Will Latin America finally have a real revolution?

Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Winter 1996-1997 by Ratliff, William

decades, but hopeless economic fiascos as well, which the Asians distinctly are not. Castro, the Ortegas, and Allende all adopted economic schemes that were inherently flawed and then clinched the fate of their countries by, to one degree or another, denying all those who thought differently -- and, often, more correctly -- any voice in the discussion of government policy, much less in policymaking.

Many events and forces precipitated the "new moment" and the "new world." In the broadest terms, there were the no longer deniable examples of what hasn't worked and also examples of what has worked around the Hemisphere and world. As for the former, in the mid- and late-1980s, reality caught up with the Soviet bloc: the evidence was irrefutable that single-centered states which squash private initiative and free markets are not only repressive but, in economic matters, are flat out wrong if improving the livelihood of the people counts for anything more than propaganda. One of the main reasons was that, for all Marxism's protestations of scientific validity, in practice it was the antithesis of science for it simply denied facts that failed to fortify the faith. This aspect of Marxism -- and the vested interests of the new class -- had a devastating impact on the countries under communist control even as it was having a slightly less obvious, but equally negative, impact on many academics and analysts around,the world via the dependency

movement and other less pervasive fads. Such a fraud could not be sustained forever in running a country, and Soviet bloc governments collapsed; while the more clever Asian communists opted to save their "socialism" by embracing capitalism, a policy Fidel Castro has flirted with to a limited degree.

For decades, many Latin Americans considered Cuba, to one extent or another, as a model for national development. More recently, however, even many of Castro's admirers have come to realize that the Cuban leader has, at the very least, failed as a ruler; some acknowledge that he has manipulated the Cuban people in pursuit of his own personal goals for domestic and international power and influence. In the words of Juan Antonio Rodriguez Menier, a founding member of the government and, for 28 years, an official in Cuba's Interior Ministry,

Fidel has survived because he is a shrewd street-fighter. All of his decisions -- political, economic, and personal -- are made with the goals of maintaining his personal power and pursuing his private, anti-Yankee vendetta, regardless of how these decisions might affect the welfare of his countrymen (Rodriguez, 1994c).

What is more,

on many occasions Fidel has deliberately made economic decisions he knew would weaken the economy just so the people, who did not know any better, would not prosper and thus would feel they had to rely on his `wise leadership' to survive (Rodriguez, 1994b: 7).

His quick willingness to sacrifice even his closest personal colleagues was obvious in 1989, when the victims were the highly celebrated General Arnaldo Ochoa, executed on trumped-up drug charges, Interior Minister Jose Abrantes, one of Castro's closest colleagues for decades, who was thrown into prison after Ochoa's arrest and, predictably, died there, and much of the First Level of the Interior Ministry (Rodriguez and Ratliff, 1994: 2, 19, 22, 53). Now that the Somozas and Duvaliers are gone, Castro's dictatorship -- with brother Raul the designated heir apparent -- is the only family dynasty remaining in Latin America.