color me unmoved.
The thing I always thought fascinating about Castro is that he was at the end of the day Marxism-Leninism's closest approximation of a "Hipster Revolutionary". Fidel had a rep and a elan' entirely at odds with the usual Soviet Mendicants from the Cold War, the Ulbrichts the Gomulkas etc. Castro like all true hipsters knew the deadliest sin was being boring and or predictable...and lets face it, in the USA he had the nigh perfect opponent, something he could endlessly harp on to burnish his "David v Goliath" marxist mythology.
All of that beautifully obscured Cuba's status as a Soviet Client a veritable Carribean "Ruble Pit". Billions in Soviet Investment was flushed away on the entirely debatable notion that an island economy with a limited industrial base and a finite agricultural sector could somehow transform painlessly into a modern social economy.
That and the fact that Castro deftly weaponized "refugee expulsions" back in 1980 via the infamous Mariel Boat Lift (sp) remain his two greatest contributions to world politics.
If I was Cuba though, I'd double down on the "Single Payer Health" plan and market it in the USA as a form of "Medevac Tourism". Once Trump is inaugurated we are likely gonna have all sorts of health care problems in the USA (assuming we aren't all blown sky high)...Cuba could make a lot of money filling in those entirely avoidable gaps.
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