Meet Posadism - Where Communism, Dolphins and Aliens converge

It's no secret that space and its possibilities fueled the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, one man and his movement (or cult, depending on who you ask) took one step beyond and asked: What if there's life out there, and they also happen to be Marxists?

Posadism is the brainchild of J. Posadas, the pseudonym of Argentinean Trotskyist Homero Rómulo Cristalli Frasnelli, who according to The Nation, was one of the better-known Leon Trotsky followers in the Western Hemisphere in the mid-20th century.

Pictured: Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1937.

Back in the 1950s, Posadas organized the Latin American Bureau of the Fourth International, an organization that compasses the followers of Leon Trotsky and oppose mainstream Communism, which was influenced by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Eventually, Posadas broke with the Fourth International on the topic of nuclear war, arguing that capitalism and Stalinist-influenced communism should destroy each other in order to build a socialist society from the ashes. He created his own Posadist Fourth International in 1962.

Posadists clashed with Fidel Castro’s government during the early years of the Cuban Revolution, arguing, among other things, that revolutionary forces should take Guantánamo by force.

Eventually, Castro denounced Posadas and banned his movement in Cuba for being “too radical”.

However, the most notable element of Posadism is their belief that alien life is not only real, but their technology could help humanity to achieve socialist goals.

In a 1968 pamphlet titled “Flying Saucers and the Socialist Future of the Mankind”, Posadas meditates on extraterrestrial life.

The Argentinean Trotsky supporter asserts that it’s possible not only that capitalism didn’t develop on other planets, but their superior technology probably means they lack the restraints imposed by money and ideology.

“They have no aggressive impulse, they have no need to kill in order to live: they come only to observe. We can foresee the existence of such beings, even taking into account the fantasies that exist among the reports, stories, observations, and statements,” the Argentinean Trotskyite argues.

“If they exist, we must call on them to intervene, to help us resolve the problems we have on Earth. The essential task is to suppress poverty, hunger, unemployment, and war, to give everyone the means to live in dignity, and to lay the bases for human fraternity”.

Posadas adds that: “We must appeal to the beings on other planets, when they come here, to intervene and collaborate with Earth’s inhabitants in suppressing poverty.”

One of the biggest criticisms about Posadas was having a cult-like leadership among his followers, with other socialist groups comparing him to a “pope” of the Posadist Fourth International “church”.

Aliens were not the only interest of the Posadist Fourth International. Another curious point of interest was the idea of developing communications with dolphins, thinking they could be integrated into socialism.

Posadas passed away in 1981, and he’s mostly remembered today by memes featuring mushroom clouds, dolphins, and aliens in Red Army uniforms. In 2020, New York-based journalist A. M. Gittlitz released ‘I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism’ in which he provides a new, broader light on the movement founded by J. Posadas.

Image: Pluto Press

Gittlitz compares Posadas to L. Ron Hubbard and Jim Jones in an interview for The Nation, highlighting the Argentinean Trotskyite’s father-like figure to his followers.

“I think Posadas and the people around him were really inspired by the launch of Sputnik and the subsequent Soviet space program and saw the political aspect of. The very radical freedom inherent in the idea of going to space,” the author of ‘I Want to Believe’ told The Nation.