail letters to Martin Luther King Jr. to push him out of the public spotlight.
During the First Red Scare, the laws enacted imposed crippling limits on the right to free expression that enabled the federal government to silence, arrest, and deport people for criticizing not only the government, but the war effort and the economic structures of the time. Section III of the Sedition Act of 1918 explicitly made advocacy for decreasing wartime production of war materials illegal and advocacy for peace or criticism of the war effort itself illegal as well. Section III of the Espionage Act of 1917 made it illegal to criticize the draft under “willfully obstructing recruiting services.” The Immigration Act of 1918 made it a deportable offense to be an anarchist or advocate for “unlawful destruction of property.”
The American federal government used the excuse of its involvement in World War One as a means to suppress labor activity amongst the factory workers and growing militancy amongst left-wing groups with the eruption of the Russian Revolution. Random immigrants with opinions about the World War or socialism were not the sole nor main targets of this repression. Multiple notable socialist leaders of the time were made victims of anti-communist repression through these laws. Such as Eugene Debs, who was arrested in 1918 under the Espionage Act. Emma Goldman, after protesting the draft, was deported under the Immigration Act of 1918. Alexander Berkman was another victim of deportation under the same act. Through these repressive laws, thousands were arrested and hundreds were deported from America for crimes both real and imagined. The consequences were clear though. Radical ideologies in America were not to be tolerated by the emerging FBI apparatus and the federal government wouldn’t hesitate to invent excuses to clamp down on existing economic and social conflicts.
Parallels between the first Red Scare and the present can be seen. War overseas, growing income inequality, growing radicalization amongst the working class and downwardly mobile individuals, a new reactionary administration, and growing apathy amongst even the more liberal in the political class incapable of offering reforms or concessions. Along with new government agencies being created with the explicit purpose of identifying and investigating left-wing organizations and figures. Parallels between anti-draft protests and pro-Palestine protests can be drawn. The electoral campaign of Eugene Debs can be compared to that of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign or Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. The First World War can be compared to the current Iranian war. These parallels are noted here to give the reader something to keep in mind when going through the buildup to the current laws and reports being put up in the next sections.
Building the apparatus
The buildup of this Third Red Scare has been developing for under a year now. The buildup has been widely ignored by more mainstream media outlets. Many of them have chosen to cover pro-Palestine college protests as a larger threat to democracy than executive orders by the presidency. One journalist who has consistently been watching this development has been Ken Klippenstein. A majority of the information regarding the buildup to the anti-communist State Department report will be coming from his reporting on NSPM-7, the National Security Presidential Memorandum Seven.
“Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
This is from the fourth paragraph of the memorandum published September 25, 2025. The memorandum points to notable instances of violence like the death of Charlie Kirk and the 2020 protests and riots against police brutality. The memorandum attempts to tie all of these instances of violence to an overarching ideology of “anti-fascism.” Anti-fascism in the minds of the federal government is anything that can be considered “anti-American,” “anti-capitalist,” “anti-Christian” and “extremist” beliefs on immigration, race, gender, and “morality.” The memo directs federal agencies to recommend and label organizations involved in any activity that can be potentially tied to criminal acts as a domestic terror organization. Quoting from that memo again:
This strategy shall include the investigatory and prosecutorial measures set forth in this section. (b) The JTTFs shall investigate potential Federal crimes relating to acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons for the purpose of: (i) political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; or (ii) the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights. (c) The JTTFs shall also investigate: (i) institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct described in subsections (a) and (b) of this section;
JTTFs refers to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, of which the federal government has 200. The memo grants these JTTFs these powers in overly broad language. The language of the memo is made to be purposely vague and ever expanding. Note the loose language “potential,” “relating,” and “conspiracy against rights.” Other parts of the memo direct the Attorney General to even investigate and prosecute all criminal acts to the maximum sentence. This includes “doxxing.” Other departments, like the Treasury Department, have also been employed to investigate any organization’s finances. To add further to the wide powers and authority granted already, the language of the memo suggests investigation and even prosecution of actions that may not have ever occurred. Quote: “The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” Emphasis on that word “before.” This suggests that any activity that potentially could result in violence can be subject to federal prosecution if it is tied to the umbrella “ideology” of “anti-fascism.”
