pictures of cuban development

I have never been to Cuba. I am not a great long distance traveller. Nor would I , from what I have ever read, been a happy camper under a one party dictatorship, for that is what Cuba was an is. But…lets see what the World Development Indicators say, bearing in mind that not all data are available at all times for all states…

Fidel was a revolutionary, who was from all accounts initially a rather middle of the road marxist, driven into the arms of the Soviet Union as a counterweight to the US and cuban exiles there who wished to restore the abjectly awful Batista regime. And then, missiles, cold war, and everyone freezes in place.

So, yes, a dictator and a serial abuser of human rights, not a nice man. Most revolutionaries aren’t.  But, and there is always a but, he left Cuba in a place that is in many human ways demonstrably better than most other large polities in the region. So, on balance, a balanced view is required.