Antisystemic

  Cuba is one of the few remaining communist states. Most of these states collapsed either with the fall of the Soviet Union, or breakup of Yugoslavia. The strongest of the remaining is easily China, but unlike China Cuba is hanging on by a thread. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the Island nation has been sputtering along economically, trying it's hardest to hold itself together. For generations the left has idealized the Cuban regime just as steadily as the US and the right have demonized it.  For the left the nation is a shinning pillar of anti-imperialist resistance, for the right and US authorities it is a dismal example of communist totalitarianism. Are either of these positions justified? In the past week the most significant protests since the special period (the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse) have taken place, so the question of the nature of Cuba and it's current crises has again occupied the world-stage. So, is it communist totalitaria