Grant Piper's contention in his Jan. 3 letter, "Revolution was good for Cuba," is preposterous. He thinks the communist revolutions in Russia and China were also the best things to happen to those countries. Piper ignores the tens of millions of Chinese and Soviet citizens who died at the hands of communist political purges and economic mismanagement.
Even after jettisoning communism, "Red China" still lags far behind "Kuomintang Taiwan" in per capita gross national product and will probably never catch up.
.5 Another good comparison would be Cuba and Chile. Chile was ruled by a dictator arguably as bad as Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, and yet Chile has become an economic powerhouse. After decades of Fidel Castro's economic mismanagement and political persecution of his opponents, Cuba's economy is a basket case. More than 10 percent of Cuba's population has "swum" to Florida.
Having a communist revolution in your country is about as good a thing as being hit by an asteroid. But I doubt these facts will impress a true believer like Piper.