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I grew up hearing about how horrible Fidel was, how terrible Communism was, what a travesty it was that the Cuban exiles in Miami had lost everything. As I got a little older I began to wonder why these Cuban exiles could all come to the US but the Haitians (the nation next to it with a severely repressive and murderous regime) couldn't. I also wondered why the ethnic mix in Cuba (meaning many people of obvious African descent) was so different from the largely "white" Cubans who left.
Most importantly, it was very difficult (this was very much the pre-internet era) to get an idea of whar Cuba was REALLY like in the pre-Fidel era.
I have traveled to the island twice since 2002, and despite the fact that it is led by the same head of state since 1959 I found the people as a whole very willing to talk openly about what they do and don't like about their country (I speak Spanish, so I wasn't getting an interpreter's whitewash). Many want to leave the island, but most want to take their political system to the next level. Under the Fidel regime, a country where the majority were illiterate and without health care has been lifted to a country where education is free and mandatory to age 16, where literacy is above 95%, and where EVERYONE has basic healthcare. There is also not the segregation against the Afro-Cubans that was rampant before 1959. In short, this is a country where the basic educational and healthcare needs are available to all, where it will be very easy to become more democratized after the leadership changes.
Most Americans really do not understand that many of the shortages of food and medicines in Cuba occur not because of the political system, but because of the US sanctions against trade since the revolution. You see no US brands in the markets, tourist or local. I truly believe that if the US had lifted the embargo early on, Fidel would have been replaced long ago (and not with the fossils in Miami). As it is, any problem the country has is always blamed on US sanctions, and not on Fidel's regime.
You also don't see Fidel's face plastered eveywhere like you do in many other dictatorships. As dictators go, he is one of the more benevolent, meaning overall the total standard of living and quality of life has improved for the MAJORITY of Cubans. The exiles in the initial exodus were the elites who in conjuction with the Mafia controlled what was essentially a plantation system. They didn't give a damn about the common people in Cuba and still don't. Because of their political lobbying in the US Congress over the years sanctions have been maintained through ten US presidents, Democratic as well as Republican, causing hardships for the Cuban people. It is now a stupid dick-wagging contest rather than any kind of political statement.
In all, Cuba is not perfect, and I don't want to live there, but if I had to choose between it and many of the other so-called democratic countries in the Carribbean (where poverty and disease and great disparities between the elites and the masses are scandalous) I'd choose Cuba.
