In Communing with Fidel, Fred Reed shares some insights on Communism:
Why communists imagine themselves to be revolutionary is a mystery. Whenever they gain power in a country, it comes to a dead stop and sits there as other countries pass it by. I do not think that communism generates poverty; rather it finds it and preserves it. It has certainly done so here. Cuba seems firmly mired in 1959. How much of this comes from the embargo — “el bloqueo” as the Cubans call it — and how much from communism, I don’t know. Nobody does. This is convenient for Castro, as he can blame everything on the United States. And does.