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I'll defend Castro. He fought a revolution that ousted the Mob-run Batista dictator, closed down the mob run casinos, and kicked out the Western owners of the sugar plantations, elevated the peasant class, gave them a world-class health care system and made the largely illiterate country into the most literate nation in Latin America. Okay, because the US, imposing a tight embargo on Cuba after the expropriation on US corporate assets there, drove Castro and his government into the arms of the Stalinist Soviet Union, he ended up adopting a lot of Soviet economic ideas and governing methods, and became enamored of his own indispensability to the revolution's success. That part wasn't so good, but I'll agree with Bernie that Castro did a lot for the Cuban people. I'll also say that had the US not been so rabidly anti-Communist, and more willing to adopt friendly relations with a Marxist, as it did with Tito in Yugoslavia, Cuba might have evolved into a much gentler socialist society, especially if the embargo had not existed. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
