2. The socialism of Cuba (extract)

A priori the marriage of cuban revolution with the Soviet bureaucratic model looks like the union of a carp and a rabbit. The moustache and the beard of the"barbudos" (Castro's soldiers) refer more to José Marti, intransigent nationalist and apostle of the cuban identity, than to Joseph Stalin. Smoking Cigars and carrying a machine-gun does not necessarily means you're a comunist, and the castrists have at the beginning very to worry the men of Moscow: their revolution shows the jovial and disrespectful apearance of unexpected victories. At the begining, Fidel Castro clamp high and strong his refusal of Communism and displays an intransigent nationalism, adopting more the classic style of a latin American caudillo.Of course Castro and his men confiscated the "Yankees" properties while learnedly preaching the advent of a "new man". But by doing this they behave more as avengers of the poorest people, that as scrupulous followers of the Marxism Leninism.Inviting themself in the middle of the mafia midnight supper and "infamous Batista", the castrists are initially satisfied to display bad manners: they drop their ashes on the fitted carpet in the luxurious hotels exclusively built for wealthy Americans and seize the residences of the richest who have fled. Thanks to this mixture of arrogance and naivety, the cuban revolution appears carrying a formidable Utopia, of a possible experiment of a socialism different from the USSR, because more human, more cordial, and built under other latitudes.
The cold war and the intransigence of American will take this history toward a diferent path : summoned to choose his camp, Castro will seek refuge in the shade of the big Russian brother. The "abrazo" (hug) of the Russians "compañeros" (comrades) is quickly transformed into a choking pressure. After Spanish colonization and the néo American colonialism, Cuba becomes a satellite of the Soviet empire, authorizing Russian military equipment to land within miles of enemy territory. A dependence wich will later be highly paid by Cuba.

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