The Last of the Old Time Commie Frauds

From Friday's Australian, Luis M. Garcia debunks a few myths about the communist paradise of Cuba and the once charismatic, now dying or possibly even dead Fidel Castro who took power in January 1959:

(Myth) The standard of living in Cuba was abysmal before Castro.

In fact, during the late 1950s, Cuba had a relatively large and growing middle class, heavily unionised workforce, and farmhand wages that were higher on average than for similar workers in France, Belgium and even West Germany, according to the International Labor Organisation. There were huge economic and social inequalities, of course, but these were no different to the inequalities found in much of Europe at the time and in the rest of Latin America.

-- Nick