Between 1959 and 1989 the Castro regime made tremendous progress toward reforming Cuban society. The upper and middle classes had been virtually eliminated, mostly via emigration, and the working class had risen up to a new position of importance. Cubans enjoyed universal schooling and health care and improved housing, and the deleterious effects of racism and sexism were being addressed if not altogether eliminated.

On the downside, the Cuban economy had not really grown; communism merely redistributed wealth without creating new wealth. The totalitarian nature of the Castro regime stifled internal political debate and outlawed the expression of any political theory or opinion that contradicted socialism, although in this sense it was not very different from the proU. S. regimes it had replaced. Beset by massive opposition from the United States and its allies and growing dissension on the island, the regime...