Fidel Castro: Communism failed in Cuba

AP has a story that a writer for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, interviewed long-time Communist dictator for three days.

During the interview, Casto admitted that Communism has failed in Cuba.

HAVANA – Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba’s communist economic model doesn’t work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.

The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel’s brother Raul, the country’s president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba’s 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows. ["raise eyebrows"?  An admission from CASTRO that Communism FAILED?  You have to love that sort of bald spin.   The only other thing they could have done to downplay this is to suggest that he is at long last a little gaga.]

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba’s economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.

He said Castro made the comment casually over lunch following a long talk about the Middle East, and did not elaborate. The Cuban government had no immediate comment on Goldberg’s account. [ROFL!]

Since stepping down from power in 2006, the ex-president has focused almost entirely on international affairs and said very little about Cuba and its politics, perhaps to limit the perception he is stepping on his brother’s toes.

Goldberg, who traveled to Cuba at Castro’s invitation last week to discuss a recent Atlantic article he wrote about Iran’s nuclear program, also reported on Tuesday that Castro questioned his own actions during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, including his recommendation to Soviet leaders that they use nuclear weapons against the United States. [What a guy!]

Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has clung to its communist system.

The state controls well over 90 percent of the economy, paying workers salaries of about $20 a month [A worker’s paradise, to be sure.] in return for free health care and education, and nearly free transportation and housing. At least a portion of every citizen’s food needs are sold to them through ration books at heavily subsidized prices.  [What father of children wouldn’t be proud to bring that home each week?]

President Raul Castro and others have instituted a series of limited economic reforms, and have warned Cubans that they need to start working harder and expecting less from the government. But the president has also made it clear he has no desire to depart from Cuba’s socialist system or embrace capitalism. [Good luck with that.  What was the old phrase from the Soviet Union?  "So long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work."]

Fidel Castro stepped down temporarily in July 2006 due to a serious illness that nearly killed him.

He resigned permanently two years later, but remains head of the Communist Party. After staying almost entirely out of the spotlight for four years, he re-emerged in July and now speaks frequently about international affairs. He has been warning for weeks of the threat of a nuclear war over Iran.

Castro’s interview with Goldberg is the only one he has given to an American journalist since he left office.

On an amusing note, NPR (aka National Peoples Radio) also posted on this story.  What do you think of their headline?

During Interview With Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, Fidel Castro Talks Israel, Iran