Bass’s Long March from Communist Fringe to Biden’s VP Shortlist

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Over the years, Bass has spoken frequently about her decades-long involvement with the Venceramos Brigade (VB), starting from the time she was 19-years-old in 1973. She would make eight trips to Cuba as a “brigandista” in the 1970s. Articles about her work with the Venceremos Brigade make it sound like the Cuban equivalent of Habitat for Humanity or any other laudable volunteer organization providing humanitarian assistance in poor countries.

In fact, the Venceremos Brigade was a Cuban communist front group founded in 1969 by Fidel Castro and the radical members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Brigade was run by the Cuban intelligence service, the General Directorate for Intelligence (DGI).

In 1969, a group of radicals including SDS leader Bernadine Dohrn and Castro apologist Saul Landau traveled to Cuba to meet with the Vietnamese and launch the Venceremos Brigade. The ostensible reason for this effort was to provide help for the Cuban sugar harvest. The real reason was to meet Cuban and Vietnamese officials in Havana to map out strategies for the war in America, the “other war,” which would ultimately defeat the United States in a way that the battlefield situation in Vietnam never could have.

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