But it was all illusion and never delivered. They always ended in oppression, regression and failed experiments (social, economic, environmental, etc.)
To be clear, I'm not saying these countries have done no wrong. They aren't shining beacons, but it is worth examining them in a thoughtful way. It's not like the US (where I live) is a shining beacon either.
Also, I'd argue there are degrees and varieties of both socialism and communism. Is Mondragon socialist? Is Sweden? Is France? What about small council communism and Anarcho communism?
I think one could argue that Cuba is not out of line with its peers and might actually be ahead in some ways. It's not perfect, but regionally it's doing pretty alright from what I can tell.
Also, it’s not clear whether you meant to say the Castro brothers are included in strongmen or exceptions, but I assume it’s strongmen.
He saw the poverty and exploitation of LatAm by the US and others and decided to do something about it after the CIA assassinated Arbenz. He was pivotal in overthrowing Batista, an autocratic despot.
He later served in several government programs, and wrote a memoir about motorcycles.
He was eventually executed without trial by Bolivian special forces backed by the CIA.
But college kids probably don't know that much about the flip side of his character. Plenty of stories suggest he enjoyed killing - he certainly had no concerns about executions. He wrote some pretty racist stuff in his early life.
He's a complicated figure, for sure.
I do try to respond to comments here with genuine answers and discourse, but the downvotes here lead me to believe a podcast would likely result in a lot of disinterest or angry mail headed my way.
“We don’t need proof to execute a man. We only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him.”
“We executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty. At times, the Revolution cannot stop to conduct much investigation.”
Unfortunately, he appears not to have been assiduous in taking notes as Stalin was, so hard evidence, so far, is spotty.
And no, Sweden and France aren't socialist, since they still have private ownership of capital. Capitalism doesn't magically become socialism if you increase the taxes high enough.
This may not be text-book socialism but it is quite different from capitalism as practiced in the United States.
Which sanctions exactly? Surely a communist country doesn't need free trade, that's a capitalist concept and Marx was against it.
> They have higher literacy rates than Canada
This shows you the value of literacy as a metric. North Korea also has high literacy, it's not a reason to prefer living there to Canada.
> It's not like the US (where I live) is a shining beacon either.
The amount of people trying to immigrate to the US vs any other country contradicts this.
> What about small council communism and Anarcho communism?
Masturbatory terms dreamed up by people who don't want to understand economics because it deals with real tradeoffs, whereas politics is about promising the impossible while ignoring economics and history. Anarchism and communism are opposites.
And both council communism and Anarcho communism have long histories of communities actually practicing them. From gift economies in smaller indigenous communities to explicitly anarchocommunist zones in Korea and Spain in the 20s and 30s.
Anarchism is not the opposite of communism. It's the opposite of Stalinist communism, for sure. But anarchism is about the removal of unnecessary and unjust hierarchies. That's not in opposition with "and we should take care of everyone without a profit motive".
One could argue (and in fact, many scholars have) that the open source development model of Linux or other large systems are anarchocommunist in nature.