Cuba: The Last Refuge of Excuse-Making Scoundrels

I suppose one ought not to be surprised that there remain some folk for whom the Cuban revolutionaries remain unblemished heroes. Equally, there is, alas, no great reason to be too astonished that the Guardian still publishes panegyrics saluting the brilliance and ineffable wisdom of Castro and Guevara. Nevertheless, Simon Reid-Henry’s* article today may take the biscuit in terms of recent contributions to the genre:

After the war, what had begun as little more than an association of convenience developed into one of the most intriguing of all political partnerships. Their different working styles and approaches to revolution helped the Cuban leadership negotiate the hazardous switch from American to Soviet patronage. But from around 1963 they found themselves drawn along different lines by the fratricidal split within the socialist camp between the Soviets and the Chinese. Things came to a head in 1965. El Fifo (Castro) and el Che (Guevara) had a terrific slanging match after Che went too far in criticising the Soviet Union.