This memorandum is only the starting point of this shift to the Third Red Scare. In the White House’s congressional budget request, they requested funding to help run the currently established NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center, which coordinates and organizes the above-mentioned investigations and expanded powers. In their budget request, they explicitly state their targets are social media accounts and online publications (like the one you’re reading now) as epicenters of domestic terrorist ideological training grounds. According to FBI Director Kash Patel, the growing powers granted by NSPM-7 and the establishment of new centers dedicated to monitoring domestic terrorism have produced a 300% increase in domestic terror investigations. It is unknown if this was a meaningless boast to cover his own shortcomings, such as allegations of corruption and incompetence. But based on the memorandum issued along with the budget requests, that 300% is likely an understatement. The nature of these surveillance operations is unknown.
The Threat Screening Center (another FBI surveillance program) has been in charge of this increase of investigations and putting others on watchlists for potential surveillance. It is unknown who is on their lists, who runs the program directly, how many officers and personnel are attached to it, their budget, and so on. The Threat Screening Center is a virtual black hole and mimics the characteristics of an actual secret police arm. A center with no known members, an unknown list of suspects, an unknown list of crimes under investigation, possibly endless amounts of funding dedicated to surveilling Americans and an administration more than happy to use it. This is the birthing room of a second COINTELPRO and a Third Red Scare. What is known is that the target of this arm is the American left. Stephen Miller stated on X, the Everything App (formerly Twitter): “There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country. It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors, and attorney general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”
It hasn’t even been a year from NSPM-7 to Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism. The development of a state apparatus dedicated to investigating and targeting left-wing organizations in America has been a rapidly evolving process. It is a process that has gone with little to no reporting by more mainstream media sources. Even sources like C-SPAN, an outlet dedicated to the comings and goings of Washington, D.C., have given very limited reporting on these statements, budget requests, centers, or even NSPM-7 itself. There has been media coverage of the ICE surges in various states and there has been rightful outrage at the unprovoked murders of protesters by ICE. The energy and momentum of the left and wider media is correct to be focused on the obvious immigration detention centers being used to arrest and deport enemies of the white nationalist America.
Sixty-five countries
This finally brings this article to July 17, 2026. The State Department held a conference with 65 other countries called “The Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism.” The conference convened, in the words of Ambassador for Counterterrorism George Logefro, “to confront the growing transnational danger of far-left political terrorism.” And “The anarchists, Marxists, and violent extremists of antifa have waged a terror campaign in the United States and across the Western world for decades, carrying out bombings, beatings, shootings, and riots in service of their extreme agenda,” Tommy Pigott, the State Department’s principal deputy spokesman, said, further illustrating the point.
The conference revolved around fearmongering over growing left-wing terrorism in three countries: Germany, Greece, and America. Announcements were made that membership in far-left organizations can be grounds for barring entry to America or deportation. Marco Rubio spoke at this conference where he gave essentially a summary of the pending report that would come out days later. In his statements, Rubio explicitly tries to tie the 2020 summer protests and riots against police brutality to Cuba. Rubio pointed to past movements like the German Red Army Faction and the Italian Red Brigades, which were involved in the German Autumn and the infamously known Italian Years of Lead. What goes unmentioned is the CIA and NATO’s Operation Gladio that may or may not have created false-flag attacks against the left at the time. Rubio then ties these events to Cuba as well. In fact, according to Rubio, it appears the left-wing terrorists lack agency entirely and that they are all puppets in a vast Cuban-sponsored terror network. Quoting Rubio:
“The Cuban regime’s sprawling intelligence and ideological network helped to build the far-left in our country and in our hemisphere, and it remains inextricably linked to the far-left groups and movements across and beyond the West. Today’s far-left terrorists can raise money in one country; they can host their communications in a second country; they can receive training in a third country; they can recruit militants in a fourth country, and then together strike a target in a fifth country. And so, we have no choice but to confront this menace together. We will either cooperate across our borders or the terrorists will continue to exploit the gaps between them. Under President Trump, for the first time, the United States is building the infrastructure, the partnership, and the strategy to defeat the scourge of far-left terror. The President signed National Security Presidential Memorandum number 7, outlining a comprehensive strategy to investigate and disrupt Antifa terror networks and their allies. Last November, the State Department designated four violent far-left extremist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and there will be more designations soon.”
