Fidel Castro: Leftwing Monster

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Fidel Castro entered Havana on January 8, 1959, to wild acclaim from all quarters. Most Cubans were jubilant; Castro was promising an end to the corrupt governments that had plagued Cuba since independence. Far from any Communism, Castro was promising a revolution "as green as Cuba's palm trees!" with national elections in three months. Private property would be secure, a free press guaranteed, friendly relations with the U.S. were essential……Yet within three months of his entry into Havana, Castro's firing squads had murdered an estimated 600-1,100 men and boys, and Cuba's jails held ten times the number of political prisoners as under Fulgencio Batista, who Castro overthrew with claims to "liberating" Cuba……. As with so much else regarding pre-Castro Cuba, major misconceptions abound in this editorial. To wit: in the 1950's the average farm-wage in "near-feudal" Cuba was higher than in France, Belgium, Denmark, or West Germany. According to the Geneva-based International Labor Organization, the average daily wage for an agricultural worker in Cuba in 1958 was $3. The average daily wage in France at the time was $2.73; in Belgium $2.70; in Denmark $2.74; in West Germany $2.73; and in the U.S. $4.06. Also, far from huge latifundia dominating the agricultural landscape, the average Cuban farm in 1958 was actually smaller than the average farm in the U.S.: 140 acres in Cuba vs. 195 acres in the U.S. In 1958 Cuba, a nation of 6.2 million people, had 159,958 farms -- 11,000 of which were tobacco farms. Only 34 percent of the Cuban population was rural…….To Read More…..