The new U.S. ambassador in Mexico has taken aim at Mexican painter and icon Frida Kahlo for her support of Marxism , stirring up a fierce social media debate with a tweet asking if the painter had not been aware of atrocities committed in the name of that ideology .
Few Mexicans have enjoyed greater global recognition than Kahlo , who spent long periods bedridden after a traffic accident in her youth, who attained international fame following her death in 1954 and became a feminist symbol in the 1970s.
She created some 200 paintings , sketches and drawings , mainly self-portraits , in which she transformed her misfortune into works of bold color.
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Landa
u, who was appointed by President Donald Trump and sworn in last month, must navigate a volatile bilateral relationship as Trump frequently berates Mexico over trade and immigration .
On Sunday, not shying away from controversy himself, Landau took to Twitter during a visit to Kahlo’s house , now a museum in the colonial-era Mexico City neighborhood of Coyoacán .
“I admire her free and bohemian spirit , and she rightly became an icon of Mexico around the whole world. What I do not understand is her obvious passion for Marxism , Leninism , Stalinism . Didn’t she know about the horrors committed in the name of that ideology ?” he wrote in Spanish.
Kahlo
and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera , embraced Marxism and supported Soviet dictator Josef Stalin , after initially backing his rival, revolutionary Leon Trotsky . Stalin is now widely held responsible for the deaths of millions of people, many in the Gulag network of labor camps .
Landau’s tweet drew a mixture of responses. Some of the 1,600 comments were supportive and accused the government of President López Obrador of emerging from the same Marxist tradition .
Others were clearly irked and blasted the United States for its long history of interfering in the internal affairs of Latin America a nd other countries around the globe, often to counter socialist governments .
“In the name of fighting that ideology, the U.S. killed children in Vietnam by bombing entire villages and supporting dictatorships throughout Latin America ,” said user @Quetzalcoaltl1.
The Me xican Communist Party weighed into the debate, saying: “ Ambassador Landau , Comrade Frida was consistent with humanism , the search for democracy and freedom of Mexico’s workers and people, and therefore she was a Marxist-Leninist , and of course Stalin’s admirer. Don’t show your ignorance anymore, imitating Trump .”
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico said it did not have further comment about the debate.
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