It must be noted that the State Department, Rubio, or other officials have not offered any citations or evidence tying Cuba to any terroristic actions in the United States. What is offered instead is a report with a grand narrative tying Cuba to the new ideology of “Third Worldism” and how many left-wing radicals today are adherents to it. This is despite Third Worldism being a niche term tossed around in online Maoist circles that is rarely applied in contemporary American politics, let alone left-wing American politics. In the report everyone from political streamer Hasan Piker, CodePink, Breakthrough News, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the National Lawyers Guild, and so on, are all tied to Cuba in what the State Department alleges to be a mass sprawling network of revolutionaries attempting to destroy Western civilization through opposition to capitalism, white supremacy, Zionism, and conservative traditional values. What are those methods exactly? Tours of Cuba. Teach-ins and study groups done by Cuba for foreign visitors. Even meeting a Cuban who isn’t a rabid anti-communist is grounds to be labeled and placed on a watchlist. Tours to Cuba that are not only legal but authorized by the State Department and Justice Department itself due to the crippling restrictions on both travel and trade with Cuba. Which makes many of the claims and methods of proving them bizarre.
After decades of monitored travel to and from Cuba by self-proclaimed radicals who are likely on watchlists already, wouldn’t there be a more compelling case? No arrests of Cuban nationals smuggling guns are cited. No American version of Fidel Castro landing in Miami has been cited. No evidence or proof of state funding of any of these figures or organizations has been cited. Nothing explicitly illegal, violent, or even uncivil has been noted in the report. What is cited time and time again is that there is a specter haunting America. A specter originating from its former colony in the form of communism.
The report itself
The State Department report Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism was published on July 20, 2026. It begins with the following statement: “Cuba’s assault on the United States was never, at root, a quarrel over economic policy or sovereignty or even ownership of a particular territory. It was a revolution against Western civilization itself — waged, in part, via the novel and insidious method of persuading the children of the West to turn against their own inheritance.” Which is odd considering that Cuba is a Western nation. It is a majority Catholic nation, it has a notably large European-descendant population, the proclaimed state ideology, Marxism-Leninism, originated in the western part of Russia, and its thinkers formed its ideas in exile in Europe. All of which is in the West. Karl Marx was a German philosopher schooled in German philosophy. The bulk of his writings and ideas were based in leading economists and historians from Europe and “Western civilization.” Lenin was a Russian who spent a good amount of time in Western Europe and was greatly inspired by not only its history like the Paris Commune, but in its ideas like Marxism. A school of thought formed in the center of Europe that, through its rigor of analysis, transcends national origin and speaks for all of humanity. Marxism, in this view, is perhaps the greatest and most impactful of thoughts to originate from the European continent. Denying such would be a rejection of “Western civilization” and its “achievements.” Or rather, denying this is all part of a myth-making narrative where communism is a foreign parasite that must be crushed.
The mission statement from here is a form of myth making typically done by reactionaries. One where there is an imagined past of tradition, order, and stability founded on ideas and culture that have always been present and never new. All while denying other traditions and histories associated with that community that contradict this. In the minds of American reactionaries, America is a republic founded on Judeo-Christian values that has always striven for progress and freedom in its borders through peaceful, civil, and democratic principles. Never mind the fact millions were denied these things for hundreds of years or how the current society we now live in was only created through conflict against the existing social orders of the time. There would be no America without there being a revolution. There would be no abolition of slavery without the American Civil War. There would be no Civil Rights Act without the at times violent but mostly peaceful, civilly disobedient civil rights movement. Reactionaries of the past cited all of these movements as attacks on “Western civilization.” Despite the fact that the very rebellion against their civilization forms the bedrock of it. History is, after all, a tale of conflict, and class conflict specifically has been the locomotive of its progression and regression.
