Lesson Learned from Oswald: A Tragedy of Communism’s Influence

(Minghui.org) Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans in 1939 and assassinated John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Two days after the assassination, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot Oswald in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters on November 24.

According to the final report by the Warren Commission released in September 1964, Oswald fired three shots at the president. The second and third shots he fired struck the president, while the third shot killed the president.

Over 60 years have passed, and many people still do not understand why Oswald would do such a thing. In this article, we will review communism’s influence on Oswald and his defection to the Soviet Union.

Passion for Communism

Due to the lack of a normal family life, Oswald often quit school during childhood. After joining the Marines in 1956, he had excellent grades and could accurately shoot at a target 200 yards away, including semi-human target tests. At the same time, he was quiet and had obvious pro-Soviet and pro-communist tendencies.

According to his diary, Oswald wanted to change his environment, and he discovered socialist literature in 1953. In a letter to the Socialist Party of America at age 16, he asked about the Young People’s Socialist League and said he had been studying socialist principles for “well over fifteen months.”

Oswald retired early from the Marines in September 1959, stating his mother needed care. After staying with his mother for two days, however, he left New Orleans and, after a series of detours, arrived in Moscow a month later as a tourist.

Although Oswald proclaimed that he was a communist and was willing to become a Soviet citizen, he met refusal from a Soviet official and attempted suicide by injuring his wrist. After being discharged from the hospital, he went to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and abandoned his U.S. citizenship. The Soviet authorities approved his request and arranged for him to work as an electrician in Minsk, with a monthly salary of about 700 rubles.

Still, Oswald did not gain the trust of the Soviet authorities. His home was closely wiretapped, and his correspondence was repeatedly checked. His every move in the Soviet Union was surveilled by the KGB. Soon, Oswald married a Belarusian woman, Marina Prusakova.

After gaining genuine experience in the Soviet Union, Oswald returned to the United States with his wife and daughter in June 1962 to settle down. Shortly before his death, the couple had just had their second daughter. Oswald often printed and distributed leaflets promoting communism. Sometimes he had to deal with the police and reporters as a result.

More Bitter Fruits

Oswald was not the only American who defected to the Soviet Union. In the eyes of the Communists, all defectors, especially those from the old enemy–the United States–should be viewed with suspicion, even if they have some value. Despite their passion for communism, these people lived tragic lives after defecting to the Soviet Union.

Glenn Michael Souther, an American sailor born in Indiana in 1957, was fascinated by Russian culture since his youth. He also studied Russian language and literature. Over time, his affection for Russia gradually evolved into his agreement with communism. When serving aboard the USS Nimitz of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in 1975, Souther took the initiative to become an insider of the KGB. From then on, he continuously passed secrets of the U.S. Navy to Moscow.

Under the arrangement of the KGB, Souther went to Italy for a “vacation” in May 1986, where he then took a Soviet flight to the Soviet Union. Unlike Oswald, Souther successfully obtained Soviet citizenship. In addition, he was awarded the rank of Major, worked in the KGB, and married a professor at Moscow State University. Souther once expressed sincere admiration for the Soviet Union and its free education system, universal health care system, and so on, but later on, he found that the Soviet Union experienced serious material shortages and that people there complained about the bureaucracy.

As Eastern Europe was abandoning communism in 1989, 32-year-old Souther committed suicide in his garage through carbon monoxide poisoning.

William H. Martin, a cryptologist with a background in mathematics, worked in the U.S. Navy in Japan as a cryptologist and joined the National Security Agency (NSA) in 1957. After joining the NSA, he was dissatisfied by some of the authorities’ practices and fell into distress. In June 1960, the 29-year-old Martin was given a three-week vacation. He left the United States with Bernon F. Mitchell, another cryptologist from the NSA, and boarded a Soviet cargo ship. A month later, Martin appeared at a press conference in Moscow and said that he had defected to the Soviet Union to seek asylum and Soviet citizenship.

Martin could speak fluent Russian and soon gave himself a Russian name and married a Soviet woman, but the marriage lasted only three years. He admitted publicly that his defection had been “foolhardy.” Due to the Soviet Union’s suspicion of Martin, he was only able to get odd jobs, which disappointed him. He also told others that he had defected because he had been misled by propaganda publications such as USSR and Soviet Life.

Later on, Martin managed to leave the Soviet Union. He died of cancer in Mexico in January 1987. In the end, his body was allowed to be buried in the hometown that he had abandoned.

Hatred and Extremism: Poisons Brought by Communism

I remembered Oswald’s story after reading online posts from some American youths who call themselves “TikTok refugees.” One of them shouted in a video that he loves communism and loves the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), claiming that communist China is “the most transparent country in the world.” Another one said that she would choose the CCP without hesitation and would let the CCP destroy every American warship. This made no sense to some Chinese people who had been waiting for decades to immigrate to the United States. One of them replied that she should move to China as soon as possible.

Cherishing what we have in life requires proper education in the family and at school. Many in the younger generations, however, have been surrounded by digital media and smartphones their whole lives. Some of them have not received a normal family education, some have never had the opportunity to learn and appreciate the beauty of tradition, and some have not experienced much of the real world. Growing up in a country with the freedom of speech, they have never tasted the deception, control, and iron fist of communism.

Influenced by “woke culture” from kindergarten to college, some children have been led to develop strained relationships with their parents and disdain for traditional values. There are videos of children publicly denouncing their parents for not supporting their obtaining transgender surgery, as well as far-left youth venting hatred of their own country because an app that is essentially spyware was removed from the app store. This type of hatred and violence are common characteristics of China’s angry youth, the pro-CCP “pinks,” the 50-Cent Party, and other products of communism.

Those who defected to the Soviet Union later regretted their choice and realized that real life under communism was different from how it was portrayed in propaganda, but for them it was too late. For these younger generations who face the same challenges, perhaps what they need is a society that looks after them (without indulging their every whim) and promotes wholesome family environments and traditional moral values, not the poisonous seed of communism.