"the average villager barely noticed the switch from warlord-feudalism to Communism"
Probably ... pre-40s China was no picnic ... in Russia as well, what they had before the communists was the Tsars, which communism got rid of and the average person was better off for it, or at least thought they were going to be ... there was an intense period of optimism [now there's an ism i like -g-] in re communism when it showed the power to get rid of those Tsars ... which is a big part of the reason it took seventy years before significant numbers of people there realised communism didn't work.
In Cuba as well - before Castro they had Batista, before him some other repressive alpha-baboon named Machado ... none of those places have ever known democracy, nothing close to democracy, ever ... not even anything close to the very imperfect versions we enjoy in Canada, the US, and M‚xico ... there is no tradition of accountability to the people in those places, and there never has been ... it is reasonable that most would just hope for a strongman to provide stability without capricious violence to themselves.
Good to see you here, Steven ... i've enjoyed your posts around SI for a long time.
Well, what i've learned about cubanos in the last two days is that their young performing artists are as irresponsible and freaking clueless as young performing artists from anywhere else - this time it was a pack that got left behind somewhere, with passports and valuables and sentimental stuff and all ... probably in some bar ... i judge them to be Perfectly Normal human beings ... for entertainers ... lol ... cheers, all |