The report itself is a 98-page PDF file with nine sections. Starting from the formation of Cuba’s current ruling powers, the American left’s history in the 1960s–70s, and detailed accounts of all associations any notable American has had with Cuba. What must be noted immediately is the lack of a bibliography or citations for many of the claims. Some footnotes are provided for some claims, but for a massive report making massive claims, there are no massive sources provided. In fact, the report doesn’t shy away from quoting and citing unnamed sources from publications that aren’t its own. Shoddy academic practices aside.
The first section, “The Revolutionary State,” claims that the Cuban system has completely failed in every aspect possible with zero mention of America’s involvement in said failure. No mention of the Bay of Pigs invasion, attempted infiltrations, economic sabotage, the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis (where Cuba requested Soviet nuclear protection shortly after the failed Bay of Pigs). This section is merely a restatement of previous statements and is the thesis statement of this paper overall. From page five of the report, quote: “The Cubans devoted themselves to recruiting, cultivating and mobilizing a global coalition of activists, intellectuals, and political groups around this cause, building a sprawling revolutionary network that shaped a disproportionate share of America’s most famous and influential extremist movements, from the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground through to Antifa. Today, that network continues to maintain ties to powerful leftist nonprofits, anti-ICE collectives, socialist groups, and Marxist militant organizations across the United States.”
However, a new idea emerges. That being a diverging ideology between Cuban communism and Soviet communism. Along with this idea comes, in its mind, the formation of the “New Left.”
Section II, “Birth of the New Left,” details the split that was seen in many left-wing and communist parties. Best summarized as the “tankie split.” As it very generally summarizes the split caused by the Soviet intervention into Hungary in 1956. Where many did see themselves disillusioned with the concept of Marxism-Leninism as a liberatory ideology and more as a functionality of state ideology of an emerging great power enforcing its hegemony amongst its client states. Leftist infighting aside. This is where their thesis begins in their analysis of the current situation. It retells a brief history of Castro’s rise to power, but oddly leaves out his first revolt, the July 26 revolt. This is done to make it seem like Castro lied about being a communist in order to take power through armed struggle. And not an organic development of his beliefs following his experiences living through Batista. In fact, no mention is made of America’s involvement in Cuba and how it created the conditions of the Cuban revolution. This strikes one as pretty odd considering that in the view of this report, the Cuban government was trying to spark anti-colonial struggles everywhere in the third world and were carrying out a rejection of the traditional Marxist view of revolution. How can there be a decolonial struggle without there being a colonial occupation? The report positions this change not out of material necessity and reality but done to attack Western civilization itself. But never questioning why the hostility towards Western civilization. This plot being organized at the Tricontinental Conference in 1966. From this, the report states that the American left looked to Cuba for inspiration and support in their own struggles, citing the Weather Underground and their tentative ties to Cuba. Again, the creation of the Weather Underground and their attacks is positioned as a foreign operation by Cuba to attack Western civilization, but the report never delves into why the Weather Underground formed. The Vietnam War is not mentioned as a cause of this rise in radical violence, nor is the SDS, nor are other episodes in American history. Everything is framed as an insidious plot by Cuba to undermine the United States and America. This isn’t speculative, as later in the report, on page 41, it is alleged that the Weathermen were created by the Cuban government. This is a tentative tie, as the only connection between the Weathermen and the Cuban government is the fact that some of their members went to Cuba as members of the SDS through its Venceremos Brigade.
Section III, “Exporting the Revolution,” goes into Cuba’s international and foreign policy. The Fair Play for Cuba Committee, founded by the SWP (the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party), takes the first piece of focus by the report with the allegation that it was funded and founded by the Cuban government. No citation is provided. Allegations that the FPCC was funded by the Castro government have always floated around it, but were never proven. It is odd for the State Department to mention the FPCC, but not its most famous member: Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who allegedly shot John F. Kennedy. Most likely this avoidance is done to not mention the oddities of Lee Harvey Oswald’s membership in the organization that make it seem like Oswald was a possible federal informant.
