Cuba

I tumbled upon this thread just now. I am not cuban, but I lived at Cuba from 1987 to 1993 and then made a quuick comeback in 2000 to visit family that remained there. This gives me some insigt but also some perspective, I think (or I hope :P). What that guy said to you sounds to me like the tipical complain "gusanos" use to have, even when I was there : a bunch of stupid little things that are presented as a generality.

• about coertion. Yes, that was the "running" opinion. However where I was living (which was 400m from "plaza de la revolución" the place where the parade was) were some of my neightbours which never ever went to that and never have any repercusion. What was very "coercitive" was the bad feeling with your neighbours and coworkers if you didn't do it, but that is social coertion and IMO is a good thing. This can be extended to represion, too: where I was living there were some people complaining against Revolution even loudly (yeah, most of the same people not going to the parade), even screeming, some times and never were any "represion".
• about dictatorship: cuban system is not a liberal-democracy. That does not means is a dictature. They have an indirect pyramidal system that starts in your neigbourhood : you elect people from a list of candidates - that are not forced to be part of the comunist party, although I never saw anyone who wasn't. Then the city council elects the region council which elects the parliament which elects the executive which elects the president of the executive, Yes, that means there is no "direct" vote to president (we use to make jokes about "we elect, people who elects people, who elects people and like that until Fidel" ;) ) but I think that (along with the obligation of "rendir cuentas": making a general assembly each 6 moths where everybody can go and talk) is a lot more democratic (it would be more if charges would be revocable, but well, nothing is perfect.
• about privileges of ruler class: well, yes. Sadly this happens but not at the levels people may think. There are no "mansions" at Cuba other than what remains from before the revolutiotn (most of them became schools or cultural centers) and yes, there are better neighbourhoods than others. But for example I was doing highschool with the kid of one of the generals judged and condemned to death in the corruption cases of 89-90 (the Ochoa affaire), and I went to his home several times. His "corruption" was having a house (not an appartment) that was exactly the same as other houses in the neighbourhood (inhabited by "regular people") and which would be a middle class (even low middle class) house from any country in europe. Still, this tendency has increased, I think, last 20-25 years.

Now, is good to remember that many of the problems (if not all) are causes because of the blocus of the usa and the constant attack Cuba is in. It is the northamerican imperialism which holds cuba into a situation without exit. If you think this does not matters: it does. In a way, Cuba (and Venezuela now) are still today not able to break with the imperial domination. If you think the blocus and all sanctions etc do not do bad, see this small example: the imperialism says the cubans do not have liberty of expression because they cannot have internet. etc. You know why they cannot have internet? Because they can't plug to the internet backbone (which passes at the side of Cuba and go to Europe). Instead, they are forced to do agreements with third countries (Venezuela, at the time I knew this) to get some sort of connection... which in 2015 was of about a T1 for the whole island. I have more internet at my workplace than Cuba has for its 11 million people :P

Anyway, I hope this clarifies things... is not that Cuba is perfect. There are a lot of problems and it is indeed a very poor country with very poor country problems... but it is still a country that tries to resist as they can the heavy boot of northamerican imperialism.