I think it likely that it is a general rule that revolutionary movements that come to power try to portray its predecessor as blackly as possibly. First of all, it increases your own legitimacy, since you get to take credit for any accomplishments. Second, it allows you to blame any failures on the previous guys being so awful. (Come to think of it, this isn't exactly unique to revolutionary movements.) Similarly, you can try to blame any failures or problems on foreign agents, which allows you to preserve the fiction that society is united behind you. I am sorry, but the White (and Green and Black) armies were not populated by foreign agents, and neither were nearly the entire populations of the Don Basin and Kalmykia, and neither were the several-million-strong White emigrees, and neither were the Chechens who revolted in the early 20s. They were no doubt happy to get foreign support, but by the same logic, Lenin was a German agent. I mean, blowing up
churches and mosques and buddhist temples is going to create a reaction.
----- Original Message ---- From: Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com>
Somebody: You often hear the same sort of denigration of Cuba before 1959; that it was a typical Third World basket case, when of course it was one of the most advanced economies in Latin America and a middle income country at the time. Fun fact: Cuba had more televisions per capita at the time of the revolution than France.
The relatively bloodless transition to a command economy in Cuba was made possible by the fact that it already had the attributes of what we'd now call an emerging market.
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