Like the above section, the report’s section goes into broad-brush descriptions of Cuba’s involvement in international affairs. The report at this point begins doing almost a proto-justification of all of the worst crimes done by the American government by denouncing Cuba’s efforts to counter those crimes. Such as bringing up every liberation group that fought American imperialism and its lackeys. Framing the lackeys as victims of Cuban interference and the liberation groups as foreign agents causing chaos and destruction. This is best exemplified by the report’s retelling of the Sandinistas’ revolution in Nicaragua. The report goes into detail about how important Cuban support for the FSLN was, but never mentions America’s involvement in the conflict. This can’t be denied. The FSLN was armed, trained, and backed by the Cuban government. However, they didn’t appear from nowhere and their revolution was warranted given the immense amount of corruption caused in Nicaragua by the American-backed Somoza oligarchical dictatorship. Never once are CIA operations and backing of the dictatorship mentioned. Never once is it mentioned that the Somoza dictatorship owned almost a quarter of all land in Nicaragua through corruption and extrajudicial killings. CIA Operation PBSUCCESS, an operation done in cooperation with the Somoza family to overthrow the government of Guatemala, is never mentioned. American training of Nicaraguan soldiers to uphold the dictatorship is never mentioned. In fact, the worst American intelligence scandal, Iran-Contra, isn’t mentioned either in trying to oust the FSLN from power post-revolution. This is likely done, as stated, to position Cuban international policy in Latin America as a spreading plague of third worldist communist revolution rather than a policy of trying to undo and counter American imperialism in the region.
Section V, “Revolutionary Tourism,” is perhaps the most significant of the sections, as it departs from the traditional Red Scare retelling of history and whitewashing of American imperialism and demonization of international efforts to counter it. This focuses on the American citizens who have visited Cuba and have been inspired by its efforts. This is in contrast to spies in direct service of the Cuban government. These American citizens are simply Americans who are obeying the law and do not hide the fact they have positive views of Cuba nor shy away from having visited it. None of these visits are secretive nor hidden from the public. Most of these visits are publicly broadcasted before, during, and afterwards. In fact, most of their activities are sanctioned under U.S. law. It must be noted here. It is not illegal to visit Cuba. It is not illegal to speak to Cubans directly in Cuba. It is not illegal to be critical of America’s policies towards Cuba and protest them by standing in solidarity with the Cuban people. None of these activities listed in this section are violent, illegal, or underhanded. The only crime to be seen here is guilt for disagreeing with the government’s narrative about Cuba and going to Cuba itself to investigate such a narrative. Along with learning from peoples of other nations how they may improve their own country by taking note of the achievements and improvements made under the Cuban government. The only group noted for any violent acts in these allegations is the Weather Underground, whose ties to the Cuban government are tentative at best. In fact, in this section, no citations are provided for many claims tying it to other groups like the Viet Cong who supposedly instructed the Weathermen in their attacks. The section starts with an unnamed source from the Chicago Times stating: “Name any disturbance in the United States – on campus, in the streets, anywhere – and I’ll name you the leaders of it who have been to Cuba.”
However, none of this stops the State Department from painting all visitors to Cuba from the Venceremos Brigade as recruited agents of the Cuban state. Defectors from the Cuban intelligence service, the Intelligence Directorate, claim that it attempted to recruit agents from those visiting Cuba. However, specific members recruited are never listed. No successful recruitments are noted. The one allegation that can be believed is that the DI does monitor foreign visitors attached to the brigades. This is not without cause due to the numerous attempts by the American government to infiltrate Cuba in order to sabotage it. No evidence is provided that any visitors to Cuba from these brigades are recruited to be Cuban agents. That doesn’t stop the report from directly accusing former Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass of being a possible Cuban agent, on the grounds that she organized visits to Cuba and has been there multiple times. In fact, the report uses Bass’ attempts to normalize relations with Cuba during the Obama administration as some admittance of guilt of being an agent. While these accusations aren’t explicitly stated, the implications are very clear. The State Department views any visitor to Cuba as a possible foreign agent and will use any of their opinions or actions no matter how inconsequential as proof of guilt. From the report itself: “Over the past half century, programs like the Brigade have helped Cuba infiltrate and establish a foothold in a series of radical American political movements. Increasingly, its reach has also extended to mainstream liberal institutions – elite academia, major nonprofits and NGOs, and even the Democratic Party itself.” Once again, no citation provided that such a foothold has been made nor that any member or figure is an agent of the Cuban intelligence agency. It must be noted as well that the only citations for that report appear to be past intelligence reports from before the year 2000. This gives the impression that all allegations are being made on the basis of outdated information from the 1960s–70s.
The accusation by implication doesn’t stop just there. As the report even takes aim at the most recent visit, the March 2026 “Nuestra América Convoy.” A laundry list of figures is noted to have taken part in the convoy. Quote:
“…the international left, ‘mobilizing by air, land, and sea’ (as organizers put it) to transport goods to Cuba in defiance of U.S. sanctions. 120 organizations from across 33 countries joined the caravan. Participants included a suite of influential progressives from the United States and across the world, including Hasan Piker; Amazon Labor Union founder Christian Smalls; a delegation from the Democratic Socialists of America; former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, former Spanish deputy prime minister Pablo Iglesias; several other current and former members of European Parliament; and Isra Hirsi, campus activist and daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.).”
As noted before, none of these activities are illegal. Despite the report stating “in defiance of U.S. sanctions.” No law is cited that is being violated. In fact, most of these people visited Cuba with authorization from the State Department itself. Stayed only in hotels authorized by the State Department and violated no sanctions.
Section IV, “The Racial Revolution,” continues the report’s guilt-by-association accusations. Specifically, the section “BLM: The New Front.” Where the report goes at length, trying to paint Black Lives Matter activists as being part of this wider network of unknowing Cuban agents for the crime of… quoting the Black revolutionary Assata Shakur. On pages 62–63, the State Department attempts to paint the Cuban government as racist due to anti-government protests occurring in 2021 in which, they allege, the majority of participants were Afro-Latinos and were the victims of violent police repression. In doing so, they poorly attempt to deny the reality of America being a highly militarized racist police state, by dismissing Cuba’s denouncement of the killing of George Floyd and of the police response to the protests at the time as ridiculous. The State Department coins the protests in America and Cuba’s denouncements as the “Shakur Strategy.” That strategy once again simply being that other people quoted her or find her works to be inspiring. The State Department even takes aim at Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, for daring not to officially denounce a tribute to Shakur by the DSA. The State Department report goes a step further in labeling the protests, statements, and refusals to denounce Shakur with the racist label of “Third World Leftism.” The term attempting to dream up images of racial violence from the third world and associating it with Black Americans’ struggle for political and civil liberties. Oddly in this section, parts appear almost disconnected. After the racist labeling of these orgs and people as part of “Third World Leftism,” the report randomly mentions a 1998 visit to Cuba by Congresswoman Maxine Waters just to state that she considers herself a friend to Cuba and liked Shakur.
Section VII, “Fellow Travelers and Front Groups,” continues all of this again. Every organization with vaguely positive views of Cuba, ties to Cuba, or advocacy to end the embargo on Cuba has been labeled a “front group.” Page 69 outright tries to link the above-mentioned BLM protests to a “fifth column.” Quote: “Recent events have testified to the persistent power of this network, the extent to which it is prepared to utilize its organized infrastructure in American civil society to act as a fifth column for the Cuban regime, and its inextricable linkage to the broader suite of organizations, movements, and causes on the American radical left.” The report essentially labels any organization that is part of the National Network on Cuba a fifth column. Those orgs being: the Democratic Socialists of America, CodePink, the National Lawyers Guild, the Communist Party USA, and 60 other organizations. The report takes aim at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples by framing a discussion among American activists about congressional bills regarding Cuba as part of this network of fifth columns. It then uses any ties that this org has with other orgs like the NNC as further proof of there being a vast intelligence network, no matter how little those ties actually are.
The report further tries to make these links seem deeper than they truly are as proof of this foreign agent network. Take for example their section on the NLG. Not only does the report label the left-wing organization as a “proto-communist front.” But it cites any and all cases where their attorneys took up a case involving a left-wing org or activist as proof of them being part of this network. Half of the section is focused on the early history of the org in which they represented members of the Weather Underground. The report also uses its own prosecution of “anti-fascist orgs” and any dissent towards it as proof of guilt. Essentially labeling one group domestic terrorists, then looking for any group that protests the labeling and prosecution to designate more people as terrorists. Thus creating an endless cycle of repression and an endless list of enemies to target from it. For example, the State Department report cites the Prairieland defendants, who were convicted on lackluster evidence of terrorism and handed lengthy sentences, some reaching 50 years. After citing this, they then cite the NLG’s condemnation of the prosecution as proof that the Guild supports domestic terrorism. Quoting from page 77: “In March, a group of militants became the first Antifa members to be convicted of federal terrorism charges for a coordinated ambush on an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas…… A month later, the NLG announced its unflinching support for the defendants, describing the attack as ‘a typical pro-immigrant protest’ conducted by ‘community members’ who were merely there to ‘express solidarity with those imprisoned inside the detention center.’ The Guild condemned the criminal charges as ‘expansive and unchecked state repression.'”
For those unfamiliar with this case: this is the infamous Prairieland case they are referring to, in which several people were charged with terrorism offenses for being part of a noise demo protest. Individuals were charged with “tampering with evidence” for the crime of moving a box of zines and fireworks. Any and all individuals involved in the protest were met with federal charges under one indictment trying to charge them all as part of a vast criminal network. Quoting from the Prairieland Defendants site:
There was a noise demo held at the Prairieland Detention Center on July 4th in solidarity with ICE detainees. In all, 18 people have been arrested and charged with a variety of crimes. 9 people were arrested that night, and another was arrested the next day during a raid on a house. The spouse of one defendant was arrested and charged with federal obstruction of justice with the evidence of a box of anarchist zines found in his car. One person the police believe to have been at the protest was detained after a 10 day manhunt involving the eventual arrest of 6 others. One of those arrested as part of the manhunt was charged with tampering with physical evidence for removing someone from group chats. Loved ones have good reasons to believe the state’s narrative is ludicrous based on their knowledge of the defendants and statements defendants have made since their arrest. As of November 13th, ten of the defendants have been combined onto a single indictment with a total of twelve charges. Twelve others have been charged separately.
According to the State Department, disputing their charges and the facts of the Department of Justice’s case is grounds to be labeled part of this vast alleged criminal network and will land you in their investigations of domestic terrorism if you are remotely connected to them or to Cuba. As the NLG has found, their advocacy against the U.S. blockade of the country and their visits to Cuba are now being used as evidence of such.
This all being stated, not even the absence of any connection to a Cuban state program or organization will help you avoid the State Department’s list of accusations. The Democratic Socialists of America are mentioned, and the State Department explicitly states that there is no link between them and Cuba. It instead focuses on its political opinions and ideology to connect it to the vast network it wishes to target. Page 84 states: “The DSA was not founded as a Cuban intelligence or influence front; it was born in 1982 as a fusion of socialist organizations and movements from both the Old Left and New Left factions, including veterans of CPUSA and SDS. Today, it maintains a fierce, almost religious commitment to the cause of the Cuban regime – not because the group is controlled by Cuban agents, per se, but because that commitment is now simply the de facto policy orthodoxy on the American far left.” In this fashion, the State Department makes its intent clear. Any disagreement with American policy towards Cuba is not only grounds for investigation and focus, but also grounds to be labeled a traitor. The State Department is slowly building the political and state infrastructure to attack the very concepts of freedom of expression by labeling such expression an attack on American state interests. It is important to remember the first Red Scare, in which advocacy for decreasing wartime production was grounds for deportation from America. The same advocacy that saw individuals like Eugene Debs arrested during his presidential campaign and saw Emma Goldman deported. The Third Red Scare is slowly being birthed into our political landscape and threatens not only the American left but the very principles of democracy and free expression by targeting anyone who dares challenge American foreign policy.
This isn’t hyperbole. As this article was being written, one of the three news publications that have been subpoenaed by Congress was mentioned in this report. Breakthrough News, People’s Forum (mentioned alongside CodePink, the DSA, and the NLG) and Tricontinental have been asked by the Republican-controlled Ways and Means Committee to hand over all of their internal communications, finances, list of employees, and anything associated with Roy Singham (also listed in the report as a person of interest). Only time will tell if these subpoenas result in similar charges to the Prairieland defendants or if further political targeting will arise from it. What can be said is that the Third Red Scare is in full swing.
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