[CaptainCrunch]

I think if I was going to do a comparison, Communism was the ized version of socialism lacking the humanity that makes government work.

You also have to realize, from Lenin, to Stalin they represented a vicious cult of personality that had one person as the heart of the party. In effect Stalin was the Soviet Union, and all power was consolidated to him, so going back to the first point. Communism was dictated and for the most part has always been founded on the power of one powerful individual who could basically shape the party to his whims.

In nearly every form of early to mid 20th century communism, you saw the concept of workers paradise as the internal motivator for the people, but very few people who actually held power.

Of course it gets uber perverted as it has been in North Korea where they've added the concept of dynastic succession to original Mao based communist theory.

Where Socialism worked to some extent in Western Europe was that there was oversight in a parliamentary configuration. Communism alluded to it with the illusion of local party representation, but that party was subservient to a central committee, and that central committee cowered to the strongest member of that party.

Now Kruschev (sp?) tried to change it so that an individual couldn't accumulate the god like powers of a Lenin or a Stalin, but the power was installed on a small group on men and while it had the illusion of a power democracy it was just a multi headed dictatorship.

The fear going to Cuba, is that if Raul takes over, it almost becomes a corrupted dynastic succession, and that won't help the average Cuban feel any better.