Shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Fidel Castro met with a group of journalists on a visit to Mexico. We pressed him repeatedly about the fall of communism until, chafing in his olive fatigues and the Yucatán humidity, he stopped stroking his beard and pounded his fist. “Instead of asking me why communism failed in Russia,” Castro shouted, “why don’t you ask me why it hasn’t failed in Cuba?” The answer was simple: because communism had failed in Cuba.