I mean, considering how international the Cold War was, and how active Cuba was in foreign affairs, I think it’s fair to say focus at home and isolation were not major factors in Castro’s policies. I think he was legitimately an idealist, just one who went down a dark path.
But an idealist going down a dark path is still preferable to a shithead going down the same. At a time in the Cold War when people starved while their dictators - Soviet or Western aligned - celebrated in style, Cuba maintained a reasonable standard of living instead of wasting its immense aid on rampant corruption.
On the downside, he made Cuba reliant on that aid, and when it dried up with the fall of the Soviet Union, so did Cuba’s fortunes.
I mean, considering how international the Cold War was, and how active Cuba was in foreign affairs, I think it’s fair to say focus at home and isolation were not major factors in Castro’s policies. I think he was legitimately an idealist, just one who went down a dark path.
But an idealist going down a dark path is still preferable to a shithead going down the same. At a time in the Cold War when people starved while their dictators - Soviet or Western aligned - celebrated in style, Cuba maintained a reasonable standard of living instead of wasting its immense aid on rampant corruption.
On the downside, he made Cuba reliant on that aid, and when it dried up with the fall of the Soviet Union, so did Cuba’s fortunes.
So we are largely agreed. I have a bad habit of favoring entandre to the point that I become cryptic.