Cuba has just celebrated the 48th anniversary of the start of the Fidel Castro’s revolution with the largest anti-American demonstration ever on the streets of Havana. Over a million people took part. “Celebrated” is perhaps the wrong word.
It is difficult not to be dismissive about what Castro has achieved for his country in the years since coming to power - an absolute zero. The economy is a wreck; the infrastructure has been reduced to near-primitive conditions; there are shortages of almost everything, not just electricity and petrol, but even food, and medicines. No wonder the dream of most Cubans is a safe one-way trip to Florida, preferably as soon as possible. The rest of the Caribbean, which lagged way behind at the time of its revolution, is now far more developed and better off, and without the benefit of communism. The Cuban economy died the minute he took over. It has never paid its way thereafter. The only reason that was not apparent until 10 years ago was because the old Soviet Union constantly bailed it out with aid and free energy, and the only reason it did so was because, being in Washington’s backyard, Moscow regarded it as a worthwhile propaganda investment.
Cuba’s communist revolution was always as much as pathetic failure as those in Poland, East Germany, Hungary or any other place where Marxist-Leninism imposed its withering hand. About the only thing that is in abundance is propaganda and rhetoric —which like everything else, are old, outdated and do not work. The one million who took to the streets of Havana did not turn up because they wanted to. The demonstration was organized by a Castro desperate to impress not only Washington but also his own people that he is still very much in charge. But Washington does not care and the Cubans are not impressed. They know that he can imprison them, that they have to put up with him as long as he lives, that he will not change — and that he cannot feed them or give them jobs.
Of course, the Cuban leadership could claim — indeed do — that they have kept their dignity and integrity. But even that is not true. So desperate is the situation that they have finally had to swallow their pride and market Cuba as a cheap resort for American tourists.
It is pathetic that all that the Cubans can do to mark the 48th anniversary of their revolution is vent their spleen on the US, that they should have nothing more durable or dramatic to celebrate. What a colossal waste of energy, effort, time and lives! It is perhaps an irony that is wasted on Castro that the event of 48 years ago being marked — his first attempted coup of 1953 — was itself a failure. He and his brother Raoul were captured and tried. During that trial, he famously said, “History will absolve me”. It will not. It will judge him harshly for arresting Cuba’s development and wasting its resources and vitality on his madcap drive to export revolutionary socialism throughout Latin America. He still dreams of revolution and humiliating the Americans. But his ability to worry or even annoy the Americans is long past — although he does not have the skill or vision to realize it.
A million protesters on the street of Havana is nothing other than a monumental folly from a failed leader. All rather sad.
