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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (3588)	5/5/2000 11:39:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 13062

Well, I'm not sure that was the case in the early years. And it depended on who you were. From my hazy recollection of those days, many of the early exiles were members of the upper class who had done well under Batista but were targeted by the socialist Castro government, which wanted to confiscate and redistribute their land and property. So yes, if you were in the upper class, of course you felt Castro was far more oppressive than Batista. Many of these people fled the revolution to Florida, determined to restore Batista and recover their property. But if you were in the class that had been oppressed under Batista in favor of his hangers-on, but now were getting a chance to work for yourself on a collective farm (which was the principle, at least), that's where Castro's support came from, and there was a lot of it. So again, I think you have to ask when in the revolution are you talking about, and what class are you talking about. But as I say, these are hazy recollections; I'm no historian, and am relying on memory of what happened thirty years ago. (OTOH, for a dictator to survive that long if he really is hated by the mass of the people is not likely. Possible, as in Iraq, but not likely, and I have seen no evidence that Castro supports his power by the kind of purges, killings even of his own family, etc. that keeps Hussein in power. Nor does Cuba have the kind of wealth that would sustain the level of military presence necessary to keep a brutal and hated dictator in power.)