I was in grade school when Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. My Sunday newspaper offered us some background on the former dictator Fulgencio Batista, who had finally fled Cuba. He had allowed the mob into Havana. Havana had twice as many prostitutes, per capita, as did New York. While Cuba had a thriving middle class, a handful of powerful families owned most of the sugar plantations and a large underclass were trapped in poverty.

The Sunday papers also told how Batista tortured political opponents with steam irons, turned upside down to replace the soles of boots, laced to the bare feet of prisoners.

The triumphant Castro was feted at American universities and interviewed on TV wearing a set of sharply pressed military fatigues. Reader's Digest published a story on Castro, commenting that with his soft heart, he wanted to ban cock fighting in Cuba.

Soon, the bloom was off the rose. Castro threw the mob out of Cuba costing them billions. He appropriated American business holdings and nationalized others, and divvied parts of the nation's agricultural holdings among the peasants. When our government expressed outrage, Castro cozied up to the Russians, giving them a foothold only 90 miles from Florida.

Did Castro create a worker's paradise in Cuba? Judging from the steady stream of refugees, the answer has to be "no." Families, formerly wealthy, having their property stripped from them fled. People objecting to Cuba's transformation into a state socialist economy fled too -- if they knew what was good for them. Thousands were shot.

So did the Cubans hate Fidel as they had hated Batista before him? That's more complicated. Today, the expatriated population of Cuba numbers about 10 percent of the population on the island. But many Cubans know their history, how after the Rough Riders returned to American soil, the 1902 Platt Amendment forced Cuba to accept U.S. military intervention and gave us veto power over the Cuban legislature until 1934. Cuba sold us its sugar at favorable prices and gave us a vacation destination where the lowest fantasies could be indulged. We built a naval base at Guantanamo and consider it American territory even today. There was little here for ordinary Cubans to like.

After our Bay of Pigs attempt to overthrow Castro had failed, he expected an all-out invasion. So in the early 1960s, Castro invited the Soviet Union, its principal trade partner and benefactor, to set up nuclear missiles on Cuban soil, bringing the world to the edge of nuclear war. We now know, had the U.S. invaded Cuba, Castro wanted the Russians to launch. Russia pulled the missiles out of Cuba. In reciprocity, President Kennedy quietly withdrew American missiles from Turkey. And we punished Cuba with an embargo on Cuban goods for the next half century.

In 2002, my wife went to Cuba with a human rights group. In Havana for their big May Day celebration, she followed a crowd and found herself within 100 feet of Fidel, delivering a speech. No security intercepted her, nor was she prevented from traveling anywhere she liked. Some folks she talked to hated Castro and waited anxiously for his death. Other Cubans praised the island's excellent -- and free -- medical care and a school system that's brought Cuba to nearly 100 percent literacy. And they thanked Castro.

Others complained that America's long punishment of the Cuban people hurt ordinary folks more than it hurt the ruling elites. They begged us to let Cuba find its own destiny. Maybe soon, that might become possible.

Most memorable were the Cubans themselves. Once, at a street dance, a woman swung by and asked my wife, if she wasn't dancing, if she could hold her purse, which she did. Soon, Tina was holding her baby too. Such trust. And yet we can't wish on them a sweet poverty, picturesque like a theme park. Let's see what they choose when finally given a chance.

Lawrence Brown of Hyannis teaches humanities and is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times. Email him at columnresponse@gmail